Need help: OCZ3OB1600LV4GK seemingly unstable!

[persentio]

Hi guys,

I am having a problem with system stability regarding the mentioned RAMs. I bought 2 4GB kits and weirdly enough each and every module seems to be unstable.

I had another brand's RAMs running perfectly fine before, and after benching sold them off and now gotten the OCZs, but these Obsidians are pretty disappointing on first glance.

My motherboard is a Gigabyte GA P55 UD4P, with a Core i7 860 at stock clock speed.

I have manually set the RAM timings as specified by RoyOCZ in a few other threads to 9-9-9-24, tRFC to 88 and 2T Command Rate.

Ram voltage is set at 1.64V, QPI / VTT set to 1.35V. Everything else is left on Auto.

My current base clock is 133MHz (Stock), so I had to set a Memory Multiplier of 12x to hit 1600MHz.

Load Line Calibration and every power-saving feature (E.g. EIST and C States), and Turbo Boost have been Disabled.

When running memtest86+, I get errors for each and every module after anywhere from a few minutes to an hour plus:


The RAMs






I've read that if all of my RAM modules give errors the problem would probably actually lie in faulty Motherboard RAM sockets, and so far I don't know if this is true or not yet because I've only tested the RAMs individually on the RAM slot 1 of my motherboard, however I am inclined to think not because previously I had no stability issues with my RAM with the previous brand.

Would appreciate any help on this! Thanks very much

[SteveOCZ]

Try testing them in pairs. Maybe your board had some kind of quirk that makes it error in memtest with only one stick installed. You should also take a look at the CPU socket on the board and make sure there are no bent pins

[persentio]

Hi Steve,

Tried dual channel, still could not even pass 1 hour without errors. The error rates were much worse in fact.

Could it be possible that my motherboard's RAM slots somehow malfunctioned suddenly? (I understand hardware can fail without warning... So it might be a case of bad luck or mishandling I wasn't aware of)

Anyhow, I would probably still be bringing my RAM kits down to get them exchanged / tested. If the same results happen with my new kits I would have to get my Motherboard / CPU checked.

Thanks if you can perhaps give me some more suggestions!

[SteveOCZ]

Did you by any chance take your CPU out of the board when you changed memory? The only thing I can think of (since 4 bad sticks is very unlikely) is that your CPU has shifted in the socket. With these new CPU's a lot of people have seem problems with bent pins causing errors like you're seeing

[persentio]

Hi Steve,

I didn't take out the CPU. I have heard about the burnt socket issue with Foxconn sockets, but a local heavy overclocker uses Gigabyte P55 boards as well and he hasn't had that problem happen to him yet through his testing.

However, I just ran Prime95 and chose SmallFTTs for the first test to stress mainly the CPU only; and it ran for about 12 hours with no errors:



Choosing Blend however (which I believe is the recommended test for overall stability plus stresses lots of RAM), gave an instantaneous fatal error across multiple cores:



Is this a hard indication that it IS the RAM / Motherboard problem and not the CPU? Because it looks to me like it is...

Thanks again

[persentio]

Hi Steve,

I just got my Gigabyte P55 UD4P Motherboard exchanged for a brand new one today at a local distributor. When testing the RAMs + board at the service center they gave errors within the 5th pass; so he took out a new board and although it passed 1 round of testing (about 12 passes), they were going to close soon so they decided to just replace my previous board and I could go back home to do some more testing myself.

However, when I get home and tried running stress tests, they still don't hold up. I am now also getting very frequent BSODs even though I am not doing any stress testing!

I also took out my CPU to check when returning the board; no burns or anomalies whatsoever:



Two BSODs after running my computer for about an hour (regular activity such as watching videos / playing games or surfing net; no stress testing at all):




Memtest86+ failures (Dual Channel):



THe same thing happened with Prime95; ran "Small FTT" test fine for a few hours, and then crashed after a few seconds with "Blend" followed by a BSOD and hence I could not take a screenshot.

I believe the problem here really HAS to be the RAMs. I'll get them exchanged at my local distributor.

[SteveOCZ]

Thanks for testing this. Let us know how the new memory works out

[persentio]

Hi Steve,

Got the RAMs exchanged at my local distributor who stress tested the new modules for me before I went down to collect them, and after doing my own testing at home they are indeed running fine as specified. Memtest86+ and Prime95 completely error free. Can't believe I managed to get 4 faulty RAM modules though...

Thanks for your help though!

[SteveOCZ]

Glad to hear it got sorted out

Enjoy your new PC!