I have read the reviews over at Newegg about this particular set working for a few weeks then dying out all of a sudden. What's going on, is it just a bad batch? I'm really looking to buy this set but not if it's going to crap out on me.
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I have read the reviews over at Newegg about this particular set working for a few weeks then dying out all of a sudden. What's going on, is it just a bad batch? I'm really looking to buy this set but not if it's going to crap out on me.
I've had two different sets go bad on me, but both were running at 290+ and 2.9v. I'm not real sure if there are any problems with them as long as the Vdimm is kept below 2.8v, IMO its a combination of high mhz and Vdimm that is doing them in.
The dfi-street.com forums have a huge thread on it (and several smaller threads started by write-only members...).
The outcome there was that a bad batch is in circulation and somebody said he knew it was bad PCBs.
Here on XS most people in the 2x 1GB database bought their kits before that bad batch, so the impression is different.
out of the 11 sticks I have received only 1 has kept working after a month, 3 are currently being exchanged right now. Initial order was back in early September and so far is has been an RMAfest :banana: . Wonder how long before they offer me a different brand to try? LOL
ouch.Quote:
Originally Posted by sirkuz
today the Ballistix are a bit crap,
dont think of running them without active cooling, even on stock settings,
and also they max out at 280 (some even worse) and mostly die,
RMAed mine twice in two months!
is this the best that Micron has to offer???:censored:
I see no evidence whatsoever that active cooling improves the situation with apparently > 50% of sticks going bad lately.
It has been hinted that this bad PCBs, cooling the outside of the heatspreaders certainly won't do anything there.
the problem with this is that i have 2x512mb double sided sticks (5b G), which uses the exact same pcb as the 1gb sticks, and it's still running strong after giving it 3-3.1v a few times, and pushing em past 300mhz.. had em for almost 3 weeks now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Martin Cracauer
damn right, -5B G chips are HUGE! they can OC higher, run tighterQuote:
Originally Posted by ozzimark
and can take higher temps and Vdimm than -5B D,
just got those G's 1 week and love'em :banana: ,
I had -5B D before --> died in 3 weeks :(
I've had issues w/ two sets running at stock 250 2.8v, after a while they weren't able to run at those settings.
ive had my 2gb ballistix for abou 2 weeks now ...and after all the reading about them dying, i havn't put anything over 2.7v through them and they are still running fine at 265mhz 3-3-3-8 2.7v. they are in my work station, so they better not die :p:
maybe micron changed their IC a tad again like OCZ EB days ?
my 4x 1GB Crucial Ballistix PC4000 Tracers are still find to this day, dual channel pair i bought direct from crucial.com still find and the 2x1GB singles i bought off Major are fine too - sold them to a fellow i4memory.com member who has no probs to do this day as well
I had a matching pair of the 2x1 Gig and they lasted 4 days 250 HTT and 2.7v so its not all high overclocking doing them in, I think it was a bad batch of ram maybe after a few more months they will get better as they sell out everywhere and fresh stuff comes into the retail chains.
Agreed, will have to wait for the this think to calm ... :bsod:Quote:
Originally Posted by Moto450
Hoping for some happy Ballistix OCing!!! :thumbsup:
My last set of Ballistix is now 4 weeks old. They are running strong. They also overclock even better than my first 2 sets I bought a few months back (1 pair died, the other is still running). The new pair oc so much better at lower voltage it makes me beleive these may already be a newer batch. I'm not recommending anyhting to anyone at this point...just posting some personal experience with recent ballistix sticks.
I'm worried...
What if crucial replaces the micron chips with something else in the near future?
Cuz this ram is rated at 3-4-4-8 @ 250. They could just use cheap UCCC in the future and get away with it. Since micron 5bd chips have the tendancy to die really fast and crucial is moving on to DDR2...
Hopefully, its a PCB issue, not the micron 5bd chip itself.
I have a set thats about to months old now and has been in two different boards so far running good at 2.8v though I have not pushed them beyond 280 yet. It seems lately high V&fsb is somewhat deadly with a far too large amount of there yields, perhaps thats why they call them Ballistix from the condition users end up after a month or so. I hope my luck with them continues though I think its time to get some more backup ram.
My latest set RMA'd (Micron got them Wednesday) should be back this coming week.
The only resom I'm not selling them is because of the good tech support and fast RMA return.
Fingers crossed......
I was lucky enough to have mine die at the time OCZ releasted the 4000 EB's so I grabed them now they are out of stock and no one can get them. But they do have great RMA there, but I did not want too keep RMAing so I jumped on these, they dont clock as high but they run great.
Moto450
How high did the Ballistix clock for you?
I had a pair die after one month then the RMA pair died the first day.... :(
they won't, crucial = micron. the ballistix will always use micron chips.. though don't bank on it being 5b D forever, as is demonstated by the 512mb sticks going from 5b G (32mb ic) to a single sided stick of 5b D (64mb ic), and now back to G again.Quote:
Originally Posted by Squire
also, i dunno what micron is doing, but it does seem like the more recent batches of chips that went out are clocking exceptionally well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Squire
I have a medium number of Buffalo ECC sticks with -5B D. They don't clock well but I don't see any degradition and there don't seem to be any problems.
Dunno what PCB they use, I can post a photo if somebody wants to do a visual ID.
Never Really got mine Overclocked I just put the system together and they Died after 4 days so I sent them back to Newegg for a refund they were running at 250 HTT 2.7 volts at the time. :mad: So I dont know how high they would have gone.
aua my new ballistix are great 280hz x 11 3-3-3-7 only 2.56V
cupra
Enjoy them while they last :(
i hope that its take some time IvanAndreevich.Quote:
Originally Posted by IvanAndreevich
low voltage and 80mm fan supposed to do it (or not ?)
UPS just came with my RMA'd Ballistix...
CL1115Y.P9
I will give them a chance to warm up then install them.
I have to run on a divider so sorry you won't see any steller benches.
I got mine in August, made the overclocking data base at 290HTT at 2.9v.
Now they seem to have lost steam somewhere (errors in memtest) and had to RMA them back to crucial. I got my new set last week, so i hope i don't have to RMA these one's, since i did receive great customer support from TARA. ;)
My new ballistix do great as well. 280 at only 2.6v.Quote:
Originally Posted by cupra
I think these newer sticks are from another batch. Perhaps they will hold up better. I'm going on 4 weeks now on the new sticks and they are holding up great so far. I had an older pair that died after a month of use.
one thing for sure, i will keep my gskill hx...Quote:
Originally Posted by mdzcpa
Not to scare you or anything but that's the batch I got for my rma and it died after 1 hour @ stock speeds 2.6v.... :(Quote:
Originally Posted by Eagleclaw
ah.. maybe this will explain why my 1gb kit with z503 chips died after a couple of weeks use.. dam i was so pissed off.. managed to persuade em to lemme pay extra for the z505's tho..
Is not z505 = the 2x512MB kit and the z503 the 2x1GB kit?
seems like the new & fresh Ballistix performing good, .....
my old ones needed at least 2.8 Vdimm for OC stability and then my new G's do much higher clocks even at lower voltages, like 2.7 and so ..... GREAT :banana:
I bought some Crucial Ballistix Tracer from a gay on the OCAU forums, purchased July 2005, he hasn't run them any higher than 2.75 and they are still kicking on, do you think they will be fine to run 2.85 with active cooling?
i would always always always use active cooling on ballistix, even at 2.6v, 200mhz ;)
No wonder you need only 2.56V at just 280 Hz :bounces:Quote:
Originally Posted by cupra
Surely fine @280 MHz,
I also got some FRESH Ballistix - really nice piece of two devil-sticks --> sig
These new Ballistix have to be from a different and newer batch. I was able to do 295 at only 2.7v, and with some tweaking did 305 at 2.93v.Quote:
Originally Posted by mdzcpa
Is there any memory difference between the Ballistix tracer and regular? They are currently the same price
just the lights :D
i dont need any stupid lights lol
i got my ballistix on friday. I will test them in a few days.
I have crucial ballistix tracer 2gb and I did a memtest 86+ v1.65 for about 3 hrs 30 mins. I got 6 pass and 3 errors, am I doing something wrong? I am running the VDIMM at 2.6 v, and the ram @ 540mhz, 3-3-3-8, 2t. I didn't take a screen shot of the test. Right now I am running the super_pi mod 1.4 at 32m. Any comments or suggestions.
Opteron 146 cabye 0542 fpmw 270mhz @ 1.45v
Big Typhoon (lapped) temp reads on Myguard at 27 celcius on mb says ~ 36 c
evga 133-k8-nf41 sli
evga 7800gt
2 gb ballistix tracer number cl1115s.dt
OCZ 520w powerstream
Your voltage of 2.6V is too low for Ballistix. Try using 2.7V and running DDR 500 3-3-3-8 1T.
If I run the memory at ddr500 won't my cpu goto 2500 mhz instead of 2700. I have noticed this is how my board works out. Won't this slow down my computer? Here is a screen shot of what I did so far. This is my first time I am into overclocking.
here is a pic. I think I did it right.
:D
can you get 270mhz at 1T?
I can't remember if I tried it yet. I will try it and let you know. I am assuming this is better. Do you think I should up the voltage also? I do have a 80 mm fan blowing on the ram. The ram is a very light warm to the touch after about 5 hours of the computer being on. Regular computer use.
I wasn't able to do 3,3,3,8 at 1t got a black screen. My new configuration is
2.5,3,3,7 at 1t with the frequency at 135mhz and my chip at 2700. I believe I used the divider in the bios configuration. What do you think of this setup?
Out of time so I just did super_pi mod ver 1.4, (1m) calculation = 34.531s
checksum: 13c77e8b.
yeah, 1T is better.
i wrote this up the other day. it's a bit of a hard read cause it needs to be tweaked and made into something a bit more.. followable:
http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.ph...41&postcount=3
thanks for the info. Your write is great. Simple and not too complicated.
Able to get my memory to 237.9 with divider. 3-3-3-8 1t, 2.75v and the Opteron at 2855mhz. Passed super pi 1.4mod and I am going to do memtest 1.65. On everest home edition I got 44.6 ns dual pc 3800 ddr.
It did lock up on my once playing Quake 4 but I am happy with these results.
Could you tell me how to change the test in mem test? I used cntl-c and even pressed the esc button as highlighted at the bottom of the screen and nothing happened. If I remember correctly I used my usb keyboard and my ps/2 keyboard plugged into the purple/green port(s) on the motherboard.
Press C then 1, 3, then (test you wanted) then 0 and enter...
Thank god I have 2 old single non tracer sticks. Yay. I'll never get rid of them. Well I shouldn't say that, sooner or later I will sell them when I upgrade.
I think Crucial just decided that the RMA-fest was just too much. I went by the Cruical website to order 2x1GB PC4000, could not find the Z503 or the 1GB Tracers either. From customer support:
Welcome to Crucial Technology's Expert Online. An Expert Online agent will join you in a moment... Please do not begin typing until you have been connected to an agent.
Hello, my name is Brad . How may I help you?
Thinking Bear: Hello. I am not seeing the 2x1GB PC4000 kit on the website. BL2KIT12864Z503. Is it no longer available?
Brad : No, that kit is not available at this time.
Thinking Bear: Thank you for the fast answer. Any ETA or is it permanently discontinued?
Brad : We are working with the manufacture to determine this. No ETA at this time.
Thinking Bear: OK, thanks.
Brad : You're welcome. Thank you for visiting Crucial.com, and have a great day.
i just RMA'd mine :(
Maybe I should just ask for a refund, I dont know. I was getting errors at DDR400 :(
I have a 30 day return window. What to do, what to do.
if your in the 30-day window rma for refund (assuimg you ordered from newegg), i'd get my money back. I would give anything to be back in my 30-day window (not really, but you get the point). unfortunately once the window closes, your stuck rma'ing for new sticks every couple months. I'm gonna be going on my 2nd rma pretty soon i think... BSOD's and freqent application crashes just started occuring :(Quote:
Originally Posted by irev210
But i am being optimistic hopeing neweggs pulls them from their site like crucial did, if and when that happens will be when i rma them so i can get replacments of a different brand ;)
Wow that sucks. I thought they may have tooken care of the situation at hand but I guess not. Damn, I hope they come back though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by thinkingbear
Well I hope the rma'ed set I'm getting today isn't someones old returned pos then. :rolleyes:
I'm on my 3rd set of 2GB Z503's since September, and this one just started crapping out:(. I've been running them at 260fsb @2.6V with a 120mm fan blowing over them, 3-3-3-8 timings. I've just rolled back to the 183 divider on an ASUS A8N32-SLI and the system stabilized. I'm going to RMA these and go for something else soon, just need to figure out what that something will be;).
You guys just made up my mind. I think I am going to go ahead and just get a refund.
I ordered direct from crucial, it was a lot cheaper than newegg.
My first pair would do 300Mhz at 2.9V, started with errors on Memtest86+ after 2 months... My second pair was good for 280-285, at 2.8V, then after a month started with system crashes... I'm serious that the heat is not the only problem, any voltage beyond 2.6V is that causing memory damage.
i really want ballistix, but i dont want a defective set
I am waiting for my 3rd set since november. Couldn't get them to run at 3-4-4-8 @2.8v at ddr500. Soon as they arrive they will be going on ebay. I picked up a 2x1gb pc3200 zx GSkill and I am happy I did.
I read somewhere that vcore and dram voltages are a killer of rams anyone read up on this?
Ill look and try ti find it..
Aparently if u run low vcore and high vdd or something like that = Death to ram
Is that whats happening here or is it just that there just bad batch?
it's a sticky in amd, and you have it backwards. low vcore and high vdimm will kill the memory controller. it's possible that the other way around will kill the ram, but you've gotta be running at really weird settings to do thatQuote:
Originally Posted by Philosophy
Ive read of someone actually having a stiff word on the phone and they gave him a full refund and that was after his 2nd set and about 3mths. From Crucial.Quote:
Originally Posted by ElAguila