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Should high performance RAM be stable at SPD settings?

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smilingcrow

Member
Joined
Mar 9, 2002
Location
The belly of the beast (Wales)
I have 10 new OCZ PC3-10666 1333 MHz Gold XTC 2GB sticks and 8 have failed MemTest86+ 4.00 at stock BIOS settings at 1066MHz using two different motherboards:Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H and Biostar T5 XE.
Once I noticed there were problems I started testing them individually to isolate any working sticks.
I have also tested Crucial 1066MHz DDR3 (single channel 2GB) and OCZ 1600MHz CAS8 LV Gold (dual channel 4GB) both at 1066MHz at stock BIOS settings and they both passed MemTest for 1 hour.
Before I return them to my supplier is there anything else I should check?
It does seem as if the CPU and motherboards are fine and the power supply is a Seasonic S12 II 500W which hasn’t given me any problems.
Is Memtest86+ 4.00 a reliable indicator that memory is faulty?

The SPD is 533 / 7 7 7 16 27 @1.5V
and the OCZ rated setting is
667 / 9-9-9-20 @ 1.65V
 
Absolutely. SPD settings (and XMP/whatever else) are supposed to be known-to-work-100% settings.
If they don't, something is wrong. You should check CPUz and make sure the bios is using an SPD setting exactly as listed though.
 
Absolutely. SPD settings (and XMP/whatever else) are supposed to be known-to-work-100% settings. If they don't, something is wrong.
That’s what I thought but according to OCZ Support this isn’t the case:

“SPD is there to give the board certain parameters for startup when the board is set to "Auto" or you have cleared the CMOS. I can make no guarantee that they will run 100% stable forever on those settings. Should they work just fine? Yes, will they as stated above? again, no guarantee.”

You should check CPUz and make sure the bios is using an SPD setting exactly as listed though.
I did make a note of what CPU-Z gave the SPD settings as and will double check that tomorrow.
 
You might want to differentiate between SPD timings, which are hard coded into the memory itself, and the manufacturer's rated timings. Ideally the two should be the same, but sometimes they're different. The RAM should absolutely run at the manufacturer's rated speeds, but may not run at the SPD timings if the manufacturer has programmed them differently.
 
You might want to differentiate between SPD timings, which are hard coded into the memory itself, and the manufacturer's rated timings.
If you read all the data it covers that although I could have made that clearer at the beginning of my tech support post on OCZ’s forums.

Ideally the two should be the same, but sometimes they're different.
The thread title mentions High Performance RAM which almost always has SPD settings which are different from the manufacturer’s rated settings.
SPD = JEDEC and high performance is almost always beyond that.

The RAM should absolutely run at the manufacturer's rated speeds, but may not run at the SPD timings if the manufacturer has programmed them differently.
And that’s the question at hand. Should the SPD settings be guaranteed stable also? OCZ are saying no which surprised me as 1066MHz at 1.5V isn’t exactly challenging these days.

Do the JEDEC specs allow for a voltage above 1.5V for DDR3?
If not the issue may simply be one of voltage.
 
I would guess it's probably the voltage that's causing the sticks to fail at stock settings, not the timings. Try upping it to 1.65V and see what happens.

I've run into that a few times with 'high performance' type RAM, where it'll boot at the standard voltage, and it'll work well enough to get into BIOS and change the voltage, but it won't actually be stable at any speed until you up the voltage to what's specced on the sticker.

I personally consider that to be extremely crappy on the part of the manufacturers, since that also means I can't use the RAM, even at a reduced speed, in a board that doesn't offer voltage adjustments. But, I guess that's a generally accepted practice, like it or not.
 
I've run into that a few times with 'high performance' type RAM, where it'll boot at the standard voltage, and it'll work well enough to get into BIOS and change the voltage, but it won't actually be stable at any speed until you up the voltage to what's specced on the sticker.
Right, that's what I mean. It might very well not be stable at SPD, but should always be stable at whatever the manufacturer has rated it for.
 
I would guess it's probably the voltage that's causing the sticks to fail at stock settings, not the timings.
Maybe it’s not so much the voltage as the timings at that voltage. Why didn’t they just use looser timings for the SPD settings?

I've run into that a few times with 'high performance' type RAM, where it'll boot at the standard voltage, and it'll work well enough to get into BIOS and change the voltage, but it won't actually be stable at any speed until you up the voltage to what's specced on the sticker.

I personally consider that to be extremely crappy on the part of the manufacturers, since that also means I can't use the RAM, even at a reduced speed, in a board that doesn't offer voltage adjustments. But, I guess that's a generally accepted practice, like it or not.
It does seem asking for problems not to give stable SPD settings as that will surely give them more tech support and RMA issues as not everyone that buys RAM is aware of such issues.

I mistakenly thought the all SPD settings would be JEDEC complaint AND stable.
Obviously not at least for OCZ. Considering that you can now buy DDR3 1,600 CAS8 that runs at 1.35V and DDR3 2,000 that runs at 1.65V it didn’t cross my mind that 1066 CAS7 at 1.5V would be a challenge. I guess you get what you pay for and OCZ Gold is golden only in name.
 
I actually have some OCZ gold DDR2 that while it'll run at SPD stably, will not run even 2mhz faster. I'm not impressed. Their HPC stuff is great, as is the platinum LV (mine, at least).
 
Well it should work but maybe you have a funky ktit.

The important part is: does it work at the rated timings/voltage/frequency?
 
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