OCZ VX bit the dirt

One of my sticks of VX upped and died on me yesterday the pair was doing 265mhz and now only one of them is alive, has anyone RMAed OCZ ram? am i going to need to RMA both sticks or just one? im kinda distraught about this cause i probably won't be able to achieve 265mhz again

bobmanfoo said:

One of my sticks of VX upped and died on me yesterday the pair was doing 265mhz and now only one of them is alive, has anyone RMAed OCZ ram? am i going to need to RMA both sticks or just one? im kinda distraught about this cause i probably won't be able to achieve 265mhz again

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Sorry to hear about your loss. What settings were you using to hit 265, you have any digi shots of the BIOS settings, i'm trying to get my other set of VX to run higher and not having any luck atm.

I'm pretty sure you can RMA 1 stick or both, its up to you. Just call the RMA dept, explain the problem, and they will hook you up

bobmanfoo said:

One of my sticks of VX upped and died on me yesterday the pair was doing 265mhz and now only one of them is alive, has anyone RMAed OCZ ram? am i going to need to RMA both sticks or just one? im kinda distraught about this cause i probably won't be able to achieve 265mhz again

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Bob,
Just give them a call and tell them what happened.
Be honest, and explain exactly what you want.
They might be able to work something out for you, so you can at least keep the golden dimm.

But what sort of voltages were you pumping into them? The warranty is only good (officially) if you remain in their voltage specs shown on their webpage. were gold VX rated to do 3.2v? (I have no idea). Were you exceeding that? If you were, are you sure the other stick is still going to last?

Keep in mind that even if you do work out something, there's no guarantee that any of the sticks you get back, will do 265, anyway, to match the one you will pair with it...you can only clock as high as the weakest stick.

i thought these sticks are warranted up to 3.5v +/-5%, gotta go check. i was feeding these sticks 3.5v

sucka, ill get pics up in a little

another:

last one

Cool, thanks man And good luck with the next set.

Sorry if this is thread crapping, wasn't my intention.

VX is up to 3.5v, I'm pretty sure. I recently RMAed some memory myself because 1 of the sticks was bad. I had to option to keep the good stick or RMA both. I decided to send both back just so I would get sticks that would clock the same instead of potentially getting a new stick that did not clock well with the other.

Over at XS several of the guys have reported having UTT based ram die on them, usually just one of the two. One of the guys posted that after letting his stick sit for a day...it started working again.

Have you tried that by any chance. I will try to find the post and if I do I'll provide you with a link.

Edit - here you go. The possible explanation may or may not correct, but the problem has happened to others and some have started working again so it might be worth giving it a shot. It would be a shame to send those back and get an exchange that doesn't perform as good.


1st post:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?p=819546#post819546

2nd post:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?p=820583#post820583

Possible explanations????
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?p=820885#post820885

Linked above but copied below:
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04-17-2005, 10:47 PM #2726 / link
uwackme
Xtreme Member


Join Date: Jun 2003
Posts: 459 hmmm

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Yes, One of my sticks has been exhibiting this phenomenon. Runs awesome for weeks, then one day .... BEEEEP. Its one stick. Nothing would "clear" the error. But taking it out, leaving it aside for a few hours while I used a different stick and VIOLA... "bad" stick is back running for weeks flawlessly.

Like some latch-up problem (a problem that can effect CMOS circuits) gets the ram in a locked up state, a long sit with no power and the chips bleed to no electrons and presto its back up and running.

This would be pointing to motherboard signal integrity and power supply (the VDimm circuit) issues. The high voltage, and high current and high speed we are pushing these things too is taxing the rest of the system beyond what it is used to. This isnt a permanent damage issue, just a symptom of poor signal integrity, PCBoard and component quality. The RAM itself is fine, the latchup is occuring probably to UNDERSHOOT on some of the signal lines....ie: instead of a "0" being 0 volts, it was driven lower due to circuit bounce to some -X volts low enough to trigger the latchup, which then freeze's the circuit inside the DDR chip(s) until they are truly turned OFF and all charge is drained away.

This is all speculation, but the symptoms (bad ram miraculously coming back to life) sure sounds like the situtation.

I wish I had a scope fast enough to "SEE" the signals while operating, but that's some seriously expensive equipment...500Mhz dataline data rates would need a 2GHz digital storage scope to properly sample.

Above all dont panic if the BEEEEEEP pays you a visit.

bobmanfoo if you'd like an RMA please send me an email

steve3 aatt ocztechnology dooot com

Thanks

Did you have a fan over the memory when you were pumping 3.5V into it?

SteveOCZ said:

bobmanfoo if you'd like an RMA please send me an email

steve3 aatt ocztechnology dooot com

Thanks

Did you have a fan over the memory when you were pumping 3.5V into it?

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thanks steve, ill send you an email shortly. of course i had a fan over it... a dedicated 92mm Denki for the ram, temps never went over 39C according to a temp probe i had

edit: oh since OCZ has been speed binning the ram for VX ddr400 and ddr500, what are the chances that the ddr400 will reach 250+? are all the ones that can do 250+ going to VX ddr500? thanks again

thanks for all of the replies guys

Sucka- no problem at all man

Reefa- i don't think that is the case with my ram, i got it started once after i had the problem but it crashed and never booted again. But i had the exact same thing happen to me with TMSP utt, i thought one stick died and got fed up with gambling and went out to get the VX, when i went to rma 'dead' UTT so i could sell them, i had to check which stick died and strangely enough both ran perfectly fine

just curious - have you tried relaxing trrd from 0 ?? the tightest i could run is 1 - thats about the only thing sticking out at me right now....

if that doesnt help then maybe they just died

arctic-k20 said:

just curious - have you tried relaxing trrd from 0 ?? the tightest i could run is 1 - thats about the only thing sticking out at me right now....

if that doesnt help then maybe they just died

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nah its not the timings, im not in the process of OCing, these speeds and timings have been stable for months, and my PC will not boot at all, not even with cmos reset

doh - well that sucks......hope you can get it sorted out quickly!

The 3200 should still do at least 250. We test them to 240FSB 2-2-2 at OCZ

SteveOCZ said:

The 3200 should still do at least 250. We test them to 240FSB 2-2-2 at OCZ

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im sorry to have to ask, but what is the name of these sticks? Gold VX 2-2-2 ?
im looking to buy 2 sets of these and try to run (2GB) 4x512 @ ~250-260mhz on a x10 venice and NF4 ultra-d, powerstram520. Is that a possibility? dual channel ?

thanks

SenC.

I'd test those sticks very very thoroughly before pronouncing them dead. My DFI nF4 boards have indicated that my UTT sticks were dead dozens of times, but not one of six has been destroyed, the motherboard is just not functioning properly.

Senater_Cache said:

im sorry to have to ask, but what is the name of these sticks? Gold VX 2-2-2 ?
im looking to buy 2 sets of these and try to run (2GB) 4x512 @ ~250-260mhz on a x10 venice and NF4 ultra-d, powerstram520. Is that a possibility? dual channel ?

thanks

SenC.

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I haven't read up on the venice mem controller enough at this point, but I would guess that it could be done. If you want a sure fire 250FSB with 2-2-2 timings you should look at the pc4000VX
http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/memory/ocz_el_ddr_pc_4000_dual_channel_gold_vx

Steve