re: BSOD and Memory on Athlons
Friday, March 11, 2005 at 5:32 pm
Windows XP Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by Tyrian
(5 messages posted)
sounds suspicious.. good dectective work. I use kingston (EQII gives 43% discount)
so, i haven't had too many problems since i rearranged my memory set up.
Good Luck
On Friday, March 11, 2005 at 2:03 pm, Jack Gulley wrote:
>Just to add a little more fuel to the fire on Athlon and memory related problems.
>I have an Athlon PC3200 system, standard setting (no overclocking) MSI board, that
>after several months of running Windows XP without problems, started throwing many
>of the above BSOD's and could find nothing wrong. Latest versions of
>target="_blank"> MemTest86_v3.2 ran OK over night.
> Gave up and started running Windows ME on the system so I could use it. But then
>things started going wrong there also and after switching back to XP, it was having
>more frequent errors than before.
> Was talking to a neighbor with several machines and he was having the same problem
>with them. So I took three of his, mine and another of mine that had not had any
>problems and set them up and started testing and swapping parts around. Found that
> some combinations of different memory modules would not work in one machine, but
>run OK in others. Some would only work when paired with specific other modules.
Others
>would work only when ran alone. Some only in specific combinations on a specific
>machine (not just a specific model of board). (All PC3200) Then discovered that
putting
>in PC2700 (old good quality and well tested and used), worked on all the machines?
>Just a little slower at a lower bus speed.
> What got me, was that one 512MB PC3200 module would work just fine by itself,
>yet when combined with any other module on two of the systems, would only show up
>as a 256MB module??? Yet it worked just fine on two other systems. In one case,
this
>was the same exact system board and BIOS level, yet it worked OK in one and failed
>in the other.
> Also noticed that these memory parts all worked just fine in any combination
on
>a Giga-Byte P4 system board (unless there was also a memory error detected by MemTest86).
> Did some creative swapping around of parts, weeded out one memory module that
>was suspect, and one that was going bad, took notes and got all the systems working
>error free. And had one module replaced by the vendor who sold it to me, but a different
>replacement "brand".
> First point is, that there is some memory bus compatibility problems with the
>Athlon processors and/or the system boards they are used on. It could be a simple
>thing such as the quality of the manufacturing process of each individual system
>board and the thickness of the layers between signal paths that allow cross talk
>or
>signal quality problems between the processor and the memory sockets. This is something
>system board makers should check closely and frequently, but seldom do in volume
>production because of the expense of destroying boards to do the testing.
> Then a week later, my machine with a single 512MB replacement module in it started
>throwing errors again. Ran MemTest86 and it would pickup a single address and bit
>error about once every eight to ten hours. Same bit every time. It also did the
same
>thing in other machines. This was a "cheap replacement" Vdata Markvision Value 512MB
>DDR PC3200 CL=2.5 module, with a "Life Time Warranty". Over the next few days, the
>error rate became more frequent to the point that it is now almost useless. Having
>to run with a PC2700 module right now.
> The second point is, that a single bit error like this can cause a very hard
to
>diagnose problem. Changing drivers or other programs just change the chances of
the
>failing bit causing a problem and the nature of the problem. It is a well known
fact
>that when such an error starts to occur, it it often temperature sensitive at first
>and only gets worse over time until the part has a complete failure of the bit.
> Started taking a close look at the memory modules and the others that were known
>to cause problems in specific systems. They all had one noticeable thing in common.
>The tops of the chips all had a rough or course texture, like they had been ground
>off, instead of the normal smooth gloss texture from normal molding of the chips!
>This is a sign that these parts may have been "re-branded or remarked", as they
all
>have the same low quality of stamping of the chip information on the refurbished
>surface.
> Just try to find out any information about Vdata or MarkVision parts and their
>"Life Time Warranty". No address or contact point. Much the same for the other "suspect"
>parts. And they are usually sold by vendors who have a no return policy after x
number
>of days, and who do NOT handle Warranty returns of these parts for you.
> Taking it a step farther, I downloaded the latest copy of CPU-Z
>(and found a bug in it which the author quickly fixed for us over night) and ran
>it on all of these modules to look at the SPD information on their supported speed
>specifications, and Manufacturer's name information. Again, all of the different
>modules with problems and re-branded chips had a Manufacturer's ID in the SPD chip
>of 0000000000000000 or blanks! Clearly a violation of the SPD memory
>identification standards and an obvious attempt to evade Warranty responsibility,
>if not an attempt to defraud.
> Third point is, there appears to be a lot of low quality memory in the market.
> While I don't think this is the cause of most of these problems, it sure points
>out that there is a lot of "suspect" memory floating around in the market place
and
>that it can cause problems. And that some vendors may have quality problems with
>their system board manufacturing process.
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All messages in this thread [show all]
 |  | | | | |  | Confused (Adri1456: Fri, May 14, 2004, 3:29 pm) |
| | | | | |  | Crash (greine12: Tue, Apr 6, 2004, 4:57 pm) |
| | | | | | | | | re: Crash (MadMan: Sat, Apr 10, 2004, 1:19 pm) |
| | | | | | | re: BSOD and Memory on Athlons (Tyrian: Fri, Mar 11, 2005, 5:32 pm) |
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