Memory runs fine at slower than badged speed

[Jerris]

Hello guys!
I have one app thats seems to crash from time to time (EverQuest 2). I recently updated the video card in my system (to a 6800 GT) and the memory in my system (to 1 gig of PC3200 Corsair XMS) so I thought right away, bad memory. So I tested with memtest86 for 10 hours and not one error occured. EQ2 Still crashes. I read somewhere else someone having luck gaining system stability by lower the speed of thier memory. I run a A7N8X Deluxe 2.0 with an Athlon 3200+ so I clocked my memory down to 166mhz and low and behold no more crashes.

My question to the AD crowd is this. What is this indicative of? Bad memory? Power Supply not up to snuff (I have an Antec True330)? Any thoughts?

 

[Fern]

I find it sometimes takes longer than 10 hrs to find errors in my ram when OCing. I have found them after the 20th hour.

Long shot, but I'm thinking it's possible your problem is the 6800GT/PSU. Last month there was thread talking about these problems. Apparantly some of these cards have a different setting for 2D and 3D. The core speed (GPU) is diff for 2D than 3D and when the card switches between the two, the change causes a power draw on the PSU resulting in instability.

You might be able to see this with MBM5. Use the "sys log" feature to record the psu power/rails to a log and you might be able to go back after a crash and see the flucuation.

Fern

 

[Jerris]

Set my memory back to the normal 200mhz and wouldn't you know it, no crashes tonight. Reguardless I logged my motherboard activity with MBM. Check the log out here. There are definately some fluctuations reported by the PS. Is that normal?

 

[Fern]

The flucuations don't look too bad. I have the something similar on my rig. However, your 12v rail seems a bit weak. It's still in spec, but low. Duno if that's enough to cause the prob. Also, I didn't see your VDIMM in there. Did I miss it?

 

[Jerris]

I must not have it logging. I'll re-run the logger tonight (at work now). I recieved a reply from Gigabyte Tech Support on this matter also. I'll quote :

"Hi,

In order to run this card you will need to have at least 480watt power supply. Please test it with that psu or on a diffferent board with this psu size and see if teh same issue still persist.

Thank you"

So I'm begining to think that is the problem. Though I do believe a 20+ hour memtest86 run is in order! If I buy the full version of 3DMark05 can I automatically run 20 - 30 tests back to back?

Thanks for your help Fern!