Kingston memory - not sure if its gone downhill or not

[John]

Heres the stick I bought thats on sale at Circuit City :

Its going for $45 or so after a rebate.

http://www.circuitcity.com/rpsm/oid/108887/rpem/ccd/productDetailSpecification.do#tabs

Its slower CL 3 memory.

Tried everything - including changing the timing etc and it always
came up with errors though not always right away. Sometimes it would
take a while and other times it would come up right away.

I see in the reviews generally OK remarks from users though two recent
ones say they get errors in PC usage after installing and another says
they tested for errors and saw them and had to exchange the stick and
then received a good one. Im leaning towards thinking I got a bad
stick and the QC just isnt as good as it used to be. I bought lots of
2700/333 mem Kingston in the last few months and never had a problem .

I would test your sticks -- the wave of cheap 400/3200 stuff thats on
sale now at various places just to see if its really OK.

My KBYTE - which is also known as a cheapo brand I keep testing it
over and over due to paranoia after the Kingston problems and it keeps
coming up clean. But then thats one of sticks I bought last year. I
just looked at my RMA replacement stick thats being sent by Kingston
for the old one that suddenly went bad and its CL 2.5 like the one I
sent them so Ill see how that tests.

Ive been reading some sites and I dont see any wave of posts talking
about horrible memory errors but there was a guy at one site who was
bashing Kingston which I thought was way off base (but who knows now)
and theres the two reviews at CCs site. Not sure if this means
Kingston is getter worse or if its just bad luck on my part.

 

[kony]

Heres the stick I bought thats on sale at Circuit City :

Its going for $45 or so after a rebate.

http://www.circuitcity.com/rpsm/oid/108887/rpem/ccd/productDetailSpecification.do#tabs

Its slower CL 3 memory.

Tried everything - including changing the timing etc and it always
came up with errors though not always right away. Sometimes it would
take a while and other times it would come up right away.

Is this in same system you previously reported having memory
problems? Might it simply be more picky about memory?

I see in the reviews generally OK remarks from users though two recent
ones say they get errors in PC usage after installing and another says
they tested for errors and saw them and had to exchange the stick and
then received a good one. Im leaning towards thinking I got a bad
stick and the QC just isnt as good as it used to be. I bought lots of
2700/333 mem Kingston in the last few months and never had a problem .

Errors in exact same memory locations _every_ time or not?
Could be the modules are just marginally spec'd and the
replacements are different chip lot or PCB changed, or just
SPD was programmed differently as reports of incompatibility
rolled in? Try CPU-Z, it should report the programmed
timings and those actually-used.

Could be a board bios updade would help?
Was the module alone or paired with others?
Some board manufacturers may mention that multiple modules
may not work at highest officially supported bus speed.

I would test your sticks -- the wave of cheap 400/3200 stuff thats on
sale now at various places just to see if its really OK.

I try to avoid CAS3 memory... not necessarily RUNNING it at
CAS3 if that's necessary and acceptible per the system's
needs but I try to avoid memory with too little margin, want
CAS2.5 for it's ability to drop back to CAS3 if necessary...
though ideally one would return the memory but as we both
know it can sometimes be a matter of cost & time vs benefit.

My KBYTE - which is also known as a cheapo brand I keep testing it
over and over due to paranoia after the Kingston problems and it keeps
coming up clean. But then thats one of sticks I bought last year. I
just looked at my RMA replacement stick thats being sent by Kingston
for the old one that suddenly went bad and its CL 2.5 like the one I
sent them so Ill see how that tests.

Ive been reading some sites and I dont see any wave of posts talking
about horrible memory errors but there was a guy at one site who was
bashing Kingston which I thought was way off base (but who knows now)
and theres the two reviews at CCs site. Not sure if this means
Kingston is getter worse or if its just bad luck on my part.

You were having some kind of problem in the past where your
electrical contacts were fouling, yes? Maybe your location,
environment, or just the board and/or it's bios... or maybe
the memory or a combination of multiple factors.

IMO, it's far more common these days for the lower-end
budget memory (even from name-brands) to be incompatible.
Maybe they're using the rebates to get rid of their
lowest-bin stuff... dont know but it seems as likely a way
as any, in that the less it costs the more likley someone
will make do or not hassle with RMA.

Based on your experience with it, that memory does seem best
avoided (or used on slower bussed system). Plenty of other
memory choices out there.

 

[John]

You were having some kind of problem in the past where your
electrical contacts were fouling, yes? Maybe your location,
environment, or just the board and/or it's bios... or maybe
the memory or a combination of multiple factors.

Yup. Its so strange though. I dont see large numbers of mem
incompatiblity problems at Anandtech for this board or the nforce4 in
general. And I didnt have any initial mem problems when I carried the
Kingston and Kbyte sticks over so everything pointed to low
compatibility problems. They list Kingston sticks at Chaintechs site
for this board too as compatible - though not this one which seems
like a new stick.

However like I mentioned the older Kingston which was CL 2.5 like the
Kbyte and was bought last year around the time of the Kbyte - semed to
go bad , flaking out after 1.5 months causing rebooting.

This new one doesnt cause outright rebooting but shows errors. Its in
the same place but strangely as I mentioned sometimes it seems OK for
a hours (which then fools me for a while ) while testing then shows up
, other times it shows right away.

IMO, it's far more common these days for the lower-end
budget memory (even from name-brands) to be incompatible.
Maybe they're using the rebates to get rid of their
lowest-bin stuff... dont know but it seems as likely a way
as any, in that the less it costs the more likley someone
will make do or not hassle with RMA.

Only reason I think that is the strange switch from CL 2.5 last year
when 3200 was quickly falling from super high then to fairly low for a
few months $56-58 after rebates - which was when I bought it. Then
suddenly it seemed to disappear in regards to sales and rebates and
2700/333 was offered 90% of the time for months and months like they
decided to cutback or something. And then recently the 3200 rebates
and sales came back but in CL 3 form all over the place. However like
I said I dont see tons of people whining about bad mem everywhere but
then I wonder if they test it. Maybe they have more bad mem but blame
it on something else like I did for a while on drivers. There were
those few people who seem to have bad sticks at CC and the guy bashing
Kingston.

Based on your experience with it, that memory does seem best
avoided (or used on slower bussed system). Plenty of other
memory choices out there.

I flashed to the newest and then looked for a newer one this week
after these problems and there was a newer one strangely enough. So I
flashed that bios last night and nope same problems. I gave up and
returned it to CC. I would have tried yet another stick just on the
chance it was a bad stick but they didnt have any more.

You would think the older 3200 cheapo sticks would have problems with
my new Chaintech board. Nope. Its the new one so that may mean its
just a bad stick. Though it could mean they switched to some new
supplier and its incompatible who knows. Im getting the replacement
for the old stick this week if that shows up bad and I test it on
another system and THATs bad then Im avoiding Kingston. And then
thats makes you wonder cause Ive had great results with PNY, Kingston
and even KBYTE in the past - are the other makes still good too ? Is
it only Kingston?

Ill be tempted to go for the WINTEC or Patriot or Mushkin deals at
Newegg and ZZF but Id hate to have to send those back its $10-20 per
shipment to where Im at.

Ill check out that CPU Z.