odd memory behaviour

hiyas, everyone, was wondering if you could help me out on this one. Specs first: A7N8X-E Deluxe with XP2600+(barton) and 2x256 Mb Elixir PC3200 ram.

I say it's behaving strangely because it's perfectly stable at 166 MHz with a CL of 2.5, but if I go easy on it and change the CL to 3 (everything else the same), it starts spewing errors on memtest like crazy. On CL 2 memtest crashes within 10 seconds (ok, this I expected). The other thing is they won't go above 180 MHz stably (I haven't upped the mem voltage yet). Questions:
Shouldn't they easily handle 200 MHz being rated PC3200?
Could the mobo be somehow responsible(they show as running in dual-channel mode)?
One other thing, they're both marked as being Elixir PC3200 ram, but CPU-Z shows them as being one a Nanya Technology PC3200 and the other as NEC PC3200, could they being different and being used in dual channel be causing this?

Thx for your answers

To begin with, Elixir isn't a very good brand of memory, and I'm not really surprised that it won't do rated specs. It could have something to do with dual channel, especially since CPU-Z is showing that different memory modules were used on each stick, so try them in single channel when you get a chance.

CAS 3 simply doesn't work on some boards and some memory. For one, AMD boards really shouldn't be running latency that high, as it yields terrible performance. And some memory just refuses to run CAS 3.

thx for the post, Johan.

Now that you backed my sneaking suspicion that it's probaly related to the dual channel thing and with some vacation days coming up, I'll try testing them separately.

Regarding your other comments, then do you think I'm better off having the memory running at 179 MHz (highest speed with the CL at 2.5 the mem will support) than getting it to run at 200 MHz at CL3? (btw, those are the recommended settings the mobo assumes and also reported by CPU-Z)

Heh, I know Elixir has no good (if any) oc'ing reputation, but down here in Mexico we don't get most of the really good stuff. Or, if we do, it's priced like 4x than it is in the states (and we earn like 5x less, so you do the math )

Thx again for responding

Wow, I am shocked that this Elixir stuff is so bad. I just received a 512 stick of Mushkin Basic Green PC3200 tonight and noticed the chips said Elixir on them....now I'm really worried! I've purchased many amounts of RAM in my day directly from Mushkin...this time I bought some cheap stuff from Newegg...I guess I won't be buying anymore of the Basic Green!