Could use some help troublshoot ram issue before RMA

B

baneonrt

Weaksauce
Joined
Mar 16, 2009
Messages
64
Here is the system:

MSI Pro-E X58 motherboard (latest bios)
i7 930 w/H50 cooler
TR3X6G1600C8D 6GB DDR3 kit (new ram)
CM3X2G1333C9 (total of three 4GB kits as test module pool)

I've been running this setup with 6GB worth of the CM3X... modules for about a month. RAM works fine at 1333 rated speed. Also ran it for quite some time at 1200MHz ram speed when the CPU was overclocked to 4.2GHz.

Bought the TR3X... kit today, removed all old ram modules, installed the new ones and immediately went into the BIOS (CPU overclocked) and changed it to 1600 with rated timings and 1.65V. Windows failed to boot. Locks up and reboots before even asking for login.

Back in the bios reset bios defaults and made sure CPU settings were stock then set RAM to XMP settings (1600, 1.65v, 8T, etc) and windows still fails to boot.

Changed RAM settings to 1333 and rated timings. Windows boots but eventually locks up. Changed timings to 9T, still eventually locks up.

Changed settings in bios to stock CPU and XMP memory settings then started Memtest86. Memtest86 v3.4 finished at least 1 pass with no errors. Reboot and immediately locks up durring windows boot.

I'm stumped. I'd appreciate any further troubleshooting ideas.

Thanks for looking!

Steve
 
Sounds like you should just go ahead with the RMA but if you're set on figuring it out I'd recommend running Memtest on the sticks individually. I've experienced a couple of situations where Memtest would complete with all of the sticks in but fail on a single stick.
 
Thanks for the suggestion. I think I'm leaning towards just RMA'ing it instead of spending the 2+ hours to do three different memtest passes :) I've just never had ram exhibit problems and not show the failure in Memtest86. I keep thinking I'm missing something thus the post here and at the Corsair support forums.

Steve
 
You could try hitting F8 during startup to disable "automatic restart on system failure", it might give you some info.
 
drkclw said:
You could try hitting F8 during startup to disable "automatic restart on system failure", it might give you some info.
Click to expand...

I did a little more work on this last night. Plugged the ram into my friends i7 setup with an Asus P6T Deluxe board and it runs at ddr1600 just fine.

Even plugged a new hard drive into my PC to do a fresh install of Windows and it locks up before setup can start.

Now I'm pretty confident the RAM is ok, just trying to figure out if it's my MB or CPU that's causing the issue. Will be swapping CPUs with that same friend to hopefully narrow it down to the MB.

Steve
 
Let us know how the troubleshooting goes. Sorry you are having an issue.

You may also want to try clearing the CMOS again. Take the battery out and clear it for about 10-15 min.
 
Mike Clements said:
Let us know how the troubleshooting goes. Sorry you are having an issue.

You may also want to try clearing the CMOS again. Take the battery out and clear it for about 10-15 min.
Click to expand...

Yeah, this is one of the weirdest PC issues I've had in the past 15 years or so :)

Thanks for the cmos battery suggestion. I have a Gigabyte P45 board here that I recently had an issue with during POST. It would reboot right before it reported memory size and specs. Resetting the cmos via the jumper didn't help. Was about to RMA it when Gigabyte suggested removing the CMOS battery for 5 seconds. Did the trick. System is working great as my backup PC.

Anyway, back to the i7 problem. I'm going to swap in my friend's i7 920 tomorrow and that should narrow it down between the CPU and motherboard. We've already confirmed that his setup will run ram at 1600.

Steve
 
Just to finish this up. I ended up taking the ram back to Frys before my 15 day window was up. Reordered from Amazon since they had the C7 varient for just $2 more. Got it today and the system boots just fine at DDR1600 and has been stable so far. I'll put it through the paces before I go back to my CPU overclock. At least I feel good about returning the other ram. It does seem to have been the culprit. Just goes to show that one full pass of Memtest isn't enough.

Steve
 
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