persisting RAM problems on fresh Lion and GA-X58-UD3R rev 2

[GreenDude]

Hi guys,

I'm having some sort of trouble with my RAM for about a year now and I just can't figure it out.

Today I did a fresh install on Lion since I bought an ssd. Quick and simple, used the Installer partition from my previous drive, no rBoot needed and it worked.

However, previously I had only 4GB of RAM installed but I did have another identical kit that I wasn't using since I was suspecting RAM corruption. I wrote a post some time ago that led me to think that viewtopic.php?f=7&t=22526

Weird thing is, I ran memtest on the supposedly corrupt kit and it did indeed return errors. The guys from the warranty checked it 2 times and said there was no problem. I assumed it was still corrupt tho since I tested the kit in single user mode on the slots that were normally occupied by the healthy kit.

So I was fed up and bought another identical 4GB kit today along with the ssd. When I installed Lion today I had all 8GB installed (the iBoot guide said to only use 4 but I didn't even need iBoot or rBoot this time)

Lion had just installed and when I was about to run OSX Update and multibeast I got a kernel panic. 2 times. Succeded in the end (lucky?) and while I was installing all my stuff I got at least 2 again. Along with that, Chrome tabs for example start crashing.

This is the exact behaviour I had with the other "problematic" kit. I'd like to think that it's impossible for both to be corrupted.

I even made a report on Chromium a while ago http://goo.gl/48FFT and they also assumed that the older kit was the problem.

Right now I'm using only 4GB again and it's the new kit this time but in the slots for the original working kit (the mobo book requires that placement for just one kit) and no crashes yet.

What would cause such a thing? Did the first faulty kit actually get corrupted from all the crashes? Dear god I hope the mobo's not damaged! (which would be unexpected)

Does this have anything to do with the fact that I installed Lion with 8GB from the start?

Any ideas?


Cheers!

 

[inertSpark]

Hey Greendude,

1. The issue shouldn't be with Lion, since many guides on here recommend that you start with 4GB and add the rest when your system is running stable. Indeed, this approach is the one I took with that same board. Whilst starting with 8GB shouldnt cause any problems - and many have done this, the 4GB suggestion is just a precaution. The fact that you have installed Lion already is positive in this sense.

2. You mentioned you have an SSD. Which SATA port are you using for it? Make sure it's not one of the white SATA3 ports as they will send you to kernel panic city.

3. Have you used any of the of the xtreme memory profiles from the BIOS? If you are using profile 1, I highly recommend using it in standard mode and not performance mode for stability. The mode option is somewhere near the XMP option in BIOS.

4. Try a single stick of RAM and test boot it in each RAM slot in turn. If you have a faulty RAM slot on your board, then this will allow you to find out which one. If this fails to turn up any issues, try each of your sticks individually to see if one of them is maybe faulty.

5. Another thing to try is pay attention to the slots you are using on the board itself. The board supports triple channel (eg 3x matched pairs etc). The slots are color coded to help you see which ones you are using. Make sure you are using the correct configuration for dual channel for the number of sticks you have. See below:

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[GreenDude]

Hey inertSpark, thanks for the reply!

2. it is connected to the Marvel ports since from what I've gathered you get more speed there compared to the Intel SATA2 ports even though it's still nowhere near Intel SATA3 ports which the modo doesn't have. DiskSpeed yields 220MB/s write and 370MB/s read now. However, it works fine so far with only 4GBs installed so I think it's ok.

3. Yes, I've been using XMP Profile 1 ever since I got the first "faulty" kit or even earilier. Will definitely test this tomorrow.

5. Yup, I installed them according to the manual. DDR3_2 and DDR3_4 were the ones causing the havoc. However, now that I read the triple channel instructions as well, I didn't think 4 sticks in triple channel would make sense, will have to try that.

If I try to use all 3 dual channel kits of mine (6 sticks) in triple channel would it be ok? They are all the same model (checked the serials on the sticks) but there's just one weird thing: I bought them from the same store, each at different times, but the first kit looks a bit different from the rest. The first one looks like this https://www.pcgarage.ro/memorii/kingsto ... annel-kit/ while the last ones look like this http://goo.gl/uCwEF and have "Genesis" written on them. Maybe it's just a radiator design difference between them if Kingston updated the model? The serials are the same as I said.

 

[inertSpark]

Out of interest, did you follow the nofilmschool build guide? Your build is fairly similar to mine

The marvell ports arent properly supported by OSX, and they do cause kernel panics with certain devices, for instance my Blu Ray drive KPs periodically whenever I use those ports. So long as you are certain that your SSD is not causing any panics then perhaps you are fine.

I'm running all 6 slots atm (12GB just like your plan). Whilst it's not an ideal scenario, it definately looks as though some of your RAM pairs are from difference batches/revisions. I'ts not ideal since really you should be looking for all of your RAM to be from the same batch for quality purposes. As long as you match each pair however, it should be fine.

Have you tried what I said about testing each stick on their own? Also can you verify that each slot is definately working?

 

[GreenDude]

Nope, mine was inspired by one of Tony's Customacs at the time

But do you have 2 triple channel kits or 3 dual channel kits? I was wondering if it's just a marketing thing or it really makes a difference.

Concerning the testing, the first "weird" kit seems to work fine since I bought it. The second one that I sent to the warranty check did give me some errors when I ran memtest but since the guys said they checked 2 times and left it running over night without errors, I'm really hoping that the XMP profile is to blame. The third kit that I'm using right now also seems to work.

Not sure what to say about the slots. I was having doubts when I first started to get panics and such from the second kit, but when I ran memtest I had to isolate and thus move them to other slots according to the manual you previously attached. When I got the errors I thought that is has to be that kit. Now that the brand new sticks behave the same (although I didn't memtest it yet, I mean it's too new ) I've got 3 variants in my head:

1. those 2 slots have a problem
2. maybe it's the difference between the models that's causing this? They were paired correctly. I haven't tested the ones that look the same together yet.
3. maybe it's the XMP and maybe this would force memtest to shoot errors. again, this is my current favorite

 

[inertSpark]

Regarding the memory I used (corsair xms3), these were sold in Dual Channel kits of 2x2GB, but they definitely work for triple channel. As far as I know, they are only dual channel kits because they are sold in pairs as many mobos only have 4 slots. If they sell them in kits of 3, then I guess you'd call them triple channel kits - that makes sense!

If I were you I would definitely still boot the system using each stick individually. Yeah it's a pain having to do this 4-6 times, but at least then you can be sure that they are all functioning properly. We're still troubleshooting at this stage and it's good practice to test each stick on their own if there are memory problems.

 

[Going Bald]

When you purchased the new ram, did you make sure it matched the old in speed and timing (i.e. 1333 Mhz Cl 7-7-7-24). If they don't match you will have problems.

 

[inertSpark]

I've just thought too, that if the sticks he was provided are indeed different, then the required voltages could be different as well. Running those badboys out of voltage will cause instability.