Re: A new, unstable system, HW problem ???
On Wed, Apr 27, 2005 at 09:14:09AM +0300, jpahka@welho.com wrote:
> Ok, yesterday I ran the memtest86+ utility and indeed it showed some errors on
> the test 5 of the test series (but the test 8 showed no errors). And this is
> what the memtest86 webpage says...
>
> "There have been numerous reports of errors with only tests 5 and 8 on Athlon
> systems. Often the memory works in a different system or the vendor insists that
> it is good...."
>
> What do you guys think? Can I be relatively certain that it's infact the memory
> modules that are just not compatible with amd64 + VIA K8T800 cobination? I think
> I'm going to replace the ram since when I bought it I was going for some "abit
> approved" memory, but the seller convinced me that "this is as good but cheaper" :)
It may be perfectly good working memory, just not if you require the
timings the athlon64 memory controller expects from DDR400 memory. it
really expects the memory to perform as it says in it's SPD eeprom. If
it doesn't, expect trouble. Most memory controllers in chipsets seem
slightly less picky (maybe because they already have more delays
involved in getting requests to and from the memory.) Of course I also
read somewhere that the newer athlon64's are getting some improvements
in the memory controller to make them more flexible on memory modules (I
think it was supposed to make it easier to run 4 dimm's too).
> I also ran the prime95 utility from mersenne.org and that also fails in the
> first test. Don't know what to make of that, but somethings definately not right.
>
> Anyhow, I want to thank you all alot for helping me out, this is what I call
> great support :)
Well I bought kingston value ram DDR400 512M * 2 for the athlon64 I
built and it works. I have had good luck with kingston and crucial
personally. I don't bother to "save" $10 per 512M anymore by getting
the generic stuff. The last generic stuff I bought was a PC100 CL2
256M and it never did run stable faster than CL3 (so much for their
claim).
Len Sorensen
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