Note: I am NOT overclocking, keep this in mind when reading and responding please 
I just upgraded two computers from RDRAM to DDR and got 2 Corsair VS 1GB PC3200 Dual Channel kits.
Soon after, one of the two comps would crash out of warcraft 3 with a memory could not be read error.
I ran the memtest here http://hcidesign.com/memtest/ over 9 hours, and got 0 errors (tested both comps just to make sure).
Next I ran memtest86+on both comps, one of them had no errors after 2 or 3 passes, the other had massive errors on test 5, and 1 or 2 on test 7 almost every pass. I heard that relaxing the timings might help. Default timings on this ram were 2.5-2-2-6 (and 8 for DRAM Burst Length an extra option), i went through and changed it to 3-3-3-8 (and 4 for DRAM Burst Length) ran 5+ passes of 5 and 20+ passes for 7 each and no errors for either.
Then after some fiddling I found that 2.5-2-3-6 ( and 8 for DRAM Burst Length) is the highest performance timings that the ram does not error in (if i drop tRP/Precharge to 2 instead of 3, it errors on tests 5 and 7). So basically I can set it to the Auto timings except tRP/Precharge has to be 3 instead of 2.
What i'm wondering is, how come the normal timings for the RAM do not work? Is this a normal thing? And why would the tRP be the thing causing errors and not anything else? Lastly, should I RMA this as bad RAM and be without a comp for a week or so (one of the comps isnt actually mine), or is loosening the timings not that big a deal?
Thanks for your help guys!
I just upgraded two computers from RDRAM to DDR and got 2 Corsair VS 1GB PC3200 Dual Channel kits.
Soon after, one of the two comps would crash out of warcraft 3 with a memory could not be read error.
I ran the memtest here http://hcidesign.com/memtest/ over 9 hours, and got 0 errors (tested both comps just to make sure).
Next I ran memtest86+on both comps, one of them had no errors after 2 or 3 passes, the other had massive errors on test 5, and 1 or 2 on test 7 almost every pass. I heard that relaxing the timings might help. Default timings on this ram were 2.5-2-2-6 (and 8 for DRAM Burst Length an extra option), i went through and changed it to 3-3-3-8 (and 4 for DRAM Burst Length) ran 5+ passes of 5 and 20+ passes for 7 each and no errors for either.
Then after some fiddling I found that 2.5-2-3-6 ( and 8 for DRAM Burst Length) is the highest performance timings that the ram does not error in (if i drop tRP/Precharge to 2 instead of 3, it errors on tests 5 and 7). So basically I can set it to the Auto timings except tRP/Precharge has to be 3 instead of 2.
What i'm wondering is, how come the normal timings for the RAM do not work? Is this a normal thing? And why would the tRP be the thing causing errors and not anything else? Lastly, should I RMA this as bad RAM and be without a comp for a week or so (one of the comps isnt actually mine), or is loosening the timings not that big a deal?
Thanks for your help guys!
