Crucial Ballistix died

S

Stereophile

Supreme [H]ardness
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Dec 4, 2003
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I built a new system 2 weeks ago and went with 2 512mb Crucial Ballistix PC4000.
I woke up yesterday morning after running a 10 hour prime95 test. Prime was still going fine when I shut it off and went camping. Got home this afternoon and my computer was acting all glitchy. Rebooting at the windows splash screen and random errors and freezes.
I wiped the CMOS on the mb thinking it may help. Afterwards, the computer wouldn't even post. I assumed the worst and thought I had fried the mb and or cpu. The first thing I tested was the memory in a friend's system, and sure enough it would start to load windows and then crash and reboot.

Is this common for memory to go tits up after working good for 2 weeks ?
I was only running them at 2.9v and they're rated for 2.8. My case has great air flow so I don't think they hot very hot. Did that extra .1v really toast them ? I'm guessing not, and they would have failed soon enough anyways.

What do you think ? Should I return for another set or would you recommend something else ?
 
was it .8TD ballistix or .16TG ballistix? i've run my ballistix at 3.6v before with no obvious ill effects, and 3.2v for a somewhat short amount of time. it was G though
 
Ok thanks Eclipse it is Z503.8TD. Does this tell you anymore ? It's odd it just failed out of nowhere. The last 2 weeks my computer has run flawlessly through various benchmarking and marathon torture testing as I'm trying to find the max stable limit of my cpu. Like I said, I did a 10 hour prime run successfully and shut it off. Turned it back on 30 hours later and the instability came fast and heavy. :confused:

Strangely enough it did not come in an antistatic bag to the best of my recollection. They were wrapped individually in bubble wrap inside a box from newegg with my videocard and other stuff.
 
ah, so a single sided stick of 5b D. the D dies seem to be a lot more sensitive than G, and i think micron had supply issues not too long ago, maybe crucial is shipping out some sticks that they shouldn't have due to tight demands? definitly a bad move on their part if they did. either way, just send em back for an RMA and get new ones :D


an important note though.. did you have a fan blowing on it? (i might have asked this elsewhere, but i don't remember)

also, bad move on newegg's part, ram shouldn't only be packed in bubble wrap. maybe it came in a plastic container in the bubble wrap?
 
I have an xp-90 with the overhanging part blowing onto them. They never got remotely hot.

I looked around and managed to find the mylar wrapper the memory came sealed in, inside the bubble wrap. I ripped everything open so fast I had forgot because they didn't come in a retail package. So Newegg was on the up and up.

That's disappointing to hear about the memory problems. Makes me want to reconsider getting the same brand. I think this is definitely a QA issue.
 
Crazy I just had 1 of my ballistix sticks go bad last weekend, I sent it out yesterday so heres hoping. Had mine for almost a year
1 x 512MB pc3200
 
i bet with 5b D also. this is definitly no good, i think you're right stereo.. i think the sudden demand for the 1gb ballistix caught them off-guard a bit. luckily crucial has a lifetime warranty ;)


i have a stick of ballistix on the way from newegg as we speak, i'll put it through some hoops and i'll see what i can do to make it fail.
 
Hmm, I also had a stick of Ballistix recently die on me. It was 4am-ish and my computer just randomly restarted and the PC speaker went crazy when it tried to boot. Waking up in the middle of the night to find out that your PC spontaneously died sucks. :-/ My computer had been completely stable and I was only running the ram @ 500mhz / 2.8v / 3-4-4-8. I don't have a fan -directly- over it, but I have some overhang from my xp-120 and a 120mm top case fan. Also it was pretty cold that night so I don't see why it would have died then of all times. Anyway, Crucial was really great about shipping out a replacement set... I got it in like 2 days and now everything is working great again. I wish I could figure out some way to rig a fan up to get some dedicated air on the new sticks just to be safe, but I don't see how thats feasible with my case. :-(
 
hmm, so it's pobably not temps.. did you try lowering mhz to see if it became stable again?
 
Well I talked to crucial they told me to go through newegg for rma since it's within 30 days of purchase. Hopefully I get good ones.
 
yeah, we'll find out i guess. i know i'll be doing some not so healthy things to my stick once i get it.. probably won't be able to really play until i come back from thanksgiving break in 2 weeks though. maybe i should buy a second stick just so that i can have two to make dual channel? :p
 
Stereophile said:
Well I talked to crucial they told me to go through newegg for rma since it's within 30 days of purchase. Hopefully I get good ones.
Click to expand...

They told me I should go through newegg as well :p I just went on with them since its almost a year over the purchase date. Not gonna buy any crucial stuff for a while.
 
(cf)Eclipse said:
hmm, so it's pobably not temps.. did you try lowering mhz to see if it became stable again?
Click to expand...

After clearing cmos on the mb, the computer wouldn't even post with those sticks in it.

On my friend's, it will boot but at the windows splash screen reboots over and over again.
 
interesting, seems weird that it would just fail outright like that. too bad newegg takes the dead ram back

we've gotta get to the bottom of this. hopefully the situation will resolve itself, but that kinda leaves a bunch of people with potentially faulty ram?
 
I just posted a small review on my new 2gb set of ballistix tracers

HERE

mines is "BL12864L503.16TD" BATCH# - CL1115Q.P6
 
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