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Does this pass the sanity check?

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Barryng

Member
Joined
Nov 16, 2001
I recently replaced my memory with 2 - 1Gig sticks of Crucial Ballistx DDR500/PC4000 memory. I immediately changed my CPU:DRAM ratio to 1:1 and run the memory at 250 MHz. I let the voltage default to 2.8 volts.

Although Memtest and Prime ran without any issue, Windows would just freeze at some seemingly random interval. I took all timings to max and this did not really seem to effect this problem. I then raised the voltage to 2.9 volts and found this made the problem significantly worse. I therefore lowered the voltage to 2.7 volts and the freezing seemed to occur less frequently. I am now at 2.65 volts and the problem seems to have dissappeared.

This seems butt backwards. I would have expected to need more voltage to stabilize the memory, not less. Is this reasonable?
 
Dont know what ICs the ballistix uses and too lazy to look it up but I seem to recall people with TCCD ram that the more they lowered the vdimm the farther it clocked. (One guy was doing insane 1.5 Cas timings at 2.45volts!) Think i read it on XS, might have been BE though.

Just to point out I dont think I ever heard of TCCD 1GB sticks either, BUT there might be another IC that loves running lean.

Oh yah try doing the touch test while you are stressing... it could be a heat thang.


EDIT: Ballistix PC4000 BL12864Z503-1GB - Micron 5B-D

Here is a thread at XS that says exactly that. 2.6-2.7v is optimal for 2.5-2-2-x (hes doing crucial value ram but hte IC is the same)
 
Last edited:
Neur0mancer said:
Oh yah try doing the touch test while you are stressing... it could be a heat thang.

Please explain the "touch test". Thanks
 
Heh heh

Its a highly technical diagnostic tool we geeks use when a proper temp probe is not available. Open case, be sure to discharge self on case frame, while maintaining contact with case put a finger on the ram. If its hot, it probably needs a fan on it :)

But I did a little research (see above post that I editted) and it seems that its probably not a heat issue.
 
Thanks for the information.

I suspect you are correct about the freezing problem being a heat issue. Although it would freeze when simply just reading a web page, it seemed more prone to do so when transcoding a video file. It now seems reasonable that too high a voltage will cause heat issues and too low will cause other operability issues. I just was not expecting the default voltage to be so close to or even above the high end of this window. My case is a windtunnel type case in a room that is always air conditioned. The interior temps run reasonably cool so I do not think any heat issue is the result of bad ventilation.
 
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