Should memory modules be in mobo's compatibility list?

[hasu]

I never bother about motherboard's compatibility list and use whatever memory I can find with any motherboard, mostly Gigabyte. I never had any problems until recently.

The two instances I had trouble were both with ASUS and out of that one was with a server motherboard Z8NA-D6. I used four sticks of non-ecc 8GB (two different brands) and the machine booted and ran just fine. Out of curiosity I ran memtest86 and it reported errors in two memory locations (test#5). But repeated testing did not indicate any issue.

So my question is how important is it to have the memory in the motherboard's compatibility list? I always thought all DDR3's follow the same kind of specs.

Thanks.

 

[PhIlLy ChEeSe]

I never bother about motherboard's compatibility list and use whatever memory I can find with any motherboard, mostly Gigabyte. I never had any problems until recently.

The two instances I had trouble were both with ASUS and out of that one was with a server motherboard Z8NA-D6. I used four sticks of non-ecc 8GB (two different brands) and the machine booted and ran just fine. Out of curiosity I ran memtest86 and it reported errors in two memory locations (test#5). But repeated testing did not indicate any issue.

So my question is how important is it to have the memory in the motherboard's compatibility list? I always thought all DDR3's follow the same kind of specs.

Thanks.

It's just convenient, but by no means the law as to what memory can be used. Usually early in the life of the board they will test exsiting mainstream memory for the masses. If your building a new board and you want to be safe then refer to the list on which memory is suggested. Again usually a list of memory they already confirmed, and it changes as new memory is produced for the platform.

 

[DrMrLordX]

There are too many brands of DIMMs out there for all of the functionally compatible DIMMs to wind up on any motherboard's QVL list. If you know what kind of ICs are used in a particular DIMM on the QVL list, you can probably bet that other DIMMs using the same ICs will also work. Probably.

Mobo manufacturers will probably spend more time qualifying DIMMs for their server boards. They may even add new DIMMs to the list as time goes by (as Philly Cheese indicated). For desktop boards, maybe not so much. They might update QVL lists for new board revisions.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I've been able to "extrapolate" from the QVL lists for a given board.​

​

​

For instance, If the QVL list showed "G.SKILL DDR3-1333" with the model prefix "GBRL," I could assume that DDR3-1600's which were "GBRL" would work. But you don't just have QVL lists from the board maker.​

​

​

The RAM manufacturer also has a tested motherboard compatibility list for all their models. And you could pretty much do the same thing. Suppose a particular model of RAM had been tested with some ASUS Z77 board. But they hadn't got around to adding the Maximus V Z77 board to the list. You'd easily assume, for the same chipset, the RAM would be fine.​

​

​

Perhaps I'm too cautious, or perhaps I should look at the "black parts" used for the RAM. Even so, it pays to choose carefully.​

 

[hasu]

I never had any issues mixing any random brand of memory with any motherboard. I usually just look for memory modules with good customer rating rather than compatibility. Looks like I may have to be more careful with ASUS. My Z8NA has been behaving completely weird for the last few days, with all sorts of errors on Linux-KVM and such. May be it is the memory.

 

[DenyGFX]

I never had any issues mixing any random brand of memory with any motherboard. I usually just look for memory modules with good customer rating rather than compatibility. Looks like I may have to be more careful with ASUS. My Z8NA has been behaving completely weird for the last few days, with all sorts of errors on Linux-KVM and such. May be it is the memory.

I've had multiple problems with ASUS boards with incompatible memory going back to an ASUS Crossfire III that hated any kind of OCZ memory I tried. Switched to Corsair and problem was resolved.

 

[miket82]

Like you I use whatever stuff I have lying about. If it works, it works. However, I did have a stick that worked until I did certain things in Word at which point everything froze. Using memtest it reported a high address failure and doing a memory dump it seemed that Word did stuff at that memory address. In those days memory was not cheap so I altered how I used Word (or rather the order in which I did things) and the problem went away. Interestingly the only memory I have found that doesn't like being mixed is Corsair.