[dba-Tech] RAM timings question.

Bobby Heid bheid at appdevgrp.com
Thu Aug 5 11:49:52 CDT 2004


Hi all,

About 6 months ago, I built my current home pc.  It consists of a P4 3.0Ghz,
1GB Corsair TwinX 3200 RAM, Asus P4C800-E Deluxe MB, Creative Audigy 2 ZS
sound card, and an Antec True Power 480 PS.  All the above were new.  I used
the HDs, Nic, and TI 4200 GPU from my old system.

At the time, I could not get Memtest86+ v1.1 to run, it would lock up.  I
was trying to dual boot XP Pro with 98 (and eventually Linux), and while I
got 98 installed, it would lock up.  Norton ghost 2004 would also lock up.

After I got XP up and running, there seemed to be no problems.  I would
occasionally (1-2 times/month) get a blue screen, but I figured that it was
something that the kids did.

Well, I went on to Corsair's forums the other day and started looking
around. They recommended that someone running pretty much what I have to try
testing their RAM at 2-3-3-5.  So I switched from SPD to manual and set my
memory at 2-3-3-5.  MemTest86+ 1.2 did not lock up!  But it did give a few
errors. So I changed to 2-3-3-6 and let memtest run all night.  It got
through the full 12 tests 5 or 6 times with no errors.  I also ran it once
through Microsoft's RAM testing program without any errors (also no errors
in one pass at 2-3-3-5).

Is this a good setting for the RAM?  If not, what should I be setting it at?
I am not currently doing any over clocking.

On a side note, how do ya'll think that the 4200 might do on Doom 3?  

Thanks,
Bobby




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