MUSHKIN 2gb REDLINE PC4000 InSide!

Quote:

Originally Posted by ben805

Some of those Ballistix could be faulty or defective...no doubt about it, but after reading all those so called 'ballistix problems' reported at dfi-street it appears that MOST of them are caused by:
1)Incorrect memory setting (tref, drive/data strength, etc)
2)excessive overclocking and high vdimm for extended period of time
3)cheap PSU
4)bad memory controller
5)insufficient vcore
6)no active cooling of any kind
7)faulty mobo
And how many of them actually have the guts to admit it was due to user error? :lol:

Question would be: why don't they blow up OCZ, G.Skill or Geil RAM?

Let's do your list:

- Incorrect memory setting: most publish their settings and they look OK. Generally wrong timings tend do fail quickly. Also, this wouldn't explain why so many sticks fail with a delay of a few weeks

- overvolting: I only see reports that higher volts are useless. Unlikely that these people permanently ran chips at high volts when not needed. 2.8 V is what people run them at and what the sticks are rated at

- cheap PSU: certainly not on DFI-Street. They stone you when you come in with something as "crappy" as a Seasonic. It would also be more likely to make the CPU overclock fail, not the RAM.

- insufficient vcore: maybe more likely, but why would the RAM change it's behavior after a few weeks or months?

- active cooling: shouldn't be required (but apparently is)

- faulty mobo: well as I said my Ballistix stick failed in three boards, DFI and Asus. Also, people seem to be fine when they replace the Ballistix with other RAM.

Hate to say but a manufacturing defect is most likely when a lot of people report that sticks bought around the same time now fail at the same time some weeks or months later.

It looks like they go a bad charge of some component on the sticks (not neccessarily the chips themself) that degrade after a couple hundred hours use. Connection to heat is likely.

Quote:

why don't they blow up OCZ, G.Skill or Geil RAM?

erm, dude, i hate to say it but people do...
s*** class has finished :P:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Cracauer

Question would be: why don't they blow up OCZ, G.Skill or Geil RAM?

Simple, more people own the 2GB ballistix than say 2GB OCZ, GSkill or any other brand. Just like more OC'er own the DFI NF4 than Asus or Abit NF4 so the failure rate of DFI is going to appear to be higher.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Cracauer

Let's do your list:

- Incorrect memory setting: most publish their settings and they look OK. Generally wrong timings tend do fail quickly. Also, this wouldn't explain why so many sticks fail with a delay of a few weeks
.

'Look ok'.....heh....that's the problem! go to DFI street and type in Ballistix in search and read atleast half of those threads that reports having problem, you'll find lots of them are clueless as to what tref should be set, auto is recommended but there's quite a few value also help stability....such as 0780, there's lots of combination of settings in the timing section can be plain dangerous to mess with regardless what ram you use, heh...go ahead and try to play with the trp, twr, twtr and trtw....set them to the lowest value along with low trfc and MAL and see what happen....better yet...play with those settings under windows with the A64Tweaker for instant feedback and result! just be sure you have original package handy to pack them up for RMA. ;)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Cracauer

- overvolting: I only see reports that higher volts are useless. Unlikely that these people permanently ran chips at high volts when not needed. 2.8 V is what people run them at and what the sticks are rated at

are you for real? :lol: common...let's be honest here, people don't buy these ballistix to run at stock speed as you can save a bunch of $$$ with cheap value ram, you get these because you're hoping to overclock as high as possible and max them out, so instead of finding the right combination of memory timing what would be the easiest thing to do? that's right...ramping up the vdimm in hope for stability!! as I said before...not everyone willing to share that in the public as it also void the warranty immediately, in case you didn't know...there's a crucial tech support in that forum replying people's post so what would you have done if you're trying to RMA? tell him oh yea you'd overclock the crap out of these sticks and fed 3.0v but now it ain't working anymore even after you'd back it down to 2.7v? :D

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Cracauer

- insufficient vcore: maybe more likely, but why would the RAM change it's behavior after a few weeks or months?

ballistix is not the only ram to have such behavior, obviously you haven't play with enough ram to noticed it, the degrading or sudden death syndrome also happened to Mushkin Redline, Gskill TCCD and other ram. ;)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Cracauer

- cheap PSU: certainly not on DFI-Street. They stone you when you come in with something as "crappy" as a Seasonic. It would also be more likely to make the CPU overclock fail, not the RAM.

it could be power related, you'll be surprise how many people overlook the PSU requirement to power their entire system, just run the OCCT test and look at the 3/5/12v rails and see any significant fluctuation...dip or spike.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Cracauer

- active cooling: shouldn't be required (but apparently is)

It's a common sense type of thing or perhaps personal preference I guess....if one would invest in a cpu, gpu, or case cooling....why wouldn't you use a cheap case fan to cool your ram regardless what ram it is and whether they need it or not? why do people buy car/health/home insurance anyway... :D

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Cracauer

- faulty mobo: well as I said my Ballistix stick failed in three boards, DFI and Asus. Also, people seem to be fine when they replace the Ballistix with other RAM.

Hate to say but a manufacturing defect is most likely when a lot of people report that sticks bought around the same time now fail at the same time some weeks or months later.

It looks like they go a bad charge of some component on the sticks (not neccessarily the chips themself) that degrade after a couple hundred hours use. Connection to heat is likely.

Don't get me wrong, it is very possible or I should say more than likely that crucial had a defective batch, but have you ask yourself how many other ballistix user out there do not have those problem? and yes...I honestly think Crucial should strongly recommend buyer to use active cooling on these 2GB sticks (like Mushkin Redline did on user manual and package)....no arguement there, but I think Crucial have lifetime warrant on these sticks so if mine happen to go belly up in the future I'll just keep RMA them until OCZ, Mushkin or Gskill comes up with something better to put the ballistix in its place :D this sort of competition will only benefit us...the consumer.

Ummmm what's all this got to do with Mushkin Redline PC4000?

-pickles

absolutly nothing, just that ive seen a crap load of faliures, also hardforum is down?