Spontaneous RAM failure

[Stereodude]

Here's an odd one. I went to bed last night with my Q6600 PC running working fine on a download. When I woke up this morning it was locked up (which hasn't happened before on it). Hitting the reset button caused it to enter an endless cycle where it would reset, power up, try to POST, and reset again.

After some investigation I tracked it down to a bad stick of memory. With this stick in any of the 4 memory slots of the machine it won't post, and gets stuck in this reset cycle. The other "matched stick" works fine in any of the slots.

It's 2 2GB sticks of this DDR2 RAM.

I never seen this type of spontaneous failure before. I sent in an RMA request to G.Skill, but for the price DDR2 RAM is right now, it's hardly worth the shipping to send it in. I can get an equivalent 2 x 2GB PC2 6400 CAS 4 kit for $30 after rebate.

 

[Stereodude]

Oddly, I've found a lot of people on various forums saying the endless reboot cycles are systemic to some of the most recent Gigabyte motherboards. I'm using a GA-EP35-DS4. I also found a comment in a product review of some RAM at Newegg about certain RAM causing the same problem in the same motherboard I have.

 

[P5-133XL]

Problems like this may just be caused by defective RAM. On the other hand, it can also be caused by the slow deterioration of your motherboard causing signal degredation, or timing issues. That kind of issue is not limited to Gigabyte, or any specific brand. All you need to do is look at all the brands that have had capacitor issues as an example.

You may want to do some experimentation, and try loosening your RAM's timing, and then replacing your good stick with your bad. Also, try underclocking and see if that affects it.

Even if those experiments work, you still can not be assured that it is a motherboard on its way south: It still is more likely the RAM stick was borderline or there is a compatibility issue between your ram and your motherboard. So my recomendation is simply repace your RAM, and do a wait and see. If further problems develop, then more drastic solutions may be called for.

 

[Stereodude]

It looks like there's no reason to buy PC2-8500 (1066MHz) stuff from a performance standpoint, so I guess it's just more PC2-6400 (800MHz) RAM. Now to do some RAM shopping. *sigh*

 

[MaxBurn]

It looks like there's no reason to buy PC2-8500 (1066MHz) stuff from a performance standpoint, so I guess it's just more PC2-6400 (800MHz) RAM. Now to do some RAM shopping. *sigh*

Yup, I just replaced mine with some cheepo PNY that was on sale locally. Long as it does 800 should be fine.

Just had a similar issue myself with a system that was running just fine, just turned up with bad memory BIOS beeps all of the sudden. May have been my fault with the voltage but I am not convinced, corsair says to run it at that level and the board being a DQ6 should be able to handle it, recommended memory even from both partners. Actually I just got my memory back from RMA today but the motherboard is still out there somewhere.

http://www.storageforum.net/forum/showthread.php?t=7372

 

[P5-133XL]

Contrary to the reviewers out there that promote the best. High performance ram has never been a good value proposition. Typically the most you can get is around 5% overall performance and you can spend 3-5x or more than cheap reliable RAM.

 

[Stereodude]

I never bought into the idea of buying super high end RAM either. But, I did pay a little extra for 4-4-4-12 DDR2-800.

 

[MaxBurn]

I think my whole plan was to up the bus speed for OC and keep the same memory divisor, or something like that. Before this I used to always get corsair value ram. Think I'm back out of that phase.

 

[Stereodude]

Excluding rebates the cheapest 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 kit on Newegg is ~$35 shipped (regardless of speed or CAS timings). It happens to be DDR2-800 and CAS5. $50 shipped for "low voltage" DDR2-800 CAS4 doesn't seem too bad to me.

Back in the day I used to buy the cheapest brand-x memory with a lifetime warranty. I got burned with iffy sticks that would not pass rigorous testing and unstable machines, so I stopped doing that and have tried to stick to more reputable brands with lifetime warranties since.

 

[P5-133XL]

I personally like Geil as a value brand.

 

[Stereodude]

So I got the RMA number for the RAM. They prefer I send in both sticks. So, I guess it's a good thing I bought new yesterday from Newegg since my PC won't run on hopes and dreams with no memory. I guess I'll put the replacement sticks in my HTPC when it comes back.

 

[MaxBurn]

So I got the RMA number for the RAM. They prefer I send in both sticks. So, I guess it's a good thing I bought new yesterday from Newegg since my PC won't run on hopes and dreams with no memory. I guess I'll put the replacement sticks in my HTPC when it comes back.

RMA returns are what ebays for, all my stuff is going there. It is dammed rare for anyone to cross ship an RMA anymore.