How Corsair makes and tests stuff (lots of pics, dial-up beware)

Redbeard said:
When it's obvious that somebody did it themselves and is trying to scam us, we send out a couple of big guys in a black van with baseball bats and low IQs.
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*Grabs phone to call UPS to cancel shipment* :D

Awesome post, extremely interesting. BTW I love my xms ram and hx520 psu :)
 
Great post!!! I'm always fascinated with how stuff is made...I'm always watching those types of shows on Discovery but this is the first time I gotten a glimps of seeing how RAM is made. Good stuff!!! :D
 
Its good to put a face to the guy handling my rma.
( currently returned my 8500c5d for repair).

I love american made products. I hope you continue to kick ass and eventually expand beyond memory to other parts. Motherboards with corsair quality would rock!

BTW someone call John ratzenberger, i want video!
 
hey redbeard,
I got an RMA for some corsair twinx cmx1024-3200 about a month ago. I haven't had time to RMA it because I've moved twice and been getting all my beginning school stuff worked out. Is it still okay to send the RMA?

also...could you somehow slip me a little faster than my 3.3.3.8 ...come on now PLEASE!

great post, I love seeing how our favorite memory gets made. and seeing all that is making a lot of people drool!
 
Very cool to see how my favorite ram is made :) You guys have yet to let me down (and I've purchased a LOT of Corsair RAM). Keep up the good work.*

*Oh, and bring out the 4gb 6400 kits ASAP!:D
 
That's a fantasitic post. Perhaps a follow up sometime? I love to see how this stuff is made and a sequel would be more than welcome :). I buy nothing but corsair ram, that stuff has never failed me.

Question: How does one get a job for Corsair? :D
 
trick_m0nkey said:
That's a fantasitic post. Perhaps a follow up sometime? I love to see how this stuff is made and a sequel would be more than welcome :). I buy nothing but corsair ram, that stuff has never failed me.

Question: How does one get a job for Corsair? :D
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Almost 3 years ago, my boss sent Kyle an email saying "hey Corsair needs a lab tech" and Kyle posted it on the front page. I was working a pretty crappy job at the time and overclocking in my spare time. I sent an email to my current boss with a cover letter that told him how if he hired anybody else it'd be a mistake. (I'm pretty humble, obviously)

He sent me back an email asking about OCing and whatnot, I went in for an interview, and one thing led to another.

Also, we tend to hire people within the industry, if you're a great overclocker and world-record type of guy, and we happen to need a guy, we'll keep our eyes open. We just hired a guy from XtremeSystems (Bachus_Anonym) and he works full time in the lab with me and my boss now. Also, Yellowbeard on other forums, and Mike Clements on this forum, he was a poster on our internal forums in his spare time, a guy named SpecMike, and he's our online tech support rep.

We always keep our eyes out for people, and we find guys from other companies or enthusiast sites whenever possible. After all, why bring in a guy and train him when there's guys who know how to overclock stuff because they love doing it that we could hire?
 
Very interesting post and pics, thanks! No joke, this kind of devotion to customers just became the deciding factor in my next purchase. I'm running some OCZ 6400 right now, but had already starting saving up for some 8500 or higher- now I'm DEFINITELY getting the 8888. :)

And to continue the topic above: any internships, jobs, etc right now? Preferably in the Northeast? NYC area specifically? :D

Oh, and Redbeard- keep up the humor! Ghosts definitely ARE responsible for 95% of MemTest errors! :p
 
mavalpha said:
And to continue the topic above: any internships, jobs, etc right now? Preferably in the Northeast? NYC area specifically? :D

Oh, and Redbeard- keep up the humor! Ghosts definitely ARE responsible for 95% of MemTest errors! :p
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Heh, thanks.

As for NYC, nah, our company is based in Fremont, CA, so we really don't hire many guys outside of the Bay Area.
 
Redbeard said:
and
The Testing Area
floor2.jpg
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Are those DFI Lanparty M2r/g 590 sli mobo's on the testing rack to the left? the reason i ask is because i have one sitting in a box a few feet from me that wont load windows because when i try it dumps files, and randomly crashes while loading files im assuming it does not want to play nicely with my OCZ Platinum ddr2 800 memory. (srry if off topic but just wanted to know if corsair would be a better memory for the board if those are m2r/g's)
 
No questions but wanted to say... keep up the good work!


/yet another fan
 
Eh nice to see how my rams are taken in good care while in production.

Right now I have the Corsair TWINX2048-3200C2PT and I Like them ALOT! :)
I like them so much that I am planning to get another pair of them :) hehe then I'll have 4gigs of corsair ram :) Corsair rocks.
 
BillParrish said:
Why is your memory not tested in ovens like the power supplies ?
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We use the ovens to "qual" memory. We build up some modules, test them to a spec, then to see if the spec is feasible we put them on a motherboard, and throw the whole thing in the oven for 24-hours of torture test. If it passes that 24-hour test, we find it stable enough for production usually.

This process is usually done at a higher grade of speed than the part will be sold for. Example, for a 6400C3, we qualified it at 840 MHz @ 3-4-3-9 @ 2.4V in the oven overnight. Then we build them up.

The reason we can't test every set of memory that way is that we just don't have the resources and time to do it.
 
And I'm guessing the reason that you're not giving all the [H]'ers that are reading this particular thread, a new shiny kit of RAM, right off the line, is because....businesses like to make money? Damn the luck!

The pics are great, I will repeat for the millionth time in here, we like to see the stuff in the background for the products we buy. Just having someone accessible in the forums, such as yourself, is great for the company reputation. Kudos!
 
Redbeard said:
We use the ovens to "qual" memory. We build up some modules, test them to a spec, then to see if the spec is feasible we put them on a motherboard, and throw the whole thing in the oven for 24-hours of torture test. If it passes that 24-hour test, we find it stable enough for production usually.

This process is usually done at a higher grade of speed than the part will be sold for. Example, for a 6400C3, we qualified it at 840 MHz @ 3-4-3-9 @ 2.4V in the oven overnight. Then we build them up.

The reason we can't test every set of memory that way is that we just don't have the resources and time to do it.
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hehe , acutally it was a loaded question, but i wanted to confirm and provide additional details for anyone else who might have wondered. In our high reliabiliy telecom manufacturing, after we validated the design very much like your process above, we actually found heat soak testing every single product increased our field faliure rate and infant mortality was not decreased. Doing the front end work as you outlined and keeping the process in control resulted in the least in-service failures.
 
Kudos on a great post and great humor to boot.

1) MAKE RAM!!!
2) TEST RAM!!!
3) ????
4) PROFIT!!!

:D
 
Kickass set of pictures. I'm addicted to How It's Made on Discovery, so it's cool to see a little slide show on how memory is put together.

I was curious if you guys need to re-tool whenever new standards emerge, like DDR and DDR2? Prior to your pictures I would have thought that your manufacturing process would surely change, but now I would think the only thing that changes is the test bed (or rather, making an addition to the test bed).

Also, how long are the sticks left in the oven when the solder is being melted?
 
awsome :) im guessing you get some good deals on ram for your self huh

question... i RMA'ed some ram sent it UPS and it got to your guys on Friday... whats the turn around on it? should i have it back in a week? or what?
 
Thanks for posting the testing centre. You just saved me from pulling apart my Corsair XMS2 TWIN2X2048-9136C5D memory to see the insides, and a possible future RMA request :D

I also have the hx620 psu also. Fantastic products.
 
Wow, this thread made my day. I have a Corsair PS and have purchased many sticks of your RAM. Thanks and keep up the good work!
 
I have asked this question in a few forums i haunt and have gotten various answers. If i may can i get it straight from the source?
My motherboard is a Giga-byte Kn8 pro sli. I currently run Corsair pc3200 dual channel xms, 2 sticks of 512. I have two empty slots that are crying to be filled. I considered buying 2 one gig sticks of the same memory timings, Corsair of course, and put the one gig sticks in slot one and three and the 512,s in 2 and 4 slots, will this still allow dual channel to work properly or do i cancel the dual channel doing this and have a whole lotta regular functioning ram? The majority feed back is buy exact size, brand etc, and that would leave me with only 2 gig with dual channel for sure.:)
 
elderly said:
I have asked this question in a few forums i haunt and have gotten various answers. If i may can i get it straight from the source?
My motherboard is a Giga-byte Kn8 pro sli. I currently run Corsair pc3200 dual channel xms, 2 sticks of 512. I have two empty slots that are crying to be filled. I considered buying 2 one gig sticks of the same memory timings, Corsair of course, and put the one gig sticks in slot one and three and the 512,s in 2 and 4 slots, will this still allow dual channel to work properly or do i cancel the dual channel doing this and have a whole lotta regular functioning ram? The majority feed back is buy exact size, brand etc, and that would leave me with only 2 gig with dual channel for sure.:)
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That board is an nForce4 board, so you'll keep dual channel with 4 sticks, but you might be forced to drop to DDR333 instead of DDR400 because the memory controller on the processor sometimes has issues running 8 banks (4 double-sided modules) at full spec.
 
Ahh...so that's what heaven looks like. I always wondered :) Excellent post, Red. It's not often that you get a glimpse behind the curtain of a major manufacturer. Add in the fact that I've been a huge Corsair fan for years (recently bought a pair of C4Ds and the HX620W for my new build) and it's like a wet dream :D
 
wow I feel really sorry for the guy that has to swap all the memory sticks into a motherboard...that has got to kill the thumbs... Putting just 4 sticks of memory into my computer exhausts me and bruises my thumbs lol
 
this was a real cool post! I've got some corsair XMS ECC/REG ram in my dual opteron machine, and it works great!

I'm addicted to "how stuff works" type of things (discovery channel, history channel, howstuffworks.com , etc) so this was extra cool :D
 
elderly said:
I have asked this question in a few forums i haunt and have gotten various answers. If i may can i get it straight from the source?
My motherboard is a Giga-byte Kn8 pro sli. I currently run Corsair pc3200 dual channel xms, 2 sticks of 512. I have two empty slots that are crying to be filled. I considered buying 2 one gig sticks of the same memory timings, Corsair of course, and put the one gig sticks in slot one and three and the 512,s in 2 and 4 slots, will this still allow dual channel to work properly or do i cancel the dual channel doing this and have a whole lotta regular functioning ram? The majority feed back is buy exact size, brand etc, and that would leave me with only 2 gig with dual channel for sure.:)
Click to expand...

I'm currently running 4 Sticks for DDR400 Ram

2x 512 (VS512MB400) Corsair ValueSelect
2x 1024 (VS1BG400C3) Corsair VauleSelect
Total: 3072MB

on an EVGA NF41 board.

When I boot the BIOS auto'd them to DDR333 and some wierd timings, I manually went in and set it to DDR400 at 2.5-3-3-8, memtest86 overnight reported no errors, been running fine since, and they are running in dual channel.

Hope that helps.
 
I'm exhuming this thread 'cause I just stumbled upon it. How about an [H] field trip to Corsair?



And when no one's looking, I'm pillaging :D
 
Redbeard, You just made me a Corsair Fan for LIFE, even though I already was! I have always bought Corsair, and because of this post, will continue to do so. keep up the good work! :D :D :D
 
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