Can RAM be faulty but still functioning?

G

Gruntled Employee

Gawd
Joined
Apr 5, 2004
Messages
549
I got a stick of 512 Kingston DDR 333 that when installed in my sytem runs fine until I run any 3D intensive apps. then it locks up all the time, I pulled the stick and run another stick of 512 Crucial DDR 333 and no problems.....run together it will lock up in 3d Applications again, wondring if it was toasted why it would work at all?
 
Yes. It's fairly common for memory to be flakey as opposed to completely stone dead. Why that is, I don't know, but that's the way it goes.
 
There might be a bad specific portion of the memory that doesn't often get used until you fire up an application that needs to use a lot of memory. So, like CH said, it is very possible bad memory can cause your system to be unstable rather than dead.
 
I have a stick of Mushkin level 1 pc3500 that gets 5 errors in memtest and works just fine, never crashes or reboots. I haven't got it reaplced because of their so called great customer service. It took 2 months for them to respond to my email.
But in your situtation you got a really bad stick. Return or RMA that stick.
 
Walleye said:
run memtest with the stick in question, just for the hell of it :p
Click to expand...
This should be the first thing to do when one suspects that (some of) the RAM is bad.

Other than that, review your memory latency/timing settings. They might be a bit too high for the RAM's liking.
 
latency timings are identical to other stick and I am not familiar with memtest...is that a DOS command or a utillity? and if it IS a utillity where can I find it or download it?
 
Gruntled Employee said:
latency timings are identical to other stick and I am not familiar with memtest...is that a DOS command or a utillity? and if it IS a utillity where can I find it or download it?
Click to expand...

memtest (like the name says) is a program that test your ram it boots off a floppy even before your OS loads and you can get it
here .

Good luck
 
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