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what on earth is my ram???

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Vrykyl

Tornado Guy
Joined
Dec 7, 2003
Location
UK
ok, iv recently upgraded to a p4 and im looking for 250fsb at 5:4 (1:1 would be nice but iv not got pc4000 ram), but my memory keeps cr@pping out on me (i know this cos my rig will do 250fsb at 3:2 but not at 5:4).
Iv got 2gb (4x512mb) of THIS Kingmax pc3500 "turbo" ram and it wont do even 1mhz over 200fsb - even with extra voltage and loose timings. At 200fsb itl run 2-3-3-7 happily tho. Adjusting these at 5:4 deosnt increase stability. What i want to know is - what the hell is my ram??? I know its not bh5 or bh6 - what is it? i darent give it more than 2.8v at the mo cos i dont know what chips it uses. Would it be worth for my p4 system just selling this 2gb and getting 1gb pc4000 or 4400 of OCZ or corsair?
So what are these stupid ram chips???
Thanks

TG
 
are there heat spreaders on the chips? if not post what the chips say or even better post a pic on here. If they don't do pc 3500 speeds or 217 fsb at the rated timings then you can rma them. Also i would try just using 1 gb to see if maybe just one of the sticks is a problem. try switching them all out to see if it makes a difference.

edit: king max generally uses there own chips on their sticks so it would probably be a kingmax branded Ic.
 
sadly the ram has heatspreaders on it which i aint gonna take off cos i wana be able to maybe rma them to kingmax under their lifetime warranty. Own brand chips??? no wonder this stuff sucks - wish id got a better brand now but i needed the sheer amount....
 
I'd try running @ cas 2.5 or 3 before discounting it. If you want something that will do 250 fsb with decent timings for cheap, try picking up some Kingston Value Ram pc 2700 with hynix bt d43 chips on it. I have a gig of it running 250 2.5-3-3-11 @ 2.8v on a dfi lan party amd platform so 260 or so on an intel would be realistic.
 
snvpa said:
I'd try running @ cas 2.5 or 3 before discounting it. If you want something that will do 250 fsb with decent timings for cheap, try picking up some Kingston Value Ram pc 2700 with hynix bt d43 chips on it. I have a gig of it running 250 2.5-3-3-11 @ 2.8v on a dfi lan party amd platform so 260 or so on an intel would be realistic.

wow those are nice timings, seems hynix newer binned stuff is capable of lower latencies. as for vrkryl try each stick seperately at cas 3-4-4-8
 
Have you tried running just two sticks of it?

I know some boards take issue when you try to run 4 sticks of anything.

As a sidenote, the Kingmax memory I have doesn't overclock hardly at all. (10mhz overclock on a good day)
 
I agree flapper, give those timings a shot to see if it works at its rated speed. My guess is there is a bad stick or two in there messing things up. While kingmax ram isn't the best I've always found it to provide decent Ocing. Also the timings i gave with the hynix is running 2x256 and 1x512 in dual channel. With just the 256 in dual channel I can get up to 258 before my board craps out.
 
Ok today il try swapping these sticks around and see if that helps - what i dont understand is that at 5:4 i only wan em to run at 200fsb, but i dont think they can even manage that - either that or my cpu is a real bad OCer [looks worried]
 
ok iv got 1gb (2x512) of my ram working at 5:4 250fsb/200 - and they only work in specific slots, if i swap either of the 2 that currently work over it wont boot into windows. If i put any combination of the others in too it wont boot into windows - only these 2 sticks work. The only timings theyll work at like this is 3-4-4-8.....so i can guess its my ram holding me back big time....
I took the heatspreader off one of the sticks, ill post pics in a minute.

edit - the 2 sticks running at 5:4 turned out to be very unstable at anything except windows, and after working initailly wouldnt boot into windows again (unless i gave the cpu 1.7v, which i wont do for more than a minute), but appear to be fine at 3:2 @2.8v 3-4-4-8
 
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here are the promised pictures, there is also a comparison shot of the 2 different types of ram i have - all are kingmax badged pc3500 turbo, but one of the 3 sticks is green and smaller than the others....
I couldnt get the heatspreaders off the red sticks unfortunately, but i think theyre all esentially the same.

2 ram sizes:
2_ram_sizes.jpg


without the heatspreader:
ram_up_close.jpg


*edit*
having hated running at 3:2 (laggy as hell in windows but stable at 250fsb 3.5ghz) i decided to put all 4 sticks back in and decided to see what i could do 1:1 and am currently running 220fsb at 1:1, [email protected] 2.08ghz, memory at 2.8v 3-4-4-8..... maybe its my cpu thats cr@ppy and wont do 3.5ghz......what do you guys think? i can still rma it and get a 3ghz p4C as a replacement
 
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u must isolate and test each component seperately otherwise u cant determine what is failing. this is not a fast process.test ur cpu first with a 3/2 ratio. once that is done then u can test ur ram. (each stick seperately)
 
my cpu will run prime stable at 250fsb 3:2 (cpu@ 1.625v) with only 1gb of ram - iv discovered this in the last few days, tho only today did i isolate which 2 sticks cause instability. I have 2 that will run rock solid, and 2 that are letting me down. None of them will run 250fsb@ 5:4 at any voltage that is safe. All of them will run 220fsb @1:1 (cpu 1.625v) and counting....
 
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