Memtest for 12 hours but Prime95 fails right away???

Illah · Oct 11, 2003

I tested my mem with MemTest86 overnight, no problems. This was after a day of tweaking and testing as well, so it is fine at 223 2-2-2-5. Problem is in Prime95 it fails on the first test EVERY time, I even downclocked my CPU to localize it to mem.

So what do you think - is it unstable or is something else happening?

--Illah

Illah · Oct 11, 2003

OK, Prime just failed at 215FSB. What the hell!

I was under the impression that MemTest was more hardcore than Prime with RAM, therefor if it passed that then it should be fine in Windows. Anyone have any ideas? Here's my setup BTW

XP2100 underclocked (to rule out CPU errors)
2x512MB Buffalo PC3700 w/ BH-5 chips, 2.9vDimm (mobo max)
2-2-2-6 timings
NF7-S v2.0

Would a more overclocker-friendly BIOS help? I heard that BIOS's other than the latest one are best. I remember back on my MSI KT266 an older BIOS yeilded MAJOR gains.

--Illah

--Illah

Steven4563 · Oct 11, 2003

well i have bios 1.8 and i cant get 220fsb stable with prime95 even if i underclock my cpu so i have the same problem and ive ran memtest for hours on end and still nothing

anyone else have any ideas

btw what bios do u have coz i might have to check out some others

Steven4563 · Oct 11, 2003

ive just downgraded my bios to 1.1 and ive now been running prime95 for about 10 mins with info in my sig as before it stopped straight away

Illah · Oct 11, 2003

I'm testing 213 now... We'll see. I'm tempted to try that L12 mod - I have a 133FSB Tbredb.

--Illah

Steven4563 · Oct 11, 2003

i would try a different bios if i was u

Illah · Oct 11, 2003

I hear 10 is a good one, but I see even more benefits from the L12 mod combined with a new BIOS. Thing is I HATE HATE HATE applying AS3... I don't know why I just hate smoothing it out and all that, it drags, therefore I try to avoid messing with the CPU. I think I will though, it's like a ten minute job all together.

--Illah

Michfan · Oct 11, 2003

Im having the same problems with my Mushkin PC3500 Level II. With both sticks in slots 2 and 3 it passes memetest flawlessly but crashes on Prime 95 right off the bat. Ive underclocked my 2100+ also to try and isolate the problem but its really starting to frustrate me. I can't tell if its the RAM, the CPU, or the FSB and ive already done the L12 mod.

Illah · Oct 11, 2003

I remember the L12 helped you, right? I read the whole L12 thread and I think I remember your avatar

I wonder if all the extra crap Windows and all that adds on top can stress the mem more than Memtest. MemTest is all synthetic with basically just the mobo, CPU, and RAM. The real world has to deal with PCI busses, hard drives, multiple processes, etc...

I'm now down all the way to 210FSB and it seems to have finally stabalized, but this is Winbond BH-5 w/ 2.92vDimm!!! I should be doing way better than a 5% overclock with all that vDimm. I'm still reading on the L12 and new BIOS's, so we'll see.

--Illah

Steven4563 · Oct 12, 2003

have u tired upping the chipset voltage ?

Illah · Oct 12, 2003

Chipset vdd is maxed at 1.7 and watercooled.

--Illah

Suma · Oct 12, 2003

Illah, can you run a-sync? and you say that your buffalo pc3700 can do 230 @ 2.9 w/ 2-2-2-x ?

unreal · Oct 12, 2003

wow,, im not sure what to say about that..

Col_Loki · Oct 12, 2003

can you run a-sync?

I thought you loose performance by not having the memory in sync?? Theres not much point in running a high FSB if its not helping your performance right??

Im also having a problem tightning my timings, i have Pc4000 Ram (2.5 , 4 , 4 , 8 timings @250mhz) . I cant tighten my timings much at all without boot problems.
At 200mhz 2-3-3-7 is the best i can do at 2.9v,
At 225mhz 2.5-3-3-7 and its not fully stable

even with 2.9v.
It will run at 245mhz FSB fully stable @ 2.5-4-4-8 .

Im using Prime95 as a base to see what is stable and whats not. Is memtest easier to pass?
Any settings i should change......

Illah · Oct 12, 2003

Yeah, it doesn't make much sense... How can I pass memtest at such high settings and fail Prime95 with WAY lower settings. I did a battery of tests and there's not a HUGE difference between 200 & 220 FSB, at least not on my system. It's only like a 4% gain in actual performance with the same timings. I'm just gonna relax and chill at 200FSB (it better not crash on this!!).

I'll keep my eyes open though, but more tweaking can wait till next weekend

--Illah

Illah · Oct 12, 2003

Here's an observation - after some time I notice my computer gets super-slow while running Prime. I check the task manager and prime is only using 18MB of memory, but 1.29GB of the page file! My hard drive goes nuts and the whole machine drags cuz it seems to be paging EVERYTHING to disk.

I wonder if this is a bug in recent prime distros... I never noticed it before. I think I'm gonna try some others like Toast and CPU Stability Test and see how those fare. If memtest sees 223 2-2-2-5 as being OK I'm willing to take that - but in windows Prime seems to refuse to do anything...

--Illah

Suma · Oct 12, 2003

Man, you can do 223 @ 2-2-2-5 that's awesom. wish I could.

Lithan · Oct 12, 2003

Memtest passes... Prime fails... means mobo can't handle it. Im memtest fine up to 240+ at cas 2.0. Not even close to that prime stable.

Suma · Oct 12, 2003

btw, Illah what version of prime95 is that? I remember that the lateset one did some problems to me also.

Illah · Oct 12, 2003

I don't know what version, but it's the latest one (downloaded from the site like three days ago).

As for the mobo not handling it, I'd agree if it failed at 230FSB. But this is 210FSB with max vdd and a watercooled chipset

I tried other proggies besides prime and I seem to be OK. I ran the Sandra mem burn in for an hour at 215 2.5-3-3-7 and I pass. I'm now coming up on two hours of Toast with no hiccups. I've read before on people passing hours of 3dmark, sandra, etc... but failing prime, whereas others can do hours of prime and fail memtest, and others can game for hours but fail 3dmark, etc...

It's all software, and sofware is never perfect. If I pass all the others but prime bombs on me, oh well. So long as I don't have random crashes I'll call it stable.

--Illah

Memtest for 12 hours but Prime95 fails right away???

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