Is it my RAM or just plain bad luck?

[beatle]

I've had 3 chips and 2 motherboards (AMD and Intel) in the past year, but only one kind of ram: TwinMOS/Winbond BH-5 PC3200. I had a good 1700+ TbredB that wouldn't hit 2.2, a Barton 2500+ that wouldn't hit 2.2, and a 2.6C that won't hit 3.2 (or even 3.1) reliably.

I suppose it could also be my PSU, an Antec True330, but my rails are very stable, even under load (within 3%). The RAM runs fine @ spd when I'm not overclocking, but I just can't push any of my chips to their "normal" overclocks. I notice that RAM with BH-5 chips are fetching decent prices on ebay and BestBuy has 512 meg sticks of Kingston PC4000 going for $100 AR, so I could get an upgrade for only a few bucks if it is indeed my RAM.

What do you think?

 

[Jeff7181]

Could be the power supply, but I doubt it. RAM is more likely... got any friends near by with faster RAM that you could test and see if it works?

My Muskin PC3500 Level 1 wouldn't run over 210 Mhz at it's rated timings. Now that I have my TruePower 430 I'm running it at 219 with no problems so far (only completed about 15-20 minutes of Prime 95 so far, still running though)

 

[beatle]

I don't know anyone around here with hardware like mine. I wonder what BestBuy's return policy is on RAM...

 

[TGHI]

Watch your timings, too. Try and relax them when you are getting instabilities at higher clockspeeds.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: beatle
I don't know anyone around here with hardware like mine. I wonder what BestBuy's return policy is on RAM...

Technically I don't think you can return opened electronics... but it depends on who's in charge at that store and what kind of mood they're in =)

 

[beatle]

Yes, I've relaxed my timings in attempt to go above 200mhz. I'm not even running it @ 200mhz. I'm running a 5:4 divider @ 2-2-2-6 (I believe, but who knows at this point) 2.8v.

 

[Shimmishim]

if you wanna make bh-5's fly, you gotta pump at least 3.2 volts into them!

 

[beatle]

Originally posted by: Shimmishim
if you wanna make bh-5's fly, you gotta pump at least 3.2 volts into them!

Not possible with my IS7.

Is there an easy mod for this? I remember seeing pencil leads and/or wires in previous threads, but it never interested me. I'm wondering if my ram would really benefit from it, seeing that it is such a poor performer right now (if it is my ram, that is).

 

[Shimmishim]

there's a vdimm voltage mod over at xtreme that you can do on the is7 to get more voltage