- Jun 30, 2004
- 15,880
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I was very pleased when I built my Sandy Bridge system in mid-2011 -- with the G.SKILL DDR3-1600 "GBRL" Ripjaws kit. I started with 2x4 8GB.
For the price, I upgraded to 4x4GB of the same "GBRL." Discovered through one of our colleagues here on the forums that you could fill all four slots and STILL OC the RAM to 1866 with looser timings -- same voltage at the 1.5V spec.
I've been experiencing random restarts and occasional BSODs every 5 to 7 days with the machine running 24/7. Trying to troubleshoot this, I didn't panic at first because it happens when the machine is only being used for Media Center at the EIST speed -- with no other apps open. The occasional CHKDSK-at-reboot hasn't shown any disk corruption, but I know how this can play out -- eventually.
So I finally reset everything back to stock settings. I am now more and more inclined to think that the RAM was somehow failing at idle under the 1866 settings. I need to wait a few more days to be absolutely sure, but I'd had these random restarts occur more frequently over the last couple weeks while fiddling with settings that would only improve system stability otherwise. Now that the RAM is running under its spec XMP settings, it looks OK -- for now.
I'm inclined to purchase a set of 2x8GB G.SKILL sticks that run at spec 1866 and use the same timings and 1.5V spec as the 1600's.
Of course, I can test the old sticks in pairs and then as one-at-a-time.
I'm just wondering if it's possible that the sticks are going bad only for the overclock setting, or how exactly they go south. An HCI-Memtest on the whole 16GB set of four will take close to five days. I can probably use the Windows version of HCI to run the tests alongside "regular" usage. But -- it's still a B****.
For the price, I upgraded to 4x4GB of the same "GBRL." Discovered through one of our colleagues here on the forums that you could fill all four slots and STILL OC the RAM to 1866 with looser timings -- same voltage at the 1.5V spec.
I've been experiencing random restarts and occasional BSODs every 5 to 7 days with the machine running 24/7. Trying to troubleshoot this, I didn't panic at first because it happens when the machine is only being used for Media Center at the EIST speed -- with no other apps open. The occasional CHKDSK-at-reboot hasn't shown any disk corruption, but I know how this can play out -- eventually.
So I finally reset everything back to stock settings. I am now more and more inclined to think that the RAM was somehow failing at idle under the 1866 settings. I need to wait a few more days to be absolutely sure, but I'd had these random restarts occur more frequently over the last couple weeks while fiddling with settings that would only improve system stability otherwise. Now that the RAM is running under its spec XMP settings, it looks OK -- for now.
I'm inclined to purchase a set of 2x8GB G.SKILL sticks that run at spec 1866 and use the same timings and 1.5V spec as the 1600's.
Of course, I can test the old sticks in pairs and then as one-at-a-time.
I'm just wondering if it's possible that the sticks are going bad only for the overclock setting, or how exactly they go south. An HCI-Memtest on the whole 16GB set of four will take close to five days. I can probably use the Windows version of HCI to run the tests alongside "regular" usage. But -- it's still a B****.
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