Bad ballistix stick

[sticks435]

Hey guys. I bought a 2x1GB kit of pc-6400 back in Oct of 07. Been running fine at ddr2960/480mhz 4-4-4-12 2.2v since. Last week or so I've been getting random blue screens related to memory_managment and page_fault_in_nonpaged_area, so I tested. Stick 1 is fine at the above settings for 1 hour using HIC memtest and Intel LinPack. The other stick throws errors right and left as soon as I start HIC, and non matching Residual(norm) values using LinPack at both OC settings and at 333/667 settings.

If I RMA back to Crucial, I'm pretty sure I would get the new 2.0v sticks, but my question is, would they be double sided, or the crappy single sided ones? Also, I've been thinking of moving up to vista64 and 4GB of ram. Would RMAing them for replacements, and then buying a new kit of 2x1 be a good idea, or should I just go with 2x2?

Thanks all!!

 

[mpilchfamily]

Your better off with the 2X2. Then you will have double sidded Dimms and have room to upgrade to 8 gigs later on.

 

[sticks435]

Would it be benefital to RMA my current ram and then resell it? Test it to make sure it's not DOA first?

 

[mpilchfamily]

Sure RMA it. But keep in mind that your OC may have been what damaged the RAm to start with. Just something to think about as you go about OCing the new DIMMs.

 

[sticks435]

True. It doesn't seem like much of an overlock though. 80mhz over the EPP#1 setting that shows in cpuz. Granted this is my first expierince with DDR2, but the OCZ Platnium EB DDR400 I had in my last system OC'ed way higher than this.

 

[cyberfish]

Your better off with the 2X2. Then you will have double sidded Dimms and have room to upgrade to 8 gigs later on.

Are you sure that's going to be better in terms of reliability?... I thought the 2GB sticks have the same single sided crap on both sides =).

Also, there are certainly high quality single sided 1GB modules. Just because the latest D9 is crap doesn't mean all single sided modules are.

 

[sticks435]

Originally posted by: cyberfish

Your better off with the 2X2. Then you will have double sidded Dimms and have room to upgrade to 8 gigs later on.

Are you sure that's going to be better in terms of reliability?... I thought the 2GB sticks have the same single sided crap on both sides =).

Also, there are certainly high quality single sided 1GB modules. Just because the latest D9 is crap doesn't mean all single sided modules are.

I've heard that the new 2.0v Ballistix is much better compared to the single sided modules.

 

[sticks435]

Just got off the phone with Crucial. They are sending me 2 new sticks first thing in the morning. Hopefully they are the 2.0v variety. If they work out, I may end up getting either another 2x1GB or some 2X2GB. Trying to figure out how much memory I actully need. I think 6 might be overkill for now.