pushing my PNY 3500 "Gamer" RAM

[papaschtroumpf]

I bought the PNY PC3500 RAM from compUSA (mentionned in the Hot Deals forum).

PNY markets it as "extreme" but it's CAS 2.5 3-3-7 according to the SPD info. My guess is that PNY simply hand picked modules that seemed stable at PC3500.

My question is: since I'm planning on running this RAM at 3200, is there a good chance that I can get the memory timing tighter and how do I test that the new settings are OK? I assume running memtest86 overnight, then prime95 overnight should be good enough of a test?

Memory timings are a little bit of a mystery to me, so I'm not sure in what order to start messing with the settings. I assume I should start by trying CAS2 (leaving 3-3-7 alone)?

Pointers would be greatly appreciated. I'm reluctant to push the FSB or RAM timing because my mobo is not a great overclockers mobo (Soyo Dragon KT600, no voltage adjustments)

 

[Markfw]

2-3-3-7 would be OK for starters. If you can get to 2-2-2-5 that is ideal. Is that mobo and nforce2 ? I have heard that they like the last number to be 11 for some reason, not sure on that one.

 

[papaschtroumpf]

Soyo Dragon KT600 Plus

 

[papaschtroumpf]

I first decided to go all out, and I set the RAM to CAS2 2-2-5 1T cmd burst length 8.
Sure enough it failed memtest96 pretty early.

I then went back to CAS 2 3-3-7 2T burst length of 4 and it failed memtest86 too.

What's interesting is that it seemed to have failed in a very similar place both time (around 1010Mb), I wonder if that means that one of the chips is borderline?

Now testing at SPD to see if it passes. I need to read more about how to interpret memtes86 test results.

 

[Marsumane]

Is this system even stable at stock speeds?

 

[papaschtroumpf]

Well (.see my other thread) the system is stable but the soyo KT600 doesn't play well with the XP2500+ mobile: even though I set the FSB to 200 and the multiplier to 11, the mobo tells me it's running at 1200MHz, and more importantly it performs like it is running at 1200MHz (1500+).
I need to change my mobo.

Edit: SPD says 2.5 3-3-7 2T so it should be idenical to what I set earlier

 

[papaschtroumpf]

Originally posted by: Marsumane
Is this system even stable at stock speeds?

why not?

 

[woodscomp]

PNY makes horrible memory. Mostly all retail store hype. I like Geil for good quality fast memory at a reasonable price.