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**Tiribulus** · 05-14-2010, 11:04 AM

Here's a shot of my memory bandwidth:

**GSKILL TECH** · 05-14-2010, 02:59 PM

Very good job there! Those results look great. Welcome to the forum and we hope you stick around. We can always use another good overclocker. =)

We love helping people get their system running properly, but all we ask for is cooperation. There are just certain troubleshooting steps that are required to narrow down the issue. Many times people will ask.. why do I need to do that?? "I'm a pro, I know the settings are right", and fail to cooperate. In those cases, we can't help much, and it just ends up being negative reviews, G.Skill sucks, yaddy yada yada...

It also helps if they actually understand what's going on, or listen to what we say. Some people purchase DDR3-2400 memory for an AMD platform and expect it to just plug and play, or expect me to give them some magical settings that just work. Well, if you check the world records, that's basically what you are attempting, so obviously it isn't that easy. In addition, we are straight forward and honest. We will not tell you lies just to make you go away. Understand that we are on your side, and we will try our best to get your system running properly even if you are attempting a world record with no knowledge of overclocking.

Thank you
GSKILL TECH

**Tiribulus** · 05-14-2010, 04:05 PM

Thank you sir,
I promise you I'll get even more out of this machine and this memory as time goes on. That's always the way it is.

In the enthusiast computing world the "right" settings are whatever is the best you wind up getting with your combination of parts which means lots of trial and error. Sure there are the specs and a lot of the time they do just plug and play, at least at default clock speeds and settings. However, when you're building a micro electronic machine from components manufactured by many different outfits there are no guarantees even with first rate kit designed to work together. This is where my heart bleeds for the support guys in forums like these.

You will inevitably be confronted by a parade of well meaning frustrated people who are convinced they know more than they do and have just simply not developed the intuition to sniff the bugs out of a perfectly good system. As soon as somebody says

"how can there be bugs in a perfectly good system"

you can be sure they haven't built many computers.

Nobody knows everything, including me, but you get a FEEL after a while for computers in general and the one you're wrestling with at the moment in particular. It takes time and patience. I registered here to address this board and this memory because there were about a dozen or better threads with guys blaming the memory for their instability issues and I'm quite certain in a bunch of those cases there is nothing wrong with that memory. Some probably were bad, that's how it is with man made devices, but I'm not buyin that with some of the other cases I read.

This memory is pretty inexpensive and it's performing for me better than advertised to this point and I WILL get more with time. It's the nature of doing support that all you ever hear is what somebody's pissed about. Believe me I know. Thought I'd drop by and say something nice about a product that I think is good.

**Grimmett** · 05-15-2010, 10:28 AM

I agree with alot of what you guys are saying. For example, some users are trying to run 4 sticks of 1600 OC RAM with default bios settings. They don't even adjust the timings to factory settings. They don't choose RAM that is listed as compatible with their motherboard. For those people, I think most of their issue is inexperience.
Although, some people, like myself, who have been building computers for the past 10 years or more, are having issues that should not be occurring. RAM isn't supposed to run rock solid for days and then give 100's of errors once you power on the machine after being off overnight. Many of us have tried different power supplies, motherboard RMA's, and BIOS timings/voltages to no avail. I would expect some issues trying to run the RAM at max OC settings, using all four DIMM slots, but trying to run two sticks of RAM at default speeds, using manufacturer's timings/voltages should not be this troublesome. This holds true, especially, if you are using RAM that is listed as compatible with your motherboard.
I'm not saying there isn't something we are missing, but if you google "cold boot issues" and "g. skill", you'll find pages and pages of people who are having the exact same issues as others on the forum. G. Skill isn't the only memory people are having problems with, but ALOT are. If this many people are having the exact same BSOD and Memtest errors on cold boot only, I wouldn't chalk that up to inexperience. It's too much of a coincidence. I doubt this many people are inexperienced and/or have bad hardware.
I have tweaked everything that G. Skill Tech's have told me, and I'm pretty good at following directions

They suggested an RMA. If you look on Newegg, most complaints happened in the months of April and May, so it could have been a manufacturing issue or something. I really hope that this is the case or there is some setting I'm missing on my end, because I'm stuck with this RAM unless I fork out another $120 or more.

**Tiribulus** · 05-15-2010, 02:09 PM

OK, but I just did the same search and replaced g.skill with corsair, patriot, crucial and ocz. Lots of results with all of those including g.skill. Intel, AMD, all different mobo manufacturers, OC'd and not etc.

Look, I did say that some of these guys probably had some bad pieces and I certainly wasn't pointing my remarks at anybody in particular, but they could be anything. The first 2 I read after searching for corsair and cold boot issues were solved by replacing the motherboard. Could even be mains power or some other environmental issue in some cases.

Way back in the day if you wanted the Hot Rod box on your block you bought an Abit KT or later KR7A-Raid, searched hi and low for a few known good steppings of the Thunderbird and later Palamino core Athlons and pretty much hoped for the best with some name brand memory. Even the reported good batches were impossible to get your hands on most of the time. There were maybe a dozen or so bios settings that mattered and any pretty decent power supply would generally do.

Nowadays there are literally dozens of combinations of dozens of different parts and imho power supplies are more important than ever. Not to mention mind bending options in a high end bios. Some of these guys are in over their heads. It took me the whole first day to get this rig running stable even at defaults and a couple months to get it where it is now which isn't setting the world on fire, but pretty damn good.

Yes, you are correct. One would think that if you buy a bunch of parts rated and approved for each other that you should be able to get them ticking stock with minimal fuss. All I'm saying is that this isn't that perfect world and the inability to do so isn't proof in itself that something is junk or even faulty. There are just too many variables where computers are concerned and the most heroic QC process on Earth can only guarantee it passed their testing with their equipment. I wish somebody with this cold boot issue lived in my area. I'd like to get my hands on it just for the education. I don't why that is becoming more prevalent. I once had an Abit AT7-Max, I think it was that did something similar. No boot after being off for a while and I would have to pill the 20 pin connector off the board and put it back on. It would run for a few weeks and then do it again. I never did figure out why.

**Grimmett** · 05-15-2010, 02:59 PM

Here are the basics of what the cold boot issue is doing to myself and quite a few others, since you seem to be interested in the issue. I'll let you make your own judgments as to the root of the problem. Any help you could give would be greatly appreciated to all of us.

1. The system will run flawlessly and pass all Memtest and Prime95 tests
2. The computer is shutdown for the night.
3. Upon booting the computer the next day (6-7hrs), Windows all of sudden BSODs right before the logon screen appears. If you successfully boot into Windows, a bunch of messages will popup and tell you that certain applications that should be running in the memory have been terminated or failed to start.
4. The system is booted down. One stick of 2GB RAM is removed, leaving 2GB remaining in the channel.
5. The system is restarted, and Memtest is ran again. No errors appear after 6 or more passes.
6. The system is booted down again and the 2GB stick is replaced back IN the channel. The system is booted back up again, Memtest passes 6 or more passes with no errors.
7. The system and Windows are perfectly stable until Step 2 happens again.

I have tried stepping the memory down to 1333mhz (default). I have adjusted voltages anywhere from 1.5v(default) to 1.65V. I have tried raising all other motherboard voltages and adjust memory timings using the values G. Skill has provided in emails.
My PSU runs fine in an older LGA775 rig I own. All voltages are acceptable. Alas, I have no other DDR3 boards to try the memory on. The only thing I could think it is would be the IMC, motherboard, or RAM.
The main reason I suspect the RAM is because I feel there is a QC issue. The first shipment I received didn't even include two of the same model sticks. One stick was 1600mhz and the other was a 1333mhz model. Both were slapped with a 1600OC label, but my bios and CPU-z told a different story. In the 10 yrs of building PC's, I have never seen this. Another user at Newegg commented with the same issue. How does that happen twice (at least) within a month? I've never had to send anything back twice, which admittedly, makes me wonder if it's the memory or something I'm overlooking.
I'm not reading of many problems with my board, processor, or PSU. While they could still be the culprit, signs are pointing to the memory for me.

P.S. Very nice OC, by the way.

**Tiribulus** · 05-15-2010, 05:49 PM

Both CPU-Z and Everest read the spd on both of mine @ 1333, but do also see the the EMP ext. for 1600. If you mean that yours didn't have the EMP extension or that it was 1333 then I don't know. Let's hope it was a transient oversight. That could mean the spd was programmed wrong or the stick was labeled wrong. Either is inexcusable, but human nonetheless and easily corrected for the future. They seem to be pretty free with the RMA's. They won't exchange them for you?

Your issue IS weird. Here's the thing, which I'm pretty sure you thought of already. Memory doesn't heal itself. I have never in my life seen a stick of ram that flipped out and then started working correctly again. Could be, but memory is relatively simple. Once it goes it's usually gone. Power supplies can act up sporadically sometimes and motherboards with all the voltage regulation circuitry etc. can work on and off for a while sometimes as well. You have good parts, but your particular specimen of one or the other could have trouble.

One of the biggest problems with trouble shooting some bizarre computer problems, as I'm sure you know as well, is, being a system of systems the seemingly most obvious culprit may only be symptomatic of something you wouldn't readily even think of. ESPECIALLY where windows errors are concerned and ESPECIALLY at bootup. Blue screens/stop errors go here too. What it is telling you may have nothing whatever to do with the actual issue. If you think about this it makes perfect sense. If a machine won't behave in the first place why should we immediately trust what it tells us is it's own problem. Maybe the very thing causing it to malfunction is also causing it to misreport the problem.

A few things I'd try to start if it were mine.
Get an Ubuntu live cd. . Put the disc in at night before shutting it off, unplug both the SATA cable from the board and the power cable from the drive and see if it will boot to the cd the next day.

Try booting directly to memtest first in the morning, but even failure here may mean something on the board or the IMC, like you said, is causing the memory to not work. However if it passes and if it will boot to the Ubuntu CD and let you play around in there maybe the drive or the cable is wonky.

Try booting into safe mode first thing in the morning and see what happens. If it does then it probably isn't the memory and probably isn't hardware at all. However for the hell of it, if it boots into safe mode I would force my video card to install as a standard VGA adapter that night and see if it boots the next morning without it's regular drivers.

Try pointing a large powerful fan into the open case in the morning before turning it on and see if it boots. If it does, but doesn't boot without it or boots with it and then runs without it my money is on the motherboard failing to regulate the voltage properly on bootup and overheating, probably the northbridge or maybe again the IMC (or actually maybe something else) and then settling down once it's running.

I've learned to be very judicious about using the word "impossible" so maybe it IS the memory. What if through all this you figure out what's wrong and get it working correctly? Should somebody have to go through all this to get a computer running? No. However sometimes you might and there is nothing sweeter than figuring it out in the end.

**Grimmett** · 05-15-2010, 07:07 PM

Tirib,
I'm in the process of getting it RMA'ed. I should have my replacements in a little over a week. I am grateful that G. Skill has been very understanding with all of the RMA requests.
The first set I got from Newegg actually was labeled wrong. I forget what the model was, but I think it was the 1333mhz version. I didn't have an XMP profile at all associated with it. The kit was just jacked up from the get go.
I totally agree with what you're saying about sporadic symptoms, and I'm very afraid that this is the case. It would make things very hard and costly to troubleshoot. It WOULD be very hard to trust error messages from a misbehaving system. The only sense of confidence I have is that others are getting the same error messages, but who knows?
I'm fairly sure the problem isn't Windows or hard disk related. I think Memtest only utilizes the CDROM, CPU, IDE cable, and motherboard. I'm getting all sorts of errors with just Memtest, so unplugging the hard drive power and SATA cable probably wont help. I will definitely give it a shot, though, if need be.
I tried booting into safe mode a couple times when my rig was acting up. One time it froze while booting into safe mode, and another time it had just restarted instead of going to the Welcome screen. Mind you, once I turn the system off, remove a RAM stick, and restart, it's like nothing ever happened.
I have been monitoring the temperatures, to the best of my ability, on the motherboard using AMD Overdrive. The board temps stay around 40-50C. Whether or not I can trust these temps are in question, but Coretemp and HWMonitor read roughly the same temps and voltages. It could be a bad sensor on the board though.
I'll be able to try some troubleshooting when the replacement sticks come back to me. Thanks for the tips, I'll keep them in mind when I get it up and running again.

**GSKILL TECH** · 05-19-2010, 11:05 AM

Grimmett,

The new set should solve your problem. In your case, it does seem like a memory problem. We are aware of the possible issues with our memory, which is why we have revised them.

We take each problem on a case to case basis, which is why we run through basic troubleshooting steps for everyone. We don't simply point fingers or ask people to replace things they don't need to. So as long as you are cooperative with an open mind, we can get somewhere. The "cold boot issue" especially is tricky because it is random. The chips do not initialize properly upon first start, so BSODs occur. With a reboot, the chips are correctly recognized. People have even begun calling any type of BSOD a cold boot issue, but in any case, we are most familiar with our memory, so if you have issues, just cooperate with us and as always we will do our best to get your system running smoothly.

Thank you
GSKILL TECH

**Grimmett** · 05-19-2010, 12:26 PM

Thank you

G. Skill

Thank you for your response and insight into the situation. It's nice hearing from you that the RAM may very well be the culprit, because that is one of the easier things to replace. It also is a bit harder to troubleshoot a motherboard and power supply for me, since I don't have any spare parts lying around to try them on.
I'm willing to do whatever you suggest to get this RAM working. I can't afford to plop down $100+ more on new RAM, so this is really my only option.I noticed MSI released a new BIOS recently too, which may help alleviate the problems I'm having. We'll see how the replacements go. I'm not exactly sure when I'll get them yet, but I'll keep you posted.

Regards,
Grimmett

**espac** · 05-19-2010, 10:39 PM

here is the video, check it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0AXU4kOVj0

**drudru** · 05-28-2010, 06:41 AM

lol just like me;
i hope g.skill solve it!
these ram's are great!

**Joebakb** · 05-28-2010, 11:05 AM

I have nearly that same combo with zero problems except that when I play a game, the video driver keeps crashing or my system reboots. I've tried multiple clock settings/drivers (with driversweeper in between each install)/disabling items in device manager/uninstalling some programs/reinstalling the OS with no improvement. I've tried two different ATI cards and they both do it. I put in the old Nvidia 8600 GTS for a week and a half and I don't have a single problem. Now that either says power issue or driver issue and I'm inclined to go with the latter since I just put in a new PSU, too.

**Tiribulus** · 05-28-2010, 11:56 AM

Originally posted by Joebakb View Post

I have nearly that same combo with zero problems except that when I play a game, the video driver keeps crashing or my system reboots. I've tried multiple clock settings/drivers (with driversweeper in between each install)/disabling items in device manager/uninstalling some programs/reinstalling the OS with no improvement. I've tried two different ATI cards and they both do it. I put in the old Nvidia 8600 GTS for a week and a half and I don't have a single problem. Now that either says power issue or driver issue and I'm inclined to go with the latter since I just put in a new PSU, too.

I vote for power.

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F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL and ASUS M4A79XTD EVO no problems

F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL and ASUS M4A79XTD EVO no problems

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