Corsair CMX512-3200XL on A8N-SLI Premium??

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milleron

I built my A8N-SLI Premium system back in June using TwinX 1024
PC3200XLPT DIMMs. I set the command rate to 1T, and everything was OK
for about 4 months. I had a funny crash in October that reset a BIOS
setting for the boot order of the SATA drives, and I ended up
reinstalling XP.

I kept getting BSODs after that with a variety of messages that, taken
together, seemed to incriminate RAM. I went through three weeks of
troubleshooting, finally installing a single stick of Corsair
ValueSelect VS512-400. Neither stick of the original 3200XLPT,
installed singly, would run Prime95's Torture Test for more than a few
seconds. The much less expensive ValueSelect runs it just fine, even
with the command rate set to 1T.

The Corsair Web site indicates that the CMX512-3200XLPT modules are
compatible with this motherboard. I find it difficult to believe that
both of them would have gone bad after I installed them, though, so I
wonder (the BIG QUESTION) if anyone else has found a compatibility
problem with them on this motherboard.

Ron
 
milleron said:
I built my A8N-SLI Premium system back in June using TwinX 1024
PC3200XLPT DIMMs. I set the command rate to 1T, and everything was OK
for about 4 months. I had a funny crash in October that reset a BIOS
setting for the boot order of the SATA drives, and I ended up
reinstalling XP.

I kept getting BSODs after that with a variety of messages that, taken
together, seemed to incriminate RAM. I went through three weeks of
troubleshooting, finally installing a single stick of Corsair
ValueSelect VS512-400. Neither stick of the original 3200XLPT,
installed singly, would run Prime95's Torture Test for more than a few
seconds. The much less expensive ValueSelect runs it just fine, even
with the command rate set to 1T.

The Corsair Web site indicates that the CMX512-3200XLPT modules are
compatible with this motherboard. I find it difficult to believe that
both of them would have gone bad after I installed them, though, so I
wonder (the BIG QUESTION) if anyone else has found a compatibility
problem with them on this motherboard.

Ron
Click to expand...

The Forum on the Corsair website provides information for the timings and
voltage that should be used for each model of memory.
 
I built my A8N-SLI Premium system back in June using TwinX 1024
PC3200XLPT DIMMs. I set the command rate to 1T, and everything was OK
for about 4 months. I had a funny crash in October that reset a BIOS
setting for the boot order of the SATA drives, and I ended up
reinstalling XP.

I kept getting BSODs after that with a variety of messages that, taken
together, seemed to incriminate RAM. I went through three weeks of
troubleshooting, finally installing a single stick of Corsair
ValueSelect VS512-400. Neither stick of the original 3200XLPT,
installed singly, would run Prime95's Torture Test for more than a few
seconds. The much less expensive ValueSelect runs it just fine, even
with the command rate set to 1T.

The Corsair Web site indicates that the CMX512-3200XLPT modules are
compatible with this motherboard. I find it difficult to believe that
both of them would have gone bad after I installed them, though, so I
wonder (the BIG QUESTION) if anyone else has found a compatibility
problem with them on this motherboard.

Ron
Click to expand...

I'm using a TWINX1024-3200XL kit, which is two CMX512-3200XL DIMMs.
They run stable at the default settings in my A8N-SLI Premium, but if
I want to run them at 2.0-2-2-5 1T I have to up the DIMM voltage to
2.8. The Corsair website indicates that these DIMMs are warrantied to
2.9 volts, so it's safe to run them at that voltage, and the site says
that 2.8 is the recommended voltage for these DIMMs at that speed.

It sort of sounds like something happened to your original DIMMs,
though, if they suddenly stopped working. It's difficult to think of
a scenario that could fry both of your DIMMs and yet leave your
motherboard undamaged, though.
 
I'm using a TWINX1024-3200XL kit, which is two CMX512-3200XL DIMMs.
They run stable at the default settings in my A8N-SLI Premium, but if
I want to run them at 2.0-2-2-5 1T I have to up the DIMM voltage to
2.8. The Corsair website indicates that these DIMMs are warrantied to
2.9 volts, so it's safe to run them at that voltage, and the site says
that 2.8 is the recommended voltage for these DIMMs at that speed.

It sort of sounds like something happened to your original DIMMs,
though, if they suddenly stopped working. It's difficult to think of
a scenario that could fry both of your DIMMs and yet leave your
motherboard undamaged, though.
Click to expand...

Thanks very much for the info. I'm gratified to know that someone's
having success with identical RAM

True. Like I said, I found it hard to believe that both would go bad,
but neither of them will run Prime95 for more than a few minutes
whereas the inexpensive ValueSelect RAM will run it all day. I'm
starting to think that they were bad from the start but that it became
obvious when the OS got so many programs loaded that some of them
started stressing the RAM more than when the computer was first put
together a few months ago.

BTW, I had LONG conversations with Ram Guy on the Corsair forum. I
did have the voltage increased to 2.8 and then to 2.9, but even at the
relaxed timings the BIOS defaulted to -- i.e., withOUT trying to get
anywhere near 2-2-2-5 -- it still couldn't run Windows or Prime95 with
stability.


Ron
 
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