why is my corsair xms ram so HOT!

see i used to have some generic ddr 2100 ram ind it didn't have a heat spreader on it like my new stick of 512 / 2700 corsair xms does. and the old generic ram never got hot at all and was pretty fast as well. but when i went to take of my old hsf last night i touched the ram heat spreader and IT WAS BLAZING HOT! is it supposed to be so hot like that? i kinda thought that the heat spreaders were just for show, but now (after touching it) i'm wondering if they actualy add heat.

In my opinion, RAM heat spreaders do no good at all. Generally, they are a strip of aluminium, stuck on with sticky tape.

Best way to cool RAM is to leave them off, and direct a flow of cool air over the sticks.....

reddeathdrinker said:

In my opinion, RAM heat spreaders do no good at all. Generally, they are a strip of aluminium, stuck on with sticky tape.

Best way to cool RAM is to leave them off, and direct a flow of cool air over the sticks.....

Click to expand...

that's what what i thought. i know my new 2700 xms is faster and better and all then my old 2100 but it cant be soooo hardcore that it gets that friggin hot! i mean it's burning hot! and although its faster its not that big a step up to introduce that much of a heat difference compared to my 2100 ddr.
i wonder how i'm gonna get those heat spreaders off.

Getting the heat spreders off is one hell of a hassle! It took me at least an hour or two to get the spreaders off carefully. Not only that, but i cut up all my fingers on the dam heat spreaders. If you get them off, u should keep em in case u need to return ur ram.

umm I have the Corsair XMS PC2700 512mb stick with heatspreaders and it runs cool to the touch even after hours of operation......either your stick is defective or maybe just the cpu fan blow hot air onto one sideof the stick making that side hot and the other not....I dont know about yours but mine runs cool to the touch 24/7 and its o/c'd too....

Take the tape off and put some good ol Arctic Alumina or Silver. be very very careful though.

dxiw said:

umm I have the Corsair XMS PC2700 512mb stick with heatspreaders and it runs cool to the touch even after hours of operation......either your stick is defective or maybe just the cpu fan blow hot air onto one sideof the stick making that side hot and the other not....I dont know about yours but mine runs cool to the touch 24/7 and its o/c'd too....

Click to expand...

maybe that's what it is. i just put on an ax7 with a 39.5 cfm panflo fan (which is going to be replaced) and i can feel heat radiating from my ax7 like an open oven door. maybe it's heating up the ram's heat spreader.
i'm going to have to get at least a 50 + cfm fan to cool my ax7 down (maybe more), the panaflo just doesnt do the job when gaming.
i hope i don't go deaf with the new fan.
i still might pull the heat spreader off the ram and rip the tape off and maybe clip them on with some thermal grease underneath.
so thanks for the tips, everyone.
i'll have to watch the sharp edges as well.
no more , i wan't to be
then i can go
and i'll be

that's weird, rdram is known to get hotter then ddr modules which is why rimm modules are poorer overclockers. I have my pc800 overclocked to pc900 and after hours of operation, it's barely even hot, it's like still cool. So taking this into perspective, i assume something is wrong with your ram. Rma it and see what happens when you get a different module.