motherboard RAM failures

MB manufacturer?

I haven't seen anything like that. However, I did have an unusual problem when I purchased about 8 MSI motherboards from a distributor. All the boards had a problem of some sort, but not all were identical, which is usually the case with production defects. After some investigation, I discovered that their shipping department had boxed up and delivered the boards that were being returned by other customers. This might be what's happening with the large number of failures.

Not that I know about. However, it's considered standard practice to assign the blame before the problem is identified and fixed.

Highly likely if he's using one set of RAM sticks to test the boards. Unlikely if each board has its own set of RAM. Very unlikely if it's the same slot that always craps out.

You might also check if the CPU is properly seated in its socket. That has caused some similar (but not identical) problems.

The model number of the MSI motherboard and the exact spec of the RAM might have been helpful. Some motherboards are VERY picky about the type and speed of RAM that they use. On the borderline devices, a given SDRAM stick will barely work in one slot, and fail in others. You might be dealing with such borderline situations. Numbers please.

Are you overclocking the CPU speed? What is the speed rating of the DDR3 RAM? It should be PC3-?????

Corsair "Dominator" RAM series is the favored RAM for overclocking adventures. They even advertise it.

As I recall, when I tore apart one of their DDR2 sticks, it's Intel chips, with a useless aluminum heat sink attached mostly for aesthetics. The sticks are then selected for speeds somewhat above the DDR3 specification. Note that similar looking sticks are bin sorted by speed. You may be using rejects, or a mix of speeds. Little wonder you're having fallout. If overclocked, don't be surprised if you get complaints of hangs and spontaneous reboots in the field. If running a speed mix, you could be seeing combinations that won't work.

I've had limited experience with DDR3 motherboards, and none with the above combination. I have had some experience with PIII and P4 vintage MSI (MicroStar International) motherboards and find them to be near the low end in quality. However, this board:

uses all polymer electrolytic capacitors, so there a good chance it will survive the warranty period. However, that's no indication layout and design quality, neither of which MSI is known for. I can't tell from the "detailed" specs if overclocking is supported. It proclaims: Supports six unbuffered DIMM of 1.5 Volt DDR3 800/1066/1333*/1600* (OC) DRAM, 24GB Max I'll assume that the Corsair RAM is running at 1600MT/s, which is well under their tested speed, so it should work. However, if the motherboard is set overlocked, it might not.

Jeff here is my current machine:

Corsair XMS3 4GB PC12800 DDR3 Dual Channel 1600Mhz AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition AM3 ASUS M4A78T-E AMD 790GX Socket AM3 ULTRA LS600 600W ATX POWER SUPPLY

Built in July 2010. Ran for a month at standard CPU clock. Upped 3.2 to 4 ghz in August 2010

Dual boot Mandriva 2010 Power Pack server kernel # uname -r

Windows 7 Ultimate.

Zero problems/anomalies. Rarely use the Windows 7 anymore but had same stability in Manddriva 2010 and Win 7.

Asus M4A78T-E is the overclocker's choice because of all the timing and core syncing features.

OK. I'm jealous. I know overclocking can be made to work, especially if the manufacturers of the board and RAM underspecify their maximum speeds. So far, there's no evidence that the MSI motherboard was overclocked, so I'm speculating as to the culprit.

Have you run Prime95 (Win) or MBench (Linux) benchmark to see if you can kill it? I use that as my QA test for overkill machines.

I've seen stock non-overclocked hang or overheat running this.

Nice. One of these days, in my non-existent spare time, I'll build myself a high end machine. Thanks for the pointers.

I've run several raw digital videos back to back encoding them to DVD but even at 10x encode rate I can't get the CPU load up to more than 50%. Not even enough load to speed the CPU fan up past 1800 which is still an idle speed.

Don't really need to burn anything in or force a failure artificially. I might do that if there was a problem.

$500 got all three items. Probably lots cheaper now Already had an Antec server case. Has a 120mm fan in back and a vent tube the size of the CPU fan with access to the side case so the CPU draws its own fresh air in. The tube covers the top of CPU fan. I thought it was a great idea.

It's a quiet machine also. Rubber mounted hard drives x3. The case has sound dampening on the sides and a locking cover for the drive bay. I can't handle a loud PC.

Nice, but depending upon how you're running that test, the CPU could be waiting for HD I/O, which might explain why it's at 50% idle. Try a CPU and/or RAM only benchmark to see how your overclocking is doing.

Awwww.... you're no fun.

I've seen a few boxes with fans like that. They work quite well for cooling the CPU, but seems to require a 2nd fan to cool the rest of the system. I've seen video cards that suck almost as much power as the CPU. $500 for all that is cheap, even with todays prices.

I have the same problem. I *HATE* noisy machines. About 2 years ago, I went on a noise reduction purge and replaced my office and home computers with Dell Optiplex 960 and 755 mini-tower machines respectively. Both use a single 120mm fan for cooling. No other fans in the box. The fan normally rotates quite slowly, which makes it very quiet. When I run Bench95 to heat up the CPU, the fan gets quite noisy. At full speed, it could probably lift the PC off the table.

No shock mounting on the hard disk drives. If there was enough noise and/or vibration to warrant a shock mount, I would also suspect that the drive was off balance or ready to blow. Some boxes allow the side to act as a sounding board for the drive noises, which I guess justifies sound dampening. I've done as well with stiffeners, battens, and fiberglass matting on the sides.

Incidentally, I once had a PC (PIII/866) that had no fans. It used heat pipes, liquid coolant, and a small aquarium pump to move the heat to outside of the box. Worked nice until I found anti-freeze all over the carpet.

More recently, I spent some time playing with two "no-fan" ATX power supplies. This was one

but I don't recall the other model. It had a big copper heat sink sticking out the back of the machine. I burned myself several times during testing. Both worked, but with limitations. The Zen-400 would accumulate heat inside the case, between the top of the case and the power supply. No air flow in that area would make the top rather hot. The other would probably scorch anything that came in contact with the copper heat sink. Meltdown and fire is a small price to pay for a quiet PC.

Huh? I believe Intel stopped making DRAM back in the 80's.

Y'er right. I recall seeing Intel markings on the chips, but that was a few months ago, I was in a hurry, etc. I may have been mistaken. I'll see if I can find a Corsair DDR3 stick and look inside. Randomly skimming through the Intel validated RAM lists, I couldn't find Corsair:

Some Googling didn't find any references to the chip vendor(s) for Corsair RAM. The apparently were using Elpida RAM:

but were having problems 2 years ago. Oh-oh... perhaps old stock DDR3 RAM?

It's not idling at 50%. That's the highest CPU load that I can manage with the video software. Actually any software I have. My video card is pre-CUDA support else-wise CPU load would be less than 50%.

Yeah I know. No need to heat the soup up unless it's time to eat.

The side vent has a tube you can adjust over the CPU cooler. And flairs at the end so it covers the cooler inside. Just wanted to make sure I stated that correctly. Sometimes my descriptions suck. There is an aditional PCM controlled 120mm fan mounted under the PSU on the real panel The PSU has a load controlled 120mm fan.

Yeah the Dell desktops both home and office versions always used a large slow rotating fan with a shroud over the CPU. Made them popular for being quiet.

The screws for the hard drives go through a silicone grommet. All drives make some noise and there's space in this case for 4. I have a mini ATX case that I used with 1 drive prior to building this. You could hear the drive spin and click. This case with 3 drives you cannot unless you hold your ear up to the front.

I used to offer a micro pc to clients. It had no fans either. Sold a few of them but they weren't upgradeable.

My son has a Intel P4 @ 3ghz. Has a large PCM fan on the CPU. Pretty quiet most of the time unless he's playing a game. The CPU fan ramps up and down with the load of the game. It will whine when the heatsink gets clogged with dust. Can definitely tell when it's time to detatch the fan and brush and vacuum it out. The maker anticipated this and the fan is latched on, easy to remove to clean. It's been long enough now for this one to get its first cleaning. I've cleaned the side vent off several times as dust gathers rather quickly over the inlet. It's not a screen but a circle of closely drilled small holes.