Gskill ram problem.

[Mysteryous]

My gskill ram (pc3-10666) is causing lockups during gameplay. I believe it is also the reason for not being able to boot any ubuntu live session either. I found that this problem isn't rare, but I cant find any good solutions. How can I fix this?

(new) specs:

Gigabyte ga-ma790xt-ud4p mobo
4GB g.skill pc3 10666 ram
AMD Phenom II x3 (2.6GHz)
Ati x800 (temporary till my 4850 gets here)

Increasing the voltage to 1.65v seems to make it less stable.
I would like to exhaust all options before I consider RMA.

[neoz]

Maybe try to install RAM in a different channel (slots)? Also, 1.65v seems a little bit too high for PC3-10666, 1.5v should be enough already (if you're running those at CL9).
Anyway, for me I wouldn't RMA those ram before I can confirm the problem by running couple hours of Memtest86+...

[gingerbee]

check your timings. that will throw a monkey wrench in to things pretty quick

[Mysteryous]

Right now the timings are sitting at default 9-9-9-24. I never OC'd before, but im pretty sure thats not optimal. I've been thinking if i could changed it to something like 8-8-8-20 to see if it would be more stable. If you have suggestions, I would be glad to hear.

Also memtest 86+ found no errors, even after I left it running for 8 hours straight.

[lsorense]

Ehm, you do know that 8-8-8-20 is a lot faster timings than 9-9-9-24 and would in fact make it a lot less stable, right? The timings is how many clock cycles certain operations take to complete, so more clock cycles means more time for the ram to do the job correctly.

This is why you see higher timing numbers on faster clocked ram. After all 8 clock cycles at 1000mhz is a lot more time than 10 clock cycles at 1600mhz, and it simply takes time for the electronics in the ram to do their thing. More expensive super fast ram is just made that much better and to be faster at responding to allow lower timings.

[HuttFuzz]

Originally Posted by lsorense

Ehm, you do know that 8-8-8-20 is a lot faster timings than 9-9-9-24 and would in fact make it a lot less stable, right? The timings is how many clock cycles certain operations take to complete, so more clock cycles means more time for the ram to do the job correctly.

This is why you see higher timing numbers on faster clocked ram. After all 8 clock cycles at 1000mhz is a lot more time than 10 clock cycles at 1600mhz, and it simply takes time for the electronics in the ram to do their thing. More expensive super fast ram is just made that much better and to be faster at responding to allow lower timings.

Basically if you tighten up your timings, stability issues will increase. If it boots at all. Problems with ram are frequent, i had to RMA my last Crucial Ballistix ddr2-800. Nothing i could do.

Run Memtest86+ first and see if it gives you errors.

[gingerbee]

timings seem fine so check voltage that's all i would do ( are sure ram is the problem ) memtest pass so
( nice clocks hotfuzz on the d0 i7 chip)
sorry just seen that you pushed it all the way to 1.65 maybe it needs more have not run ddr3 on anything then i7 so ( i7 max for ram is 1.65 ) not sure what max safe for that is

[Mysteryous]

Sorry for not getting back so soon, i've had my own graduation to clean up for.

So here's what I have figured out:
Changing the the timings to 8-8-8-22 made it more stable, but still unsuitable for gaming. (was able to play for about 10 min before lockup as opposed to 3-4 min)
I recently learned that the x800 I'm using had similar issues in my brothers old pc, in which the same thing happened. His pc, however had an onboard video chipset.
My new video card will be in my hands this weekend, so I'm holding out hope that it's the video card.
Internet surfing now is sketchy at best as my pc will randomly lock up while surfing.
I reinstalled all MB & video drivers, to no avail.
Ubuntu live (from usb) still won't load and ubuntu live (from cd) still locks up.
Memtest 86+ still checks out with no errors.

That is all I have for now.

[Mysteryous]

As it turns out, most of my problems are fixed with the arrival of the new video card. My system seems to not like Ubuntu 9.04 though, as when I try to install any video driver, my computer bugs out and becomes unusable when I restart it. More on that in another topic.