P4T533-C and intermittent memory errors

  • Thread starter Thread starter Fish Taco Joe Schmuckatelli
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Fish Taco Joe Schmuckatelli

Gentlemen all:

I have a customer's system here in the shop, with the P4T533-C board (bios 1008)
and a 3.0GHz chip sitting on top of it. Recently, he's been reporting blue
screens in his Win2K install, and through trial and error, discovered that when
he slowed the cpu clock/FSB down from 133 to 100, the system stabilized.

Initially, the system had a pair of 256MB Samsung 1066Rambus sticks, to which
was later added a pair of 512MB Samsung 1066Rambus, totalling 1.5 GB. Memtest
is still showing intermittent memory errors when run for extended periods of
time.

Having found the processor to be at fault in the past, I dropped it into a
different model board with some newer DDR memory, and it ran for about 24 hours
without incident. So, that doesn't appear to be the culprit. Next step was to
put the chip back on the old board and put on a pair of 800Rambus sticks I
brought in from home... no errors.

The question, then, would seem to be this: is the memory itself (two different
batches, dated a year apart) at fault, does this board not like this flavor of
memory, or is it having trouble running *any* memory at 1066? Sadly, as I lack
another brand of 1066 memory, or another Rambus-equipped board, I do not have
the ability to test further.

Is there anything else I can try?
 
Test the two sets of memory separately (note, you will need to install
"C-RIMM" terminators in the empty sockets when doing this. These came
with the motherboard, but may have been lost). That is, test only the
two 512's, and then, separately, test only two 256's.

The system that you have should work fine if all of the components are
good. There is no inherint problem in that set of components if they
are as you describe them. I would suspect a memory module before the
motherboard, from your description of the situation. There were a
number of confirmed instances of PC800 memory being "remarked" and sold
as PC1066, and that would definitely cause the problem that you describe
if it happened, but none of this memory carried the Samsung brand, as
far as I know.
 
Test the two sets of memory separately (note, you will need to install
"C-RIMM" terminators in the empty sockets when doing this. These came
with the motherboard, but may have been lost). That is, test only the
two 512's, and then, separately, test only two 256's.
Click to expand...

I seem to remember doing this during an earlier visit of the same machine.
The result may have been the same, but I honestly don't remember.
The system that you have should work fine if all of the components are
good.
Click to expand...

....and that's the 64 megabyte question.
There is no inherent problem in that set of components if they
are as you describe them. I would suspect a memory module before the
motherboard, from your description of the situation. There were a
number of confirmed instances of PC800 memory being "remarked" and sold
as PC1066, and that would definitely cause the problem that you describe
if it happened, but none of this memory carried the Samsung brand, as
far as I know.
Click to expand...

That is indeed interesting to know.

Still lacking another brand of memory or another motherboard of similar
capabilities to test it with, and with the customer wanting his system back, I
slowed the memory down to 800 speed in the BIOS (which I thought I had done
before, but apparently not). Changing out the power supply, as someone else
suggested, had no effect.

I thank you all for your suggestions, and hope that I can return the favor
sometime in the future.

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