RAM, or live with Ram under spec?

Rma, or live with Ram under spec?

I'm not sure if anyone will remember my posting here a few months back...but to make a long story short I had a Mushkin PC3500 Black Level II Dual pack that didn't run to specs. I nailed it down to 1 dimm that was causing my troubles (The Dimm in question won't even pass a run of prime95 at 200mhz 2225 with 2.7v, it requires 2326 to pass...almost sounds like its CH5). Anyways I tried to get in contact with mushkin about 3 months ago and I got a few replys by email but then all contact stopped. I've tried since that time to get in contact but due to my busy schedule I couldn't get in contact with them over the phone. Either way since mushkin is now out of this particular memory, I am left with one option it seems, and that would be to RMA this back to newegg. I guess my question is do you guys think its worth the bother? I am quite annoyed this memory won't run at rated spec, but I'm not sure I want to run the risk of sending it back to newegg to be sent another dual pack and have it be worse...I'm even more uneasy about it since mushkin is out of stock on it (basicly making the lifetime warrenty worthless I would assume). Anyways, some thought on my dilemma would be great.

After this amount of time I think the RMA is to mushkin anyway not newegg. I have a feeling that Mushkin sat on some bh-5 through the rush just for potential RMA's. Phone is prolly the best bet though, for getting bh-5 if there is any to be had.

if the memory doesnt run to spec call mushkin. you deserve what u paid for....

Lets hope mushkin still has some of this stuff on hand for rmas. Guess I'll try to call today or first thing Monday.

Just got off the phone with them, sending the 1 bad stick in for rma. Appears they do have some left in stock for rmas, figured I'd pass that on to anyone else having troubles with their Black Level II.

Don't they guarantee 2-2-2-6 timings on AMD's and 2-3-2-6 timings on Intels?

Thats good to hear.

Well I did test it in a friends nforce2 board...same thing. Really what I found odd about it was the fact the good dimm i have would do 2225@220 with 2.7v easy, prime95 passed, memtest86 passed without issue. The really strange part about the bad dimm wasn't that it could't run 217 for me, but that it passed memtest86 at 200mhz 2225, but prime95 would fail at 200@2225 (failed randomly each and everytime, over difference between runs was that dimm). Not to mention 217 was a no go, even with [email protected] was tested with memtest86...to say the least I never tried a prime95 run at that speed with that dimm. All in all this other dimm really acts like its a ch5 stick or something, and something wasn't quite right about it.

Well, I just RMAed a dual pack of 512's (PC3200 Mushkin Level II Black)....had same sort of issue...could not get a stable computer even with slack timings...Believe me I tried and tried and tried....Thanks to alot of folks here I finally decided to give up the battle and return the RAM. I think (no way to confirm my suspicions) since BH-5's are no longer being produced that the remaining sticks of ram with BH-5 modules may be prone to errors (bottom of barrel ..so to speak). Good luck to you with your new ram from mushkin. I would be interested in hearing if you get "good" stuff or bad stuff on this RMA.

Well since I only had one back stick, I'm hoping the new one is ok. The good one will do 220@2225 with 2.7v I think it was. Not the best for bh5 but not bad either. If I remember right it was doing 225@2326 with 2.8v without issue. Just the other stick had some...issues. I'll keep everyone updated when i get the replacement stick.