Recieved Buffalo tech from Newegg...

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10-30-2003, 06:00 PM
vairox

Recieved Buffalo tech from Newegg...

appears to be a used module, the label has a little sort of dirt smudge on it, and the contacts appear to have been in contact with a metal surface...has that look, maybe its from testing who knows, but if it was use i think it should be cheaper, no? anyways its a 512 meg stick of pc3700 and its BH5....which i thought was discontinued and out of stock long ago which also adds to the "used" scenario, anyhow it appears to work fine and now im running in dual channel at 200mhz fsb at 6-2-2-2 timings, not sure if they'll hold... what are some good memory stress programs? i cant use 3dmark 2001 cause im running a geforce2mx400 for now until later today when i recieve my rma from msi. i ran sandra memory benchmark and got 2870/2699...seems kinda low...what do u guys think? says bandwidth efficiency is 90%, it used to say 86%...woooo 4% increase!

edit to add: wow, it crashed...internet explorer took a dump and event viewer says

Faulting application iexplore.exe, version 6.0.2800.1106, faulting module flash.ocx, version 6.0.79.0, fault address 0x00023007.

might have to turn dual channel off, or rma this ram

edit to add x2: moved the ram from the dual channel slot into the slot to where it isnt supposed to run in dual channel and it still comes up as dual channel, and theres nowhere in bios to turn it off... w t f? also turned memory timings to 7-3-3-2, this ram appears to...SUCK
10-30-2003, 06:38 PM
vairox

without a doubt this appears to be caused by the activation of dual channel, either his board cannot run dual channel no matter what (timing turned down to 9-4-4-2) or this ram cannot run in dual channel.... that cant be the case because there are tens of people here who run buffalo tech in dual channel, 1 stick runs just fine....was up for 6 days 18 hours before i restarted to install the stick!

im now going to try to acquire a 1gb stick...no 2x512 junk, but it appears to be a rare specimen and quite costly if u can find it (pc3500 and up) buffalo doesnt make 1 gb sticks above pc3200, geil seems to be iffy and oczsystems i hear is garbage....of course there is corsair and the like for $350 a stick but i dont think so....anyone?
10-30-2003, 06:38 PM
Un4given

For stress testing you can run the Sandra burn-in wizard. Some people like Prime95 or memtest86, or something like that, just for the memory.
10-30-2003, 07:00 PM
vairox

i should have RTFM duh. there is no way to turn off DC, it is automatically turned on if you have a stick in the third slot (master dual channel slot)... i thought with other boards it was 2 slots for DC and if you removed one stick from a DC slot and put it in the non DC slot it automatically turned DC off...

anyhow its now up again at 7-2-2-2 and ill continue testing to see if all is well, fingers crossed...silly me
10-30-2003, 08:11 PM
speedyaxon

i am one of the few for who buffalo tech does not cooperate with. When you say single channel, do you mean so that both sticks are in the double bank with the single bank that's alone empty? That's what it should be....
10-30-2003, 08:23 PM
vairox

speedy - i dunno, it has 3 memory channels, first is yellow middle is black and third is yellow, the 2 yellows are supposed to be for DC but apparently it doesnt matter as long as a stick is in the third yellow slot as it is the master dual channel slot....so either of the other two channels will work in DC as long as a stick resides in this third slot.

some of the same problems are appearing even in SC mode... do i need to increase the voltage to the ram from the default? i think its 2.6v....doesnt seem like i would need to but thats all i can think of unless it really is a defective stick rma'd to newegg and sold to me
10-30-2003, 08:27 PM
lonewolfroger

Quote:

Originally posted by vairox
speedy - i dunno, it has 3 memory channels, first is yellow middle is black and third is yellow, the 2 yellows are supposed to be for DC but apparently it doesnt matter as long as a stick is in the third yellow slot as it is the master dual channel slot....so either of the other two channels will work in DC as long as a stick resides in this third slot.

some of the same problems are appearing even in SC mode... do i need to increase the voltage to the ram from the default? i think its 2.6v....doesnt seem like i would need to but thats all i can think of unless it really is a defective stick rma'd to newegg and sold to me

On my Mb, I have my single stick of ram in the center slot and have had no problems running it in SC.
10-30-2003, 08:29 PM
vairox

i wish i had a single stick of 1gb but they are hard to find, 1 stick is the way to go on an AMD setup IMO....this is a headache
10-30-2003, 08:43 PM
vairox

prime95 using the one that tests lots of ram...

default voltage - ran for 3 seconds and system rebooted
increased to 2.8 over 2.5 - ran for half a second and rebooted

using my original stick at 2.7v - running fine

conclusion - newegg sold me a used/defective stick and its RMA time. anyone know of a buffalo tech reseller that sells NEW ram?
10-30-2003, 08:51 PM
lonewolfroger

Quote:

Originally posted by vairox
prime95 using the one that tests lots of ram...

default voltage - ran for 3 seconds and system rebooted
increased to 2.8 over 2.5 - ran for half a second and rebooted

using my original stick at 2.7v - running fine

conclusion - newegg sold me a used/defective stick and its RMA time. anyone know of a buffalo tech reseller that sells NEW ram?

I have one stick of Hyperx PC3000 and I can get it to 200fsb and no further because my MB undervolts my vdimm by .06v`s, so I am getting some Buffalo Tech PC3200 that has the CH5 chips on it and I hope it will allow me to go higher with the vdimm I have. BTW, if you think your memory was used before you got it get ahold of newegg and have them exchange it out for another stick.
10-30-2003, 09:33 PM
vairox

Quote:

Originally posted by lonewolfroger
BTW, if you think your memory was used before you got it get ahold of newegg and have them exchange it out for another stick.

stick is in transit back to them, just sent it back in the same fedex box they sent it to me in

i called them up and told them the situation, didnt mention it looked used just told him about the crashes etc and they said they'd give me a full refund with no restocking fee...

i bought my original stick from them around three weeks ago and explained i wanted to use 2 sticks by the same manufacturer/model etc and he understood that but said they had no more buffalo tech pc3700...so i asked if since i got both sticks from them and it has been less than 30 days if i could return both and pay the difference for a 1gb stick from another manufacturer and he said no... i was like whatever dude...that aint too cool. i should be able to return both since its under 30 days, of course on the 1 i should have tp pay a 15% restock fee since it works no problem. lame but whatever...
10-31-2003, 01:37 AM
natgun

your timings were too tight...

everyone thinks thier cheapo ram can do the lowest timings at the highest speeds and when they cant its "im returning it".

you get what you pay for.
10-31-2003, 02:29 AM
vairox

Quote:

Originally posted by natgun
your timings were too tight...

everyone thinks thier cheapo ram can do the lowest timings at the highest speeds and when they cant its "im returning it".

you get what you pay for.

funny the exact same stick i was using runs 6-2-2-2...thats why i bought another...maybe the ram was used/overclocked to f*ck and returned? naaaa.
10-31-2003, 03:24 PM
natgun

you should have relaxed the timings to what the sticks were rated for, im guessing 2.5-3-3-7? and tried to overclock them. im willing to bet you would have seen 3700 speeds and then some. not every stick can get timings that low, especially if they arent rated near anywhere that fast.