E6600 on a P5B DLX. Not primestable at 320fsb, Bad Ram?

Ive got a Asus p5b mainboard with a E6600 processor. My RAM is 2GB kit of GEIL PC6400 rated for 4-4-4-12.

My problem is as in my topic that i get an error in prime after some time. The first time i did it i gave my ram stock volt and it lasted about 10 min without error. The next time i put up the voltage to 2.1 which should be what my chips are rated for, but i still got a error after about 50 minutes. My timings are set by SPD and are like 5-6-6-18.

I tought my ram should be fine till atleast i reach 400fsb, since theyre rated for that. Does this mean i got a bad set or something, and that i should get a refund?

Edit:
Ok i just tried to take the fsb to 333 and prime it again. Now i get a error after a couple of seconds on the "blend - stress cpu and ram" test. If i run the "StressCPU test with Gromacs core" i dont get any errors, atleast not for the 20 mins i tried it.

Does this mean that it deffinatly is the memory thats failing, or could it be something else?

maybe the chip can't handle the speed.. tried lower fsb?

With chip do u mean CPU or MB or what? on stock fsb its primestable for hours, havent run it long enough to get any errors yet atleast.

cpu I mean.

You just guessed that the cpu was stable at 320x9 stock volts??

Well the fact that the Cpu and memory test gives me error, but the CPU test does not is the main reason why i think its the ram. Another reason is that it wont boot if i set timings to 5-5-5-15 in bios

It's likely the memory. You probably need to adjust some settings in the BIOS. Try running with just one stick to see if you can overclock better.

This is almost *exactly* the situation I'm in right now. See my thread for more detailed info.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=112356

Try check with CPU-Z what the timings in windows are. Might be 3-3-3 or so since the 533 SPD setting is used.

What BIOS are you using? If you are using 507, have you tried using 502? I've had much better results with 502.

You need to play with the bios yourself, that's what overclocking is all about. Putting in the time and effort to try settings yourself.

Yea well, I think the P5B-D is picky about memory which causes all sorts of problems. No amount of tweaking will allow me to use the 507 bios, and with the 502 bios I'm limited to 375 fsb with loose memory timings (4-7-7-23)

Bios 0507 is not working for most of the pc6400 rams with 4-4-4-12 timings. 0502 has missed up timings and no matter what you set your timings at it wil always be x-7-7-23, but at least you can overclock the FSB. For the price we paid for this board, Asus should at least release a better bios soon. :mad:

If you suspect a memory problem, you should run Memtest first. This will confirm whether the RAM is the problem.

It's also worth trying other BIOS's because the latest is not always the best, IMO.

Memtest86, or that Windows version of Memtest?

Memtest86 is fine. Prime is a good stability test. But for diagnosing memory issues, Memtest is much better.

Also with Conroe, run dual instances of Prime. There should be seperate folders for each one. Also, set Priority to 9 since that's what most programs run at.

I do believe the newest version of stressprime 2004 uses both cores with one instance of it. Thanks for all the help guys, il try it out.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sierra_bound

Memtest86 is fine. Prime is a good stability test. But for diagnosing memory issues, Memtest is much better.

Also with Conroe, run dual instances of Prime. There should be seperate folders for each one. Also, set Priority to 9 since that's what most programs run at.

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I ran the Windows version of MemTest and I got 16 errors on one of the instances. I took out one stick of ram and so far no errors.

Would that definitely indicate my ram is bad, or could that mean my bios settings are inappropriate? (5 5 5 12 2.05V, DDR 632)

If Memtest is throwing errors with default timings, then it probably means a RAM problem, possibly a bad module.

Andypro: My OCZ Platinum sticks will error with the 507 BIOS, but with the 502 BIOS everything is okay. Then again, the timings are limited to X-7-7-23 instead of 4-5-4-15 :(

Ah, thanks to you both.

I will now run some dual prime on this one stick which appears to be 100% good and see if my results are any better.

Ive tried to run memtest too, i got alot off errors within the first 10 min. Il try the same as Andypro.

One more question though, im having trouble flashing my bios to an older version, cause i havent installed a floppy drive in this computer, and the asus update wont let me flash to an older version. Anyway i can override this?

I use a USB floppy drive I had for my laptop. That's the only way I can go backwards to a different BIOS.

Ive just tried the one stick solution and it didnt help much for me. At 333 fsp with 2 sticks it fails after about 5 sec. With Stick 1 alone it fails after 5 sec. With stich 2 alone it fails after about 1 min and 30 sec:(

The chances of me recieving 2 bad sticks must be pretty slim isnt it? Is it the GEIL ram that is just bad then, cause when i buy 800mhz ram i dont expect them to fail at 333 mhz

Reite: Are you ram timings as loose as they can be in the bios? (5 6 6 18 seems loose enough, though). And how about the voltage? Maybe try bumping that up and see if it's any more stable.

I've been running dual prime large fft for nearly an hour now with no errors on one stick of ram! We could be on to something here!

Ok i just tried the 0502 bios solution, and prime has been running perfectly for 30 mins now at 333fsb haha, il see if it keeps up=)