Memory Dying, or problem with CPU/Mobo?

RHITee05

Junior Member
Nov 2, 2005
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See the sig, but I'm running OCZ 3500EB (2x512) on an MSI Neo2 Platinum with a 3500+ Newcastle. The whole rig is about 18 months old.

When I first got it and set things up, I was able to run at 245 HTT with 1:1 memory divider and slightly looser timings. That worked great and it performed really well with the CPU at 245x10. Seemed to be nice and stable with Prime95 and so forth. I was running the memory at 2.8V, which is right on spec.

Several months or so ago, I started having intermittent problems. My memory didn't seem to be stable anymore at 245 MHz. I slowed it down to 220 HTT and it was fine, and I got pretty similar performance at 220x11.

Now I'm starting to have problems again. Stuff like games and DVDShrink will run fine for a while (minutes to hours), but eventually BSOD and crash. Prime95 doesn't complete due to errors. I tried running at 220x10 (stock CPU speed), but the same problems crop up. As before, cranking it down and running 200x11 makes the problems go away. 210x11 seems to be fine, too.

Obviously, something seems to be dying a slow death, but what is it? Is it the memory, or could this be a problem with the CPU memory controller? I know the mobo doesn't have much to do with the memory, but could it be causing a problem? This memory is spec'd for 217 MHz, so something has to be wrong if I can't run it there.

I'm getting a new Opteron 144 in a few days, so that'll let me do a little testing, but I'd appreciate a few other suggestions.
 

TSS

Senior member
Nov 14, 2005
227
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try upping the HTT and memtest. see if its really the memory. see how far you can go before it starts spitting our errors. also try different memory banks to make sure your slots arent dieing.