Ballistix Performance Memory

[Parmenion]

Thanks lordgllynn. I had looked on the contact page but must have missed the 'more contact options' link. Can see it now anyway.

Many thanks

[Colt1911]

Wow 36.8 cu ft a min! Do you use hepafilters or do you clean your PC out every other day?

Replace the mainboard? Come on! This is the same degredation everyone else is seeing.

Colt

***edited to remove advertising for competitor -- Katana

[Gabbiani]

A couple of comments from reading this post.

I think I have seen people say they are paying to return their old ram. Crucial will email you a UPS label but I have always had to email support to get it - they never do it automatically. Trust me I've done it 5 times on one set now.

For my case - pointing the finger at voltages don't work - bios reads very close and checking the board with a meter gives the proper voltages too.

[Parmenion]

Crucial accepted back the faulty sticks and the new sticks arrived today. The new sticks are the newer 2.0v version and I'm pleased with the support Crucial have given me. It didn't cost anything to send the faulty sticks back as they emailed me a free post code.

[pezed]

I'm glad to hear they were able to RMA your RAM.  Don't get too excited though.  I am currently having this exact issue with 4x2gb 2.0v ballistix on a Gigabyte P45 board.  This RAM functioned perfectly for about 5 months then suddenly one day I started having crashes,  an immediate reboot into memtest shows tons of errors, but a hard powercycle will fix the errors, for a while, anywhere between 1minute to 1 day, then the problem will return.  Using some OCZ ram on the same board has no problems what so ever.  I hate that this RAM malfuntioned as its performance was so good.  Perhaps Crucial is selling modules that are rated higher than they can actually handle over time?

[lordgllynn]

If a hard boot fixed this issue, then RAM may not be your problem. RAM is a passive hardware device. Which means that it does not maintain anything. If you shut it off or remove it, no changes will be made to it. There are no active components on it like capacitors. However, there are caps in the memory circuit. There are on the motherboard and are generally used for noise reduction. These caps can intermittently fail and recover by removing them from power for a small period of time. This doesn't mean the caps have failed and need replaced. It just means that they are reaching a limit and may need some adjustments to maximize them. Power surges can wreak havok on PC hardware, especially electrolitic caps. If you've had any in the past few months, the surge could have weakened the cap(s). Check you power supply with a power supply tester. Make sure you've got a good surge protection system that is rated for a power consumption of at least twice your systems requirements. Usually, 3200 Joule surge protection or better will work fine. In the meantime, try adjusting your FSB and memory voltages up/down slightly to see if stability returns. On a side note, OCZ high end memory and Crucial Ballistix memory come from the same place. They are very similar in builds. So what could happen to one, can happen to the other. Good luck and reply back if you need any other help.

[pezed]

This RAM acts up in not only my board.  It also does the same thing in my workstation at work.  And it seems I'm not the only one who has had trouble with ballistix stability after a few months of use.

My machine has a brand new Corsair power supply, plugged into an APC 750 UPS, there are no power issues.  If there were any issues with my hardware then the OCZ ram should be showing problems also.  I'm not saying Crucial makes a bad product, but there is definately problems with the ballistix line.

[lordgllynn]

Don't freak out...  Just contact Crucial Customer Support and ask them for help. The forums are for user to user support. If all you want to do is rant, then keep it to yourself. It does not help others.

[widenet]

Actually, it helps greatly. It lets a person know they're not crazy and they're not alone. Otherwise, like the original poster, I'd be screaming and pulling my hair out thinking that I was cursed or that somehow all the hardware in my office had suddenly stopped working reliably.

I had 4 similar Ballistix DIMMs running solid as rock in an older Gigabyte motherboard for over a year. Then, in an upgraded motherboard, for some reason it won't even boot with 2-4 DIMMs no matter what configuration I try. But other RAM I've borrowed works just fine. You can imagine the frustration and self doubt when you swear you're doing the right thing but the wrong results keep happening.

This forum (and the frustrated rants therein) is the only reason I didn't reach my breaking point and throw everything in the trash to start over. I saw I wasn't alone....

[lordgllynn]

Ha ha, replied to wrong thread. Sorry everybody. I had too many tabs open. Pezed's info wasn't what I was saying to keep to themselves. Again, sorry for that. Was actually trying to help pezed. Now, I will have to locate the post that I intended that message for.

I will try to keep my multi-tasking to a minimum.