After installing the ram into the slots recommended by ABIT for PC3200, I proceeded to run tests. Interestingly enough, the computer died after the initial Sandra test. Curiously, I rebooted and proceeded to use the computer for a short period of time. During random times, it would crash or reboot. I never had any problems with the single Crucial PC2700 ram in the system. And seeing as Crucial always made quality ram, I wasn’t bound to believe that was the cause. I decided to run memtest anyways and lo and behold this is what I found:
Errors popped up in the sixth test. Well thinking that there’s a bad chip or both being unusable I decided to test them individually. To my surprise, they both past the memtest numerous times. I then proceeded to move the two sticks to slots 0 and 1 thinking that would correct the problem. Again crashes and reboots occurred randomly and memtest showed errors in test 5 now.
Well, my final thought was to put the ram in slots 0 and 2 to see if it was the middle slot. Sure enough the crashes and test errors disappeared and my system has run stable ever since. I don’t know if anyone else has a problem with the middle slot of the
NF7-S board but if you do please email me as I’d like to discuss the issue further. Crucial’s memory wasn’t the culprit this time as the motherboard was in fact the one that was at fault. Even if I did have problems, Crucial’s customer service would’ve taken care of it without any hassle.
So here are the tests from Sandra. First off I’ll show you the PC2700 ram results:
Here are the results with the PC3200 ram installed:
Finally, the scores comparing a few
Unreal Tournament 2003 levels were pretty interesting with a difference or improvement of around 1-10% depending on the level. Also keep in mind I am going from a 1 stick solution to a dual channel solution as that can also be attributed to the increase in scores. Here are the results:
The ram is rock solid and offers some improvements in speed. I tried overclocking but had troubles with FSB greater than 178MHz on my motherboard with an AMD Barton 2500+. Seeing as the ram is rated to run at 200MHz and my board was having problems with memory in the second slot, I don’t think it was the ram that was holding me back. Crucial does not promote overclocking so doing so is at your own risk of course. When running at stock speed, I have not had any lock ups or resets.
Right now the price is at $51.99, which isn’t too bad of a price for some quality ram. The two 256MB sticks I received ran well throughout the few months I tested and I highly suggest the brand when building a system if you are not going to overclock.
A- | Solid ram that comes at a nice price. You really can't go wrong with Crucial. |
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