Runnining my redLine at 3.3v with my OCZ booster/K8N Neo2 cooled with a desk top fan. They were working fine, I powered down to go to work and apon returning home my PC wouldn't boot. Booth sticks bad.
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Runnining my redLine at 3.3v with my OCZ booster/K8N Neo2 cooled with a desk top fan. They were working fine, I powered down to go to work and apon returning home my PC wouldn't boot. Booth sticks bad.
test one stick at a time with memtest and see if you can find the bad one.
Both sticks bad. PC wont boot at all. Slap some good old Bh5 in and wiz bang pc boots. I'll be getting ahold of Mushkin for RMA # monday.
just thought I would let some others know as most of the deaths seem to be coming from the DFI boards.
Thanks for that :D As I have said many times, I cant see it being a board issue, more ppl using NONE DFI boards with high volts would be good.
I suspect the Ram company are going to get stung on this. Life time warranty :clap:
if we see more and more issues like this where the UTT/CH chips keep getting fried on different mobo within the recommended vdimm, then we can guaranteed UTT chips is to blame.
Make sure stickers and spreaders intact ;) Not even rma testing will be done if those things peeled/took off.
Just figured out tonight that my DFI has killed too one stick from my RedLine kit :(
I'm sure MUSHKIN will treat you guys right....
C
no worries. we will take care of it. Just call us monday.
Duonger
its not mushkin's fault, it's just proof why these winbond UTT's suck
I guess these chips just aren't capable of running high voltages for extended periods of time the way BH-5 were.Quote:
Originally Posted by poiuy223
Quote:
Originally Posted by HiJon89
How about the booster?Quote:
its not mushkin's fault, it's just proof why these winbond UTT's suck
I dunno, a lot of people have run the booster for a long time without problems, but an overwhelming percentage of people with UTT based products have had sticks die on them.Quote:
Originally Posted by sparkie34
i wonder if using a booster to get "cleaner" power to the ram would extend the life of these sticks, and then on the other hand maybe this is just a fluke, maybe there are only a few "bad" kits out there and this isnt typical.
yes i am curious as to which is the cause also. we have had our pair runing 24x7 for 3 months now at 265 without a hickup. we have been comparing most of our testing to this particular set. i will talk to DFI monday and get some more boards in house as well as some ddr boosters to test and see. i will also have other utt chips tested too.
Duonger
Quote:
Originally Posted by sparkie34
Booster might explain the Neo2 situation, but not the multiple DFI occurrences. Its also happened to at least a couple of people that I know using TwinMOS Speed Premiums and DFI NF4 boards.
If you think about this logically, what is the one common component that is UnTesTed in all of this? As the old, but time-proven saying goes...a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Its too early yet to lay the blame, but its not too early to have suspects.
edit:
Duonger,
In the case of the thread starter, as well as one of the cases that I am personally aware of the common thread was that in both cases the boards were shut down, then later restarted. You've just stated that you guys are running one 24/7 without issues.
Is there any chance that the problem could be caused by the sudden surge of high voltage when the boards are restarted?
Maybe as part of your testing you might want to consider having one rig that gets shut down and restarted, with timed intervals of run and down time simulating a non 24/7 useage pattern.
sounds good to me, jeez you guys at mushkin dont mess around.Quote:
Originally Posted by Duonger
I had VX die on my DFI 3 I also know of 2 others that had them die on a NONE DFI 4 boards.
There is no way its voltage spike taking out RAM, if you remember when ppl where have Memory controller deaths on the shuttle boards, this was due to voltage spikes.
There was no/little cases of RAM deaths just on die controllers going down. So ppl are suggesting that the Spikes are large enough to take out the RAM but not the Memory controller :slap:
Its pretty obvious that the vast majority of deaths will be on DFI4 baords as its the only board that offers such volts out the box, it is also by far and away the board of choice for extreme users.
maybe DFI should examine their voltage delivery systems, would a line filtering UPS help?
That is XTREMELY good point :toast:Quote:
Originally Posted by jiff
Everybody thinks that DFI kills mems. But few seem to stand aside, look at the situation and realize that 95% of folks we hear about here with UTT are on DFI NF4. So no wonder, they jump to conclusion that DFI kills as nobody else runs anything else that DFI NF4. It's great that we have more feedback from different boards (my 2 sets of UTT died on Neo2, too). More and more information like that will open other's eyes a bit wider ;)
while these UTT memory do die in DFI boards, i highly doubt its a DFI problem. it's not a memory maker problem either. it's the IC's. there's a reason why they're so cheap. it's untested so actual quality is unknown. if they do run for a long period of time, be happy. if they die, dont be surprised or angry.
overclockers love it because its cheap and does what we want. but if you want stability and reliability, UTT is at the bottom of the list. i personally stick to micron or samsung based memory. they overclock and they actually live
These UTT deaths are extremely perplexing. I suppose that it could be due to a number of factors, but it is in my honest oppinion that these untested Winbond dies simply are not up to par with the older Ch-5/Bh-5 sticks. Perhaps I could be way off, but I certainly think that there was a very good reason that low latency was hard to find for some period.
deception``
Thanks Reefa. I will have this simulated also and see what happens.Quote:
Originally Posted by Reefa_Madness
Duonger
You guys crack me up, there has been plenty of people with "old" Winbond and even TCCD going bad on DFI board, yet everytime this issue comes up there is always someone claiming that this only effects UTT. Go check 2 threads on this issue in AMD sections if you care.
PS. Does anyone know how which rail does Abit AN8 Fatality SLI board is using to power DIMMs?
I'm also of the strong opinion that the UTT memory IC is to blame here.
As bachus has said, the UTT memory ICs do not undergo testing for any sort of integrity/performance standard after fabrication. BH-5 did go through such testing immediately after fabrication, which would explain why it seems to be 'hardier'. The "bad" BH-5 ICs were tossed into the trash, and never hit the market.
Basically, the company fabricating UTT is completely defeating the yield problem, by removing any standard of integrity or operation from their product. By doing this, every single UTT memory IC makes its way into the market, yields be damned. In times past, yields could cripple a company's profits, when a percentage of the part being fabricated was discarded, and not sold.
A similar trend has occured with Samsung, and their TCC5 part. Instead of testing all of their TCC5 memory ICs to a DD500 standard of operation and integrity, Samsung now only tests them to a DDR466 standard. TCC5 is identical to TCCd, except for the different standard of operation/integrity after fabrication. Thus, with TCC5, more of the memory ICs pass testing, and make it to the market than with TCCD, due to laxer standards.
This recent trend in the memory industry of removing or compromising standards of integrity/operation in order to sell a higher percentage of the memory ICs is somewhat troubling.
While the UTT that we buy in 'enthusiast' RAM sticks has been speed binned to operate at high speeds, it hasn't neccessarily been tested for long-term integrity at high voltages, as BH-5 likely was.
jiff, I agree, the DFI nForce4 board is likely not the issue here - almost everyone who is running UTT in a high voltage environment in the first place, uses a DFI nForce4 motherboard, this heavily skews our sample-base of UTT memory death.
I made a thread on this topic on OCF, some of you mught find it interesting: http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=389451
I have sent this link to the DFI Product manager and will speak with him hopefully tomorrow or the next day when he is back from Taipei.Quote:
Originally Posted by Disposibleteen
Duonger
I'm glad that you find the honest pursuit of answers humourous :)Quote:
You guys crack me up, there has been plenty of people with "old" Winbond and even TCCD going bad on DFI board, yet everytime this issue comes up there is always someone claiming that this only effects UTT. Go check 2 threads on this issue in AMD sections if you care.
Count how many UTT deaths we have on our hands. Count how many BH-5/BH-6 deaths we have on our hands.
Which number is overwhelmingly larger?
We must always expect some memory to die, regardless of what IC type it uses. But when a very large amount of memory that uses a specific IC type starts dying, and a trend starts to form, it is logical to blame the specific IC type.
Poiuy223Quote:
Originally Posted by poiuy223
Once we buy these Untested Chips it is US who do the testing and binning for specific yeild rates. So there is testing involve at the TSOP level.
Duonger
But can you honestly say that you guys test them same way that ICs fabs are doing it? I mean, testing them in the 70C ovens, at different voltages for EXTENDED periods of time?Quote:
Originally Posted by Duonger
I just think that testing standards that fabs use vs modules mfrs are much different. I would be more than happy if I saw any rep (OCZ, Mushkin, Gskill, etc) rep tell us what is the actual testing procedure that they're using and how different it is and efficient in finding bad ICs.
I auusme that when they're saying hand-tested, that means they use those memory testers, like RAMCHECK or sth similar. If so, then this is not exactly same standard as fabs use. At least, from what I know... I will stand corrcted if anyone can provide better insight ;)
It seems to be the case, but cowpuppy fed them only 3.3v....and the recommended vdimm is up to 3.5v so I don't think high vdimm causes it.Quote:
Originally Posted by HiJon89
agreed, mushkin have excellent customer supports!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Disposibleteen
I don't know if Mushkin test these UTT chips the same way as BH5 at the lab but one thing I know for sure is, if your sticks died they'll ship a new pair to you....warranty is good as long as you didn't take off the heatspreader and didn't overvolt the hell out of them and got them fried due to user error. Hell, it's a 'limited' lifetime warranty so if my sticks died again, just send me another pair! lol :DQuote:
Originally Posted by bachus_anonym
Actually we do do test these modules beyond industry standards. They are tested at ranges of -40 degress celsuis to +85 degrees celcius. We also screen our modules in environmental and accelerated life tests as well as software analysis tests.Quote:
Originally Posted by bachus_anonym
I can go into more but there is a lot of testing that we do to ensuer quality control on our components as well as modules.
Hey Tom, glad to know that they were being tested beyond the industry standards!! but can you please tell us more as to what else you guys put them through in order to passed the mushkin standard?Quote:
Originally Posted by Duonger
but geewizz...tested at +85'C!! :worship: :worship:
@Duonger,
That's great to hear, Tom.
But don't you think that UTT ICs-based sticks seem to have a higher failure rate than BH-5 or TCCD. I've had various BH-5 sticks, had some UTTs, still have some TCCD; and I gotta tell ya - I've never seen sooo many dead sticks, until UTT showed up.
I know that may be a good business-model to buy cheaper UTT, be able to replace them in case the go bad and still be "above-the-red". But that looks pretty bad from our point of view. I know that in that case warranty and customer service has to be beefed up, because I tell you what I think: Mushkin and other companies are going to need it, probably more than before ;)
That's my conclusion also... Bottom of the barrel...Quote:
Originally Posted by poiuy223
No garantee UTT will be stable/reliable . It remains to be seen how long these sticks are gonna hold up.
Lots of horrorstories regarding UTT that's for sure.
I'm gonna try some Ballistix if I can find them here.
Well obviously there are going to be more UTT cases, because that is what selling lately. "Old" Winbond chips haven't been selling for a while, thus the name "old" :). And most of the people who owned them had 256MB sticks, so they probably don't want to use them nowdays anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by felinusz
The point is, it is not only UTT that is dying on these boards, yet everytime we start discussing this people start claiming that it is.
can you guys point me to most of these cases. I havent heard of them till this post. Can you direct me to other posts?
We have been testing these UTT for 3 months now. why do u think we took so long to release our parts.
Please enlighten me as i will try to test and find out if it is chips, boards, booster or combination of both or all three.
Duonger
Very important, read it before you kill your RAMQuote:
Originally Posted by Duonger
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...ad.php?t=59414
My DFI has flatlined my redline....
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...ad.php?t=64720
DFI NF4 the UTT/VX/BH5 KILLER READ IF YOU HAVE DFI
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...ad.php?t=62804
DFI Admits 5Volt Vdimm Problem
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...ad.php?t=63932
Cold boot issues on DFI, i need testers
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...ad.php?t=63715
On GOT (dutch forum) i've read several horror stories.
http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/...s/1039273/last
It's in Dutch , but maybe some of the guys wil reply here
i cant speak for everyone of course, but from all the memory reviews i've done over at insanetek, NONE of the TCCD have died on the dfi board. i've already had 2 kits of utt poop out. one from ocz and one from mushkin. duonger, im getting in touch with lee tomorrow. i understand that memory makers do test the chips before they use it. of course they have to. otherwise they wont be able to keep up with rmas. thing is, that kind or level of testing is not the same as the IC maker. its pinpointing down to better chips, but not totally wiping out the bad ones that may just accidentally slide by.Quote:
Originally Posted by hovo73
i personally just dont like utt. i LOVE the performance but the death rate is high, not to mention the need for voltage. benching, WRs, overclocking, i'd use it in a split second. 24/7, dont even think about it.
i believe the abit sli should use 5v. i'm finding out.
Check the threads in tictac's links (two messages up), especially 3-rd and 4-th.Quote:
Originally Posted by poiuy223
well yes of course tccd's die, but like someone else mentioned in this thread, which IC dies more? tccd has been out for a long time now. utt has been out for less than a year. weigh the two. there is a reason behind it.Quote:
Originally Posted by hovo73
Hmmm .... DFI has been out less than a year too ...Quote:
Originally Posted by poiuy223
I am not arguing about percentages, I am simply pointing out that the claim that "only UTT dies" is not accurate and in fact counter productive in trying to pin point the problem.
I contend that the nForce4 board was a rushed product and a witches brew of bad hardware here and there. My nForce3 DFI board has been running UTT at 3.2v like no tomorrow without any issues. Nobody is reporting the 250GB-UT killing UTT ;)
Fair enough. And indeed, it is **NOT** just UTT that is dying.Quote:
Hmmm .... DFI has been out less than a year too ...
I am not arguing about percentages, I am simply pointing out that the claim that "only UTT dies" is not accurate and in fact counter productive in trying to pin point the problem.
One way to look at it, is that it doesn't matter. Run your sticks under 3.5V, and they're under warranty.
If they die, return them for a fresh set.
So, in one sense it isn't even an issue because of excellent warranty coverage.
[QUOTE=Duonger,
In the case of the thread starter, as well as one of the cases that I am personally aware of the common thread was that in both cases the boards were shut down, then later restarted. You've just stated that you guys are running one 24/7 without issues.
Is there any chance that the problem could be caused by the sudden surge of high voltage when the boards are restarted?
Maybe as part of your testing you might want to consider having one rig that gets shut down and restarted, with timed intervals of run and down time simulating a non 24/7 useage pattern.[/QUOTE]
This is exactly how mine died
Erm yes they are I have had a stick die, I also know of 2 others :slap:Quote:
Originally Posted by robberbaron
any kind of memory will be found die-able (is that a word???) in any motherboard. it just so happens that dfi actually supplies the voltage. im just saying that UTT dies more often than others because there's no assurance at the IC fab level
Are there any users with Abit AN8 SLI Fatality? It would be really interesting to see what is their experience with UTT with up to 3.55 VDIMM.
at this point, im tempted to buy one.
I have a feeling that if everyone used DDR Boosters, we'd have an epidemic of high voltage memory death "because of the boosters" as well. 8-/
To an extent, voltage is voltage. If there aren't any spikes (and voltage spikes would likely kill the A64 memory controller before memory anyhow, as someone wisely pointed out), then the voltage supply isn't the issue, it's the high voltage itself (current density, heat as a by-product of high-overvolts, potential immediate damage to transistors, etc.).
I hope some more detailed information presents itself soon. It is excellent to hear that Mushkin and other memory companys thoroughly test their UTT ICs, and even better to hear that the industry is persuing these problems :).
I think its funny how people forgets blaming DDR booster when it came out for killing memory. This is a little more intricate than just blaming memory.
Now, explain me how I managed to get 4 sticks of Blue that died at same time? Now, there are few things I DID notice that would kill memory controller of earlier A64 (not sure about venice and winchesters). Run high volt memory on direct vdimm cap modded mobo with Enermax PSU (pre-noisetaker) or PC&P 510 Dlx. Just let it run for a while after you find your initial max memory speed stable. Keep running it few days and see how your memory overclocking decreases... (it's slowly killing your CPU's on die memory controller) Friend killed about 4-6 Fx-55 over time to find out which PSUs were doing it with direct vdimm mod. Blasphamy? (considering we have PC&P 510 Dlx devouts here as well). No as I was able to reproduce it.
Now here comes important thing I am thinking on cause of these death. Not all PSU is designed equal (of course not) and under certain circumstances, it might conflict with the design of MOBO to deliver the voltage. (remember MSI neo2 cold boot issue?)
It could be entirely problem with DFI, or combination of DFI and certain PSU, or... combination of above 2 + memory. Bottom line is, it is not Winbond UTT alone that is causing this problem. 4 Sticks dying together... sure... I had 4 bad sticks of UTT at EXACT SAME time? What are the astronomical chance?
excellent point jinu117
@jinu117
First UTT showed up in OCers' rigs at the beginning of Dec 2004. At that time I had Neo2 with a Booster. I had run 2 sets of BH-5 (KHX and Mushkin) @ up to 3.9v in it and 3.7v for 24/7 operation + 2 sets of UTT (VX) @ up to 3.7v and 3.5v for 24/7 operation. Guess what died - VX... both of them within 5 weeks.
Then I switched to DFI NF4 + 4v feed. So far I used only those 2 kits of BH-5 in it. They are still alive @ up to 3.95v and 3.80v for 24/7 operation.
This leads me to believe that it's not the mobo that is killing sticks. I used same PSU on both mobos - 20-pin Fortron 530W.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jinu117
OUCH.. BAM.. THANK YOU.
Duonger :toast:
A lot of interesting points. Troubleshooting these issues seem hard, and I share the view that it's superb that companies actually persue them.
As long as the killed components are covered by warranty it's no problem for us.
If decisive answers comes up on this memory death issue - LOL - maybe we'll even start seeing companies warranting their components kills on other manufacturers components?
Buy a DFI board, and have DFI replace your dimms when they get killed by the board!
Bleee, Im tired. Subscribed though :)
things like this make it hard to figure outwhos killing thier stuff and whos getting deaths because of other issues, my theory is this.
With all of the random DFI deaths, it seems like some of these boards are jewels, and others are cheap, seems to me that if you have a good board you wont have any problems with it killing things, but my theory is that the random deaths arent the only quality problems with these boards, and many may have gotten bad apples that will end up killing thier ram, just look at how some can run tons of volts for endless amounts of time and others can kill several sticks of varying IC's...
I dont think the IC is at fault here, while im sure many have died from high volts, id say its likely that just as many have died from a quality problem with the DFI's, especially for those people that have stuff dieing below 3.5v
Maybe just maybe the ppl that can, arent removing the sticks with power still being feed to M/B.Quote:
Originally Posted by Revv23
Maybe just maybe the ppl that can, arent flashing bios with jumper 17 on 5 volts and 3.3+ still being fed to ram.
Maybe just maybe the ppl that can, arent pumping 3.6+ 24/7 through there sticks.
Maybe just maybe the ppl that can, arent using 5v j17 but only using 3.2volts.
Maybe just maybe the ppl that can, arent using a case that has zero airflow and doubles as a Central Heating unit.
Maybe
Just a thought, A complete do and dont guide made as a sticky might be a good idea :stick:
guys, i just got my UTT back alive after 4 or 5 days flat lined
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...ad.php?t=65035
this is interesting...
a guide may be nice, but you said it yourself, maybe the people that can arent using the 5v jumper, which would denote a problem with the board, and many run over 3.6v 24/7, which is the point of my post.Quote:
Originally Posted by jiff
all a guide would need to say is to keep airflow good and how to flash bios without killing ram, and that i am sorry to say doesnt seem to be the greatest cause of these problems.
You would also want to add a cautionary note to be sure that Vmem was off before removing/swapping sticks (it is applied with the MB off in some cases). Verify by checking the Vmem LED nestled next to the yellow slot closest to the CPU.
Peace :toast:
Were you running with the 5v jumper enabled?Quote:
Originally Posted by cowpuppy
there is no +5 on MSI NEO. he was using the booster.Quote:
Originally Posted by DriveEuro
Yeah, silly me. I got confused when he said this:
I forgot the problematic setup was an MSI.Quote:
just thought I would let some others know as most of the deaths seem to be coming from the DFI boards.
Sorry I havn't gotten back with everyone, I didn't relize the size of the thread until today.
Well I called Mushkin today and a kind lady got every thing taken care of for me and I recieved my RMA#.
After getting home today I tried each stick individualy and they both sticks booted. so then i tried both sticks and no boot. Currantly I am doing some booster repairs and will get back with every body on whats going on.
I repaired a old booster that I knew the pot went bad on. Agian niether stick will boot. I tried different fsb's and different voltages and it all ends up with the cmos alarming about the mem.
I decideded to swap boosters only after I tried the 1st time to boot with 2 sticks and noticed for the 1st time the voltage was wacked on the booster. I probably has a faulty pot also. It seemed to run my BH5@ 3.5v 265fsb no problems
We will be posting something soon to help answer questions about dead memory and cold boot.
Duonger
I'm not sure whats going on with this mem. I agian was able to get one stick to boot, but only after booting it with one stick of BH5 and then shuting down and inserting the redline. I was able to run hexus_pi fast, so I shut down the pc and tried running both sticks and was greated with the cmos alarm. Now it wont boot with one stick agian.
I have no problems booting with any mem I have here except the redline.
Strange...My Mushkin Blue chugging along fine :D even its an utt too like red :confused:
...waiting official statement from Mushkin USA.... :sofa:Quote:
Originally Posted by Duonger
All
http://forums.mushkin.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=1982
This is the 1st of it. we will post a formal and more thorough bulletin tomorrow.
Duonger
Duonger: This is great advise for the newb's........but I'm a Vet and I've probably forgoten more about PC's than you even know. My mem moduals were in from the day I recieved them and were never removed untill I started having problems.
It maybe a start/shut down issue that is causings the deaths, but thats how it is here at my house. My pc runs when I'm here at the house if I leave for any amount of time I shut down in case of a power outage, where my Mach2 would start agian when the power came back on freezing my CPU/MB.
I'm back to using My Mushkin Blk LV2 BH5 at 3.5v 265fsb as I was before I bought the redline with out any problems.
Don't shift the blame to the custemers.
fyi, there are also dead rams on yellow slots too....Quote:
Originally Posted by Duonger
This is just a brief help guide that Ian wrote up. We will be posting a more thorough one shortly.
Duonger
Probly redline spd should be programmed @2-3-2 so it can post with lower voltage, but then it will be the same like blue mushkin which rarely got a cold bug...
Any Official statement yet... :sofa:Quote:
Originally Posted by Duonger
If thing get worse and..... more & more memory die... will Mushkin stop Redline production line... ? :(
lol... why would they stop production if it's the MOBO that are killing sticks, lol...Quote:
Originally Posted by tictac
If I was Mushkin I wouldn't care what was killing the sticks, if it was the mobo or the sticks it wouldn't matter, all that would matter to me is that I'm losing a lot of money in RMA's and I'd stop production.Quote:
Originally Posted by charlie
Is it now? Has that been established for sure? There has been a pletora of threads here and elswhere about this topic, some blamed the board, some blamed UTT, some blamed the users, and some were just waiting to see if there is going to be a difinitive answer to this. Has there been one?Quote:
Originally Posted by charlie
PS. I keep asking this question, have there been any instances of UTT sticks dying on new Abit AN8 Fatility SLI with its 3.55 VDIMM? And which rail does it power the DIMMs from?