Overclocking DDR3 10666 and E6850 combo

[darkenedsoul]

Hi,

I may have a bad crucial in my other rig and this is the 2nd time in 9 months that I've had a bad pair. It's on an E8400 OC'd to 3.4Ghz with 2 Gb (1x1024) DDR2-800. Had BSOD with memory management on the screen. First dimm passed several hrs of memtest86+ and am on 2nd dimm now in same slot.

I see the DDR3-10666 has dropped quite a bit since oct. 07 and was debating on moving my 1066 Dominator to my other box (Abit IP35 Pro/E8400 OC'd) and getting DDR3 10666 for this system (E6850 OC'd to 3.6Ghz). That system doesn't get as much run time as the E8400 (main system, connect to work remotely, etc...the E6850 is my DAW system mainly).

So what would need to be done other than setting back to stock, swapping memory, changing voltage settings in BIOS, etc...to bump this back up to 3.4-3.6Ghz? I am running a Gigabye P35C-DS3R mobo (both DDR2/DDR3 slots 4/2 respectively).

Thanks in advance,

Mike

 

[darkenedsoul]

So no comments or suggestions? I'm still on the fence but don't have a problem spending a few bucks to go to 1333. Currently having issues on my (one I am on) PC still. Was up for >1day with no BSOD then BAM xmas night or next morning it happened again. Nothing was going on with the system, it was up with browser and outlook email client loaded. So I'm still troubleshooting things. Ran memtest86+ again for 90+ passes with no errors overnight from yesterday. I'll switch in the other DIMM to it's prior slot and run it tomorrow through monday and see if it runs or not. I upped my memory voltage to 2.1V from 2.0 and increaseed CPU from 1.2650v to 1.2850v to see if that makes any difference. CPU is E8400 OC'd to 3.4Ghz and memory running at 378mhz per BIOS. ABit IP35 Pro mobo with B16 BIOS. I know there's a B17 out but from what I saw it doesn't warrant an update to it at this time. I checked on that some time ago when it was released.

 

[Denithor]

Crucial Ballistix or something else? I've heard lots of complaints on these sticks with 2.1V - basically, early death due to their stated voltage.

Just pick up the G.Skill 2x2GB DDR2-800 for $40. Those will get your e6850 to 3.6GHz without having to OC the memory or raise memory voltage or anything.

Or RMA the Crucial sticks again and run them at 1.8V so they don't burn up. Keep in mind memory speed has virtually no impact on system performance, you only need enough speed to get your CPU overclocked to where you want it.

 

[darkenedsoul]

Hmm, this is in my E8400 box that has the Crucial memory. I was at 2.0v but bumped to 2.1v again and boosted CPU vCore a tad. System has been stable (again) with one DIMM in place. I'm going to put the other one in slot 0 today and re-run memtest86+ 2.11 on it overnight to see if it picks up any errors with it in slot 0 faster. None were seen after 9+ hours on each stick in their respective slots. My E6850 has Corsair Dominator 1066 in it (4x1024) on a Gigabyte P35C-DS3R mobo. The E8400 has the ABit IP35 Pro, I wanted to try a different board. I almost went with the Gigabyte again but decided to try a different brand. Too bad they aren't making mobo's anymore come end of the year from what I recently read. I saw decent reviews on GSkill and OCZ at newegg awhile back as well.

 

[Denithor]

High voltage = heat = faster memory death

If you're buying something new just look for the lowest voltage rated for the speed you want to run (and keep in mind, DDR2-1066 is not required to run an e8400 at 3.4GHz).

Personally I like Mushkin and G.Skill and avoid OCZ like the plague (after boot problems with two different sets of sticks two years apart). I had 2x1GB OCZ Gold DDR2-667 that would only boot on two of nine motherboards tested (even after tweaks & BIOS updates) over the last two years (finally found a motherboard they were stable in and sold them recently). A couple of months ago I picked up the OCZ SLI 2x2GB DDR2-800 kit for $13 after rebate (which hasn't come in yet, grrr) and the kit booted in one motherboard but not two others I tried.

 

[n7]

I'm confused as you what you want...sounds like you want DDR3, but that means a new mobo + RAM.

Only reason you're having so much trouble now is because Crucial is full of epic fail.
If you get their DDR2 Ballistix, failure is pretty much guaranteed eventually, at least so it seems based on the countless times i've seen people with Ballistic crapping out.

Get something less garbage, like Mushkin or G.Skill or Corsair or really, pretty much any other brand, & you'll be fine.

 

[darkenedsoul]

Originally posted by: n7
I'm confused as you what you want...sounds like you want DDR3, but that means a new mobo + RAM.

Only reason you're having so much trouble now is because Crucial is full of epic fail.
If you get their DDR2 Ballistix, failure is pretty much guaranteed eventually, at least so it seems based on the countless times i've seen people with Ballistic crapping out.

Get something less garbage, like Mushkin or G.Skill or Corsair or really, pretty much any other brand, & you'll be fine.

The DDR3 would be in my sig system. It handles either DDR2 or DDR3 (8Gb or 4Gb respectively). I was pondering taking 2Gb out of that system and running it in the Abit IP35 Pro board (but it supports only DDR2 800 where my corsair is 1066 (I did run with them before when first pair of crucials crapped out on me, one dimm was bad, failing memtest)).

I will be re-running memtest with both dimms installed since running dimm 0/slot 0 overnight sat.->sun = 0 errors, running dimm 2 in slot 0 from sun->monday evening = 0 errors. I dropped voltage down to 1.9v now, bumped MCH to 1.29 from 1.25v as well. OC still at 3.4Ghz on E8400. I may just get a set to have on-hand and replace them both if this test doesn't fail over night and I get another BSOD. It ran ok from 12/24 daytime till 12/26 some time in the morning (like before I got home it BSOD). Was up with 1 dimm fri->sat->sun when I swapped dimms out and that ran sun->mon night when I rebooted it when I got home from work, been up on 2nd dimm in slot 0 since mon. evening this week.

Any other test that may catch this problem quicker? The BSOD on friday morning was also memory management on the screen Stop 0x0000001a.

 

[yh125d]

I wouldn't even consider DDR3. Yeah its come down in price alot, but it's still 3-5x the cost of DDR2 with nil to no performance boost

 

[Denithor]

Originally posted by: darkenedsoul
I was pondering taking 2Gb out of that system and running it in the Abit IP35 Pro board (but it supports only DDR2 800 where my corsair is 1066 (I did run with them before when first pair of crucials crapped out on me, one dimm was bad, failing memtest)).

That should work fine, the DDR2-1066 will just run at whatever speed the board supports.