Lots of memory problems lately - dont know if motherboard turned out to be picky or theres lots of b

[John]

Had older Kingston 400/3200 mem that was CL 2.5 and KBYTE CL 2.5 3200
- both 512 megs. Worked fine for almost a year in old ASUS a7n8x board
in dual mem mode. Moved both to Chaintech vnf4 nforce4 board.

Seemed to work for 1.5 months then the system started rebooting
intermittently and corrupting data. Finally traced it to the Kingston.
The KByte seems OK.

I bought another new Kingston 400/3200 stick yesterday and tested it
just to be sure. I get errors on the new stick.

The stick is different. In fact maybe all or almost all the new 3200
sticks on sale seem to be CL 3 instead of 2.5. Im getting erratic
results so its hard to say what exactly is the problem. Sometimes the
errors dont happen right away and other times they do. The Kingston
by itself and in slot 1 instead just to see if there was a slot
problem ---- still gave errors, In slot 3 (instead of 1 and 2) with
the Kbyte in 1 in didnt give errors for 3 passes in memtest - other
times it got errors in 1 pass. But then putting it back in 1 and 2
config it didnt give errors until 6-7 passes virtually overnight.

So the question is - is the chaintech unfortunately like many new
boards picky about memory? It works with K byte and is listed as
compatible with a variety of mem at their site including Kingston but
not the sticks I see on sale recently. Did the industry go for cheaper
CL 3 sticks that are different , less compatible now? Or are there
just more bad sticks? Im going to test the stick in my second PC now
overnight.

Some of these errors dont come up for awhile so it may be hard to
tell. Of course youll know when your system starts crashing and other
problems appear like certain programs suddenly dont run right.

When i get my RMA replacement Kingston I guess if its CL 2.5 like the
original and still gets errors - theres either a Chaintech or NForce4
problem with either Kingston mem in general or certain types of mem in
which Kingston and maybe others seem to make or maybe mem quality is
going down too. I dont see any problem in recent Newegg reviews though
a few here and there claim newer mem wasnt as good as older mem ---
like one review about some Mushkin claimed the same type of newer
stick he bought didnt work as well as the older version.

This really sucks. Ive never had any major problems with mem before.
Its obvious this time - that there is a problem cause your system
starts acting a bit strange -- locking up or rebooting and things can
get corrupted with some programs running weirdly.

 

[Patrick_]

Had older Kingston 400/3200 mem that was CL 2.5 and KBYTE CL 2.5 3200
- both 512 megs. Worked fine for almost a year in old ASUS a7n8x board
in dual mem mode. Moved both to Chaintech vnf4 nforce4 board.

Seemed to work for 1.5 months then the system started rebooting
intermittently and corrupting data. Finally traced it to the Kingston.
The KByte seems OK.

I bought another new Kingston 400/3200 stick yesterday and tested it
just to be sure. I get errors on the new stick.

The stick is different. In fact maybe all or almost all the new 3200
sticks on sale seem to be CL 3 instead of 2.5. Im getting erratic
results so its hard to say what exactly is the problem. Sometimes the
errors dont happen right away and other times they do. The Kingston
by itself and in slot 1 instead just to see if there was a slot
problem ---- still gave errors, In slot 3 (instead of 1 and 2) with
the Kbyte in 1 in didnt give errors for 3 passes in memtest - other
times it got errors in 1 pass. But then putting it back in 1 and 2
config it didnt give errors until 6-7 passes virtually overnight.

Why don't you try the RAM in another board? When it's in there, try
running Memtest on the system to see how it goes.

Also, are you overclocked?

EDIT: Just read you were going to test the stick in your other PC. Tell us
how it goes, and good luck. It's never fun to have computer problems...

Later,