Crucial 256MB DDR registered ECC = :(

[muddocktor]

I bought 2-256MB ECC registered DDR Crucial dimms last year, along with 2-256MB ECC registered Corsair dimms when I got my KG7 board a year ago. Now, in the last month, I've had 3 sticks of the Crucial go bad on me(the 2 original sticks and the replacement stick that they sent me a month ago:( ). The first stick failed in a Shuttle AK31 rev. 3.1 board, gave a stop error when booting up. It about drove me crazy trying to figure that problem out. I even ordered another mobo(refurb A7M266-D from Newegg) thinking that this was a problem with the mobo. After getting the Asus board in and installing it in the case, the same stop error came up. After scratching my head a lot on this, I disabled "quick power on self test" in bios and went to boot up. Lo and behold, it came up with a memory fail error. I RMA'd that stick and got the replacement in the next day and everything was fine then. After running it for a few days by itself, I robbed a stick of Corsair DDR out of my KG7 board and installed it in the Asus board with no problems.

Now for my most recent saga with the Crucial DDR. I got home Sunday from camping and found 1 of my folding farm rigs (Epox 8KHA+ w/XP1800, not o/c'ed) totally borked. It was coming up with all kind of errors when booting up(Win2K), running chkdsk and finding all kinds of errors. I immediately suspected the memory again after trying to boot up3-4 times. I went in and disabled QPOST and it came back with a memory fail result. This rig had my second original stick of Crucial ECC registered dimm in it. I then went in Bios and started upping the dimm voltage and trying to boot up till I got to 2.9 volts and it booted with no errors. I then went ahead and reformatted and re-installed Win2K because the bad memory had messed it up too much to repair successfully. I then called Crucial yesterday to RMA that stick because I know that it is getting weak and they cross-shipped it out. So, now I wake up this morning and go into the computer room where my farm is; sitting down reading a little online news and all of a sudden the Asus dually rig starts spontaneously rebooting, which it doesn't normally do. After it did that the second time in 5 minutes, I went into bios on it and disabled QPOST and guess what; memory fail again.:mad: I then pulled the stick of Crucial out of that rig and no problems. I then pulled the other stick of Corsair ram out of my KG7 board and installed the stick of Crucial from the Asus board and it would just give a repeating long beep when powered up, no post. About this time, Fedex shows up with the replacement stick from the Epox board incident and I shoved it into the KG7 board and now it runs fine. I just got off the phone with Crucial and they are cross shipping the replacement. I'm only going to run the Corsair registered dimms in my dually and I guess that I'll see how long these next 2 replacement dimms from Crucial will run in the KG7 and Epox boards.

On a positive not, Crucial was very easy to deal with on the RMA issues and sent the replacements to me within 24 hours.:) I've used plenty of their SDRAM dimms before and no problems with them whatsoever but I've had nothing but bad luck with the DDR I've bought from them.

I'm posting this to let everyone know to watch out with the Crucial registered ECC DDR and to find out if anyone else has had problems like this with these modules.

muddocktor

[Jon]

No problems out of any of mine (3 X 256 in an A7M266-D).

Just out of curiosity though, why are you using registered ECC memory in an 8KHA+ and AK31?

[Intrepid]

I baught 2x256MB Crucial DDR ECC registered from them last september or so just before pirices went up and never came back. But I've never haad any problems with these things ever in my Tyan TigerMP or my Abit KR7A-RAID. My friend Aaron had 1x256 Crucial and 1x256 Micron and the crucial stick and the micron stick died at diferent tyimes both were RMAd and he is still waiting to actualy get around to RMAing his crucial stick..even tho I tested it in my system and it did fine. His mothermoard is one that I won for free at the AMD giveaway thing where AMD went around teh country giving away AthlonXPs and motherboards, I sold the chip I got and gave the board to Spyder.

[muddocktor]

Originally posted by Jon
No problems out of any of mine (3 X 256 in an A7M266-D).

Just out of curiosity though, why are you using registered ECC memory in an 8KHA+ and AK31?

Because I already had it on hand and DDR prices were a lot higher when I got those boards.:D I know that they don't use the ECC function but they will work in the boards. You know the life of a folding addict; anything to get another rig online and fold more proteins.:D

[Henry Rollins II]

Registered DIMMs are not supported by any VIA socket A chipset as far as I know. Since they are not supported you should expect problems if you try to use them anyway. The registers for the RAM is placed directly on the modules on registered RAM, instead of being a part of the north bridge . I am amazed that it will work at all in a board without support for it.

regards,
Henry

[Kendan]

I too have had a stick of crucial 2100 ECC registered die on me. It happened a couple months ago and took a little while to figure out it was the memory. I had two sticks that I had bought last year when it was cheap:D they cross shipped it to me and the other stick has had no problems. (cross fingers) I am just glad Crucial was easy to deal with during the RMA process:D Good luck!

[muddocktor]

Originally posted by Henry Rollins II
Registered DIMMs are not supported by any VIA socket A chipset as far as I know. Since they are not supported you should expect problems if you try to use them anyway. The registers for the RAM is placed directly on the modules on registered RAM, instead of being a part of the north bridge . I am amazed that it will work at all in a board without support for it.

regards,
Henry

Henry,

This is the detailed page for the AK31 rev.3.1 board (http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.asp?model=AK31+Rev+3%2Ex+%28AK31A%29&DetailMB=Y&cat=RAM) from Crucial's webite and clearly shows that registered DDR can be used on that board. Also, that doesn't explain why a module that is 1 month old would fail in the A7M266-D board. That is an AMD 762MPX board, which specifically is made to run registered dimms. Also, in the Epox manual I just d/l'ed from Epox's website, they state:"DO NOT MIX the unbufferred and registered DDR SDRAM on DIMM1, DIMM2 and DIMM3 socket". To me, that implies that you can run registered DDR on the board also. You just can't mix the 2.

I did do my homework before buying these 2 boards because of the express purpose of using the memory I already had bought.

regards,
muddocktor

[Henry Rollins II]

That has got to be a mistake. If you search Crucials website for any other board that also has the KT266A chipset there is no registered modules listed. The KT266A doesn´t even have support for registered ram. Unbuffered and registered is totally different. Did you use the registered modules in the Shuttle board(or any other board that doesnt have support for reg) before you tried them in the Asus?

What it says in the manual shouldnt be taken for a fact. Some parts of the manual is the same no matter the model.

You may wish to update the bios of your asus board and try again. I had problems with my Crucial ecc/reg up until I got the latest bios update.

regards,
Henry

[muddocktor]

The module that just failed in the Asus board was just a month old, and never even stuck in another board besides the Asus board. Another thing I just thought of; aren't unbuffered and registered dimms keyed a little differently, or is that only on SDRAM dimms? If the Shuttle and Epox boards were designed to explicitly not run registered dimms, wouldn't they use a dimm socket that wouldn't accept a registered dimm.

[Henry Rollins II]

There is no difference in the slot. Boards that accept ecc/reg most often can use unbuffered in the same slot(but not at the same time), IE the a7m266d. The pin assaginment is propably also the same, since you have succeded in booting.

If you still have the asus board try updating the bios. I had problems using crucial ecc/reg on both that board and the MSI I have now. Up until the last bios update they didnt function properly.

regards,
Henry

[muddocktor]

My board is a Rev 1.04 board with the 1006 bios(latest official Asus bios). Also, it is having no problems with 2 sticks of Corsair Reg DDR, so that's all that board will run with from now on, as far as I'm concerned. I'm not biased against Crucial or anything; just go with what's working for me. Also, I'll probably pick up an unbufferred stick of DDR to put in the Epox mobo and put the stick of reg. Crucial back into the KG7.

I will say one thing for Crucial; they back their warrantee up 100%, with ultra-quick service and no hassles or BS. On all 3 sticks I've RMA'ed with them had me with a new stick in hand within 24 hours of calling them to RMA.

Have a good day, Henry.:)

muddocktor

[Henry Rollins II]

Originally posted by muddocktor


I will say one thing for Crucial; they back their warrantee up 100%, with ultra-quick service and no hassles or BS. On all 3 sticks I've RMA'ed with them had me with a new stick in hand within 24 hours of calling them to RMA.


Agreed.

regards,
Henry

[GT2000]

Originally posted by Kendan
I too have had a stick of crucial 2100 ECC registered die on me. It happened a couple months ago and took a little while to figure out it was the memory. I had two sticks that I had bought last year when it was cheap:D they cross shipped it to me and the other stick has had no problems. (cross fingers) I am just glad Crucial was easy to deal with during the RMA process:D Good luck!

This was VERY pleasing for me to read, as a stick of 256 pc2700 just failed on me 3 days ago, just figured out it was the ram causing all the BSODs lastnight (well, very early this morning... ;)), my stick of samsung 256 ran memtest just fine, stick of crucial kept freezing the program. And of course the memory waited until RIGHT after the 1-month "free-trial" period to fail. :rolleyes: