Second RMA RAM Faulty Arghhhhhh! OZC Gold

[mm66554]

Just got back my triple channel OCZ Gold 1600mhz from RMA 2 days ago and upon start up it worked fine (the previous set had one faulty chip which slowed the computer during general tasks and blue screened on Vista logon). Then I started up a game and it blue screened + restarted. Tried again, same game, this time crashed to desktop, tried another game... crashed to desktop, tried another game... froze completely.

What got me scared is that it might be a DIMM slot issue, but searching google it seems the OCZ Gold models have lots of problems with them. I run memtest86+ on each stick one at a time and got these results:

Is this for sure a RAM problem and not my motherboard? I got the MB with the RAM and CPU but I don't really wanna pay delivery to RMA the board. I'm just ****ed off that two chips out of three are faulty, it just seems a bit odd that there are so many faulty chips from this brand. Thanks.

 

[Slaymate]

Have you tried the sticks that fail in a different slot?

Also, you should set the speed and latencies correctly in the bios and test it again. Right now your memory is only running at 534 x 2 (Double Data Rate) = 1068MHZ and it's latencies are at 7-7-7-20. At this speed you should have your DIMM Voltage set to 1.5v

To change the Memory Speed to 1600 (800 x 2) you need to look for a bios setting labeled Memory Frequency or it maybe called DRAM Frequency. With your CPU at the stock settings (QPI or BCLK at 133) then you'll want to change the Memory Frequency to 1600MHz. Some Motherboards don't report the Memory Frequency as an actual MHz number, instead they give you a ratio number, in which case you'll want to select the ratio of 12 or it maybe 2:12. Then you'll want to set your Latencies to:
CAS# Latency (CL) -8
RAS# to CAS# Delay (tRCD) - 8
RAS# Precharge (tRP) - 8
Cycle Time (tRAS) - 24
Row Refresh Cycle Time (tRFC) - 74
Command Rate (CR) - 1T

At these setting you need to adjust your DIMM Voltage to 1.65v

With your DIMM Voltage set to 1.65v you now need to look for a voltage called CPU VTT or it maybe called QPI/DRAM Voltage. This voltage always needs to be within .5 volts of the DIMM Voltage. So with your DIMM Voltage at 1.65v your CPU VTT must be at a minimun of 1.15v. But you may need to increase the CPU VTT up to 1.25v to 1.3v to run the Memory at 1600 (think of the CPU VTT as the Memory Controller Voltage).

Even if your not overclocking you may find some useful info here.
http://www.techist.com/forums/f10/i7-overclocking-guide-224693/

 

[MindoverMaster]

^if the above doesn't help:

Call up OCZ and tell them what happened, they may send you a free shipping label to send to them.

These things do happen to any company regardless. I used OCZ gold inn the past, had to RMA one, but I got good swift service.

 

[mm66554]

Alright cool I'll just jot all of that down and test it soon. I knew there was something weird with the latency 7-7-7 instead of 8-8-8 but put it down to the software making a mistake.

The thing I'm worried about, if this does work, would I still have two bad RAM chips? For example, the third one passed all the tests and works great, but even if I adjust the speed/voltage/latency of all the RAM chips and they seem stable... one day an application might crash because of those two "bad" RAM chips?

I only tested the good chip in all three DIMM slots, seems fime.

Mindover thanks for the tip I'll keep that in mind, though I'm in the UK so I may have to send to the company I purchased it from again.

 

[Slaymate]

They may not actually be bad. They could be failing because of the settings. You just never know, they could be bad. But we need to test them with all the correct setting to start with. Once we know the basic setting are correct we can move on to the next step.