Evga 790i & G.Skill 1600 DDR Trouble

HaVoK-G2 · 04-22-08, 08:20 PM

Hello all.

A couple weeks ago I built a new rig with these following specs:

Intel Quad q9450 @ 2.6ghz
EVGA 790i Ultra Motherboard
EVGA 8800 GTX Videocard
G.SKILL 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600 CL7 Ram
PC Power & Cooling 750w Power supply
Coolermaster Cosmos S Case
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer 7.1 Soundcard
Thermalright Ultima 90 Heatsink with a Panaflo 92mm fan
2x 500GB Western Digital Sata 2 3.0Gb/s Hard Drives

I've been having non-stop problems with the memory, three times in a row had to RMA back to newegg due to one stick in the set being bad and always failing memtest with thousands and thousands of errors. I got abit discouraged but had an idea, I setup a refund at newegg and then ordered another set of the ram, so I had two sets of 2x2GB, again one stick was bad in the new set. I took both "good" sticks from each set and ran the together in memtest, they passed, ran them Separately, they passed.

I was happy, could even run @ 1600 linked and synced 7-7-7 18 1T with stock voltages. I turn it back to 1333 due to the reported 790i corruption issues at 1600+. A week goes by and I start to have problems, games freezing sometimes, lockups, bluescreens when just browsing the web. I decide to run memtest again, errors galore where as a week ago it was fine.

I've tried going to 1600 again just to test, and it will black screen before booting into windows at 7-7-7-18 1T now, or plain bluescreen and reboot. I've tried upping the SPP to 1.4v, CPU FSB to 1.35v, and Memory to 1.85v and 1.9v to test (Temporarily, I don't like going this high but wanted to see if it'd get into windows). But it doesn't help.

I'm wondering if anyone else here has had problems with G.Skill. Or what could the problem be, is the motherboard slowly killing the sticks? Is G.Skill just not right for this board? It's odd though as I've seen jAkUp and a few others use G.Skill.

Heres a picture running at 1333 Linked and Synced 7-7-7-18 1T @ 1.9v after a memtest86+ 5hour run.
This is using the new P04 bios, though P03 gave the same results.

Buckeye · 04-22-08, 08:30 PM

Have you tried putting the RAM in the slots the farthest away from the CPU ?

HaVoK-G2 · 04-22-08, 09:36 PM

I tried the sticks in slots 1 and 3 aswell as 0 and 2.

Which actually came up with the same errors at 489.2mb and 50.0mb on test 4.

jcniest5 · 04-25-08, 11:26 AM

I think your board may actually have killed some memory modules, it's famous for some boards. Your best bet would be to RMA your board and memory at the same time.

**bacon12** · 04-25-08, 11:45 AM

Man that sucks but yea sounds like the board is killing your ram. Nice build btw.

Muppet · 04-25-08, 05:59 PM

I was thinking of getting this Ram and changing from my G.Skill 2x1Gb 1333mhz. It looks like I may look elsewhere now.

HaVoK-G2 · 04-26-08, 08:29 PM

As I've been through this since the beginning of april, I fear I might be noticing somewhat of a trend... I'm afraid it could be 2x2GB DDR sticks...

I've been through 3 2x2GB DDR sets with G.Skill, I just recently RMA'd this latest set... I Opted to go for OCZ 2x2GB 1600 this time.
Been in contact with G.Skill past two weeks on and off, they got ahold of a 790i board themselves this week, they failed to run it at the rated 7-7-7 18 1T timings, said they had to run it at 2T to avoid problems. (But I couldn't even do that in the end)

I tested a friends OCZ 2x1GB The other day and it worked fine, went good at 1333 with no errors in any of the slots. So I thought I'd try the brand.

Only after ordering now, have I thought almost all the problems I've read over at the evga forums have been with 2x2GB Sets, and not 2x1GB. I wonder if 4x1GB sets have problems? If not, if the 2x2GB OCZ fails, just might be the route I'll have to take.

I get the new ram on monday, if it fails it's either my motherboard specifically with 2x2GB DDR3, or the 790i series in whole maybe..?

So frustrating sometimes.

jAkUp · 04-27-08, 10:01 AM

You have to run 2T with the 2GB modules, but at 7-7-7-18 2T I have had no issues at all...

HaVoK-G2 · 04-27-08, 10:17 AM

Hrm, slaWter that's not very comforting. I'll keep my hopes up that it isn't the board killing them for now.

I guess I'll have to wait and see monday and a week from it.

Thanks for the responses.

arioch21 · 04-27-08, 07:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jAkUp

You have to run 2T with the 2GB modules, but at 7-7-7-18 2T I have had no issues at all...

same timings here, ive had to put it at 2T, 1.8v been stable so far, any other setting other then auto (default) failed.

HaVoK-G2 · 04-28-08, 05:06 PM

Got my OCZ 2x2GB today, ran memtest for 2hrs @ 1333 7-6-6-24 Linked and Synced, passed no errors which is a relief.

Tried going to 1600 at 7-6-6-24 2T Linked / Synced, wouldn't boot using 1.75v on ram, tried 1.9v and auto settings with all other voltages ending up with:

CPU Core [auto] 1.29v
CPU FSB [auto] 1.30v
Memory [1.9v] 1.88v
nForce SPP [auto] 1.36v
nForce MPP [auto] 1.50v

GTLVREF Lane 0 [auto] -50mv
GTLVREF Lane 1 [auto] -50mv
GTLVREF Lane 2 [auto] +00mv
GTLVREF Lane 3 [auto] +00mv

I got into windows but... it was 800x600, wouldn't let me change to anything higher then 1024x768 and was acting strange. I've never seen that before. Is this the rumored corruption issue @ 1600+? Or are voltages just not high enough or something else wrong, trying to be careful as I hear 45nm quads are dropping left and right around 1.4v.

Though supposedly I shouldn't need that much for just 1600 / 400x8. The GTLVREF Lane's look odd, no experience with those though, it's what the motherboard set.

HaVoK-G2 · 04-29-08, 08:01 AM

Played around more tonight with some good results, found something odd. If the CPU FSB is set at 1.30v it will cause the strange low res issue within windows.

I started setting voltages mostly all manually now due to auto setting them too high for my quad it seems. Kind of nice the q9450 can go from 2.4ghz to 3.2ghz on just 1.21v.

Got it to boot into windows at 7-7-7-20 2T @ 1600 Linked / Synced.
CPU Core [1.25v] 1.21v
CPU FSB [1.20v]
Memory [1.90v] 1.88v
nForce SPP [1.30v] 1.32v
nForce MCP [auto] 1.5v

7-6-6-24 2T (Rams specced rating) @ 1600 Linked / Synced with even 1.950v memory, after the windows loading bar it will blackscreen with just a mouse there. No vista logo and login sound, will just hang there.

I think I'm going to stop here untill the next bios and corruption issues are fixed, for now it's back to 1333 @ 7-6-6-24 linked and synced.

Thanks all.

04-22-08, 08:20 PM	#1
HaVoK-G2 Registered User Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 68	Evga 790i & G.Skill 1600 DDR Trouble Hello all. A couple weeks ago I built a new rig with these following specs: Intel Quad q9450 @ 2.6ghz EVGA 790i Ultra Motherboard EVGA 8800 GTX Videocard G.SKILL 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600 CL7 Ram PC Power & Cooling 750w Power supply Coolermaster Cosmos S Case Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer 7.1 Soundcard Thermalright Ultima 90 Heatsink with a Panaflo 92mm fan 2x 500GB Western Digital Sata 2 3.0Gb/s Hard Drives I've been having non-stop problems with the memory, three times in a row had to RMA back to newegg due to one stick in the set being bad and always failing memtest with thousands and thousands of errors. I got abit discouraged but had an idea, I setup a refund at newegg and then ordered another set of the ram, so I had two sets of 2x2GB, again one stick was bad in the new set. I took both "good" sticks from each set and ran the together in memtest, they passed, ran them Separately, they passed. I was happy, could even run @ 1600 linked and synced 7-7-7 18 1T with stock voltages. I turn it back to 1333 due to the reported 790i corruption issues at 1600+. A week goes by and I start to have problems, games freezing sometimes, lockups, bluescreens when just browsing the web. I decide to run memtest again, errors galore where as a week ago it was fine. I've tried going to 1600 again just to test, and it will black screen before booting into windows at 7-7-7-18 1T now, or plain bluescreen and reboot. I've tried upping the SPP to 1.4v, CPU FSB to 1.35v, and Memory to 1.85v and 1.9v to test (Temporarily, I don't like going this high but wanted to see if it'd get into windows). But it doesn't help. I'm wondering if anyone else here has had problems with G.Skill. Or what could the problem be, is the motherboard slowly killing the sticks? Is G.Skill just not right for this board? It's odd though as I've seen jAkUp and a few others use G.Skill. Heres a picture running at 1333 Linked and Synced 7-7-7-18 1T @ 1.9v after a memtest86+ 5hour run. This is using the new P04 bios, though P03 gave the same results.

04-22-08, 08:30 PM	#2
Buckeye Registered User Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 468	Re: Evga 790i & G.Skill 1600 DDR Trouble Have you tried putting the RAM in the slots the farthest away from the CPU ? __________________ New Build Coming Soon Powered by Liftoff and soon to be cooled by H30.

04-22-08, 09:36 PM	#3
HaVoK-G2 Registered User Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 68	Re: Evga 790i & G.Skill 1600 DDR Trouble I tried the sticks in slots 1 and 3 aswell as 0 and 2. Which actually came up with the same errors at 489.2mb and 50.0mb on test 4.

04-25-08, 11:26 AM	#4
jcniest5 Registered User Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Twin Cities, MN., USA Posts: 678	Re: Evga 790i & G.Skill 1600 DDR Trouble I think your board may actually have killed some memory modules, it's famous for some boards. Your best bet would be to RMA your board and memory at the same time. __________________ Asus Rampage Extreme with Intel E1400@3.2Ghz, 4GB (2x2GB) OCZ Platinum PC3-1600, EVGA GTX285 SC 1GB DDR3 Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe 1.01G, AMD A64 X2 3800+, 2x1GB Ultra PC-3200, BFG 9600GT OC 512MB DDR3 Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe, A64 3200 Venice, 2x1GB Crucial Ballistix PC-4000 and EVGA 7600GT 256MB DDR3 Abit KN8 Rev. 1.1, A64 3200+, 2x512MB Samsung PC-3700, MSI 8500GT 256MB DDR3 Gigabyte P4M900-M7 Rev. 7.0, Intel Celeron 440, 1GB Kingston, 6600LE Gigabyte P4M900-M4 Rev. 6.1, P4 3Ghz Prescott, 2x1GB OCZ Platinum Rev. 2, EVGA 8500GT 1GB DDR2 ECS L4VXA2, P4 2Ghz, 768MB and 6600GT AGP

04-25-08, 11:45 AM	#5
bacon12 Registered User Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 3,536	Re: Evga 790i & G.Skill 1600 DDR Trouble Man that sucks but yea sounds like the board is killing your ram. Nice build btw.

04-25-08, 05:59 PM	#6
Muppet Registered User Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: New Zealand Posts: 3,107	Re: Evga 790i & G.Skill 1600 DDR Trouble I was thinking of getting this Ram and changing from my G.Skill 2x1Gb 1333mhz. It looks like I may look elsewhere now.

04-26-08, 08:29 PM	#7
HaVoK-G2 Registered User Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 68	Re: Evga 790i & G.Skill 1600 DDR Trouble As I've been through this since the beginning of april, I fear I might be noticing somewhat of a trend... I'm afraid it could be 2x2GB DDR sticks... I've been through 3 2x2GB DDR sets with G.Skill, I just recently RMA'd this latest set... I Opted to go for OCZ 2x2GB 1600 this time. Been in contact with G.Skill past two weeks on and off, they got ahold of a 790i board themselves this week, they failed to run it at the rated 7-7-7 18 1T timings, said they had to run it at 2T to avoid problems. (But I couldn't even do that in the end) I tested a friends OCZ 2x1GB The other day and it worked fine, went good at 1333 with no errors in any of the slots. So I thought I'd try the brand. Only after ordering now, have I thought almost all the problems I've read over at the evga forums have been with 2x2GB Sets, and not 2x1GB. I wonder if 4x1GB sets have problems? If not, if the 2x2GB OCZ fails, just might be the route I'll have to take. I get the new ram on monday, if it fails it's either my motherboard specifically with 2x2GB DDR3, or the 790i series in whole maybe..? So frustrating sometimes.

04-27-08, 10:01 AM	#8
jAkUp eat. sleep. overclock. Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Chino, California Posts: 17,744	Re: Evga 790i & G.Skill 1600 DDR Trouble You have to run 2T with the 2GB modules, but at 7-7-7-18 2T I have had no issues at all... __________________ 965xe \|\| evga x58 classified \|\| 3x evga gtx 480 \|\| 6gb g.skill \|\| win7 x64

04-27-08, 10:17 AM	#9
HaVoK-G2 Registered User Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 68	Re: Evga 790i & G.Skill 1600 DDR Trouble Hrm, slaWter that's not very comforting. I'll keep my hopes up that it isn't the board killing them for now. I guess I'll have to wait and see monday and a week from it. Thanks for the responses.

04-28-08, 05:06 PM	#11
HaVoK-G2 Registered User Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 68	Re: Evga 790i & G.Skill 1600 DDR Trouble Got my OCZ 2x2GB today, ran memtest for 2hrs @ 1333 7-6-6-24 Linked and Synced, passed no errors which is a relief. Tried going to 1600 at 7-6-6-24 2T Linked / Synced, wouldn't boot using 1.75v on ram, tried 1.9v and auto settings with all other voltages ending up with: CPU Core [auto] 1.29v CPU FSB [auto] 1.30v Memory [1.9v] 1.88v nForce SPP [auto] 1.36v nForce MPP [auto] 1.50v GTLVREF Lane 0 [auto] -50mv GTLVREF Lane 1 [auto] -50mv GTLVREF Lane 2 [auto] +00mv GTLVREF Lane 3 [auto] +00mv I got into windows but... it was 800x600, wouldn't let me change to anything higher then 1024x768 and was acting strange. I've never seen that before. Is this the rumored corruption issue @ 1600+? Or are voltages just not high enough or something else wrong, trying to be careful as I hear 45nm quads are dropping left and right around 1.4v. Though supposedly I shouldn't need that much for just 1600 / 400x8. The GTLVREF Lane's look odd, no experience with those though, it's what the motherboard set.

04-29-08, 08:01 AM	#12
HaVoK-G2 Registered User Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 68	Re: Evga 790i & G.Skill 1600 DDR Trouble Played around more tonight with some good results, found something odd. If the CPU FSB is set at 1.30v it will cause the strange low res issue within windows. I started setting voltages mostly all manually now due to auto setting them too high for my quad it seems. Kind of nice the q9450 can go from 2.4ghz to 3.2ghz on just 1.21v. Got it to boot into windows at 7-7-7-20 2T @ 1600 Linked / Synced. CPU Core [1.25v] 1.21v CPU FSB [1.20v] Memory [1.90v] 1.88v nForce SPP [1.30v] 1.32v nForce MCP [auto] 1.5v 7-6-6-24 2T (Rams specced rating) @ 1600 Linked / Synced with even 1.950v memory, after the windows loading bar it will blackscreen with just a mouse there. No vista logo and login sound, will just hang there. I think I'm going to stop here untill the next bios and corruption issues are fixed, for now it's back to 1333 @ 7-6-6-24 linked and synced. Thanks all.