DDR3 1333 issue

[hakkai_10]

Good day!

Yesterday, i purchased a new motherboard, an Asrock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3.

I have a G.Skill Ripjaws X DDR3 1333 CL8 [F3-10666CL8D-4GBXM] 2048x2 Mb @ 1.5v

On my old motherboard, an ECS H61H2-M2, running cpu-z, the memory is read as dual, with identical specs on the SPD slots, and when I run the Windows Experience Index, I get a 7.5 result on the memory operations [RAM].

However, using the new motherboard, the Asrock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3, the Windows Experience only achieves 5.9 on the Ram. Confused as to why, I opened up CPU-Z and surprisingly, the RAMs on the SPD are very different.



I don't know what's going on, but these rams came from the same box.

Why is the other RAM being read as DDR3 1600 when I haven't done anything to it?

I'm running everything at default, and no changes have been made since I installed the memory. I've also re-checked the bios if there was anything that was out of place or strange, but everything is set at AUTO on the DRAM Configurations just like my old board.

By the way, I've tried swapping the RAMs on all of the DIMM slots, and used all sorts of combinations. It doesn't matter what slot the ram occupies. The other ram is always being read as a 1600 and not a 1333.

Please help.

By the way, the rest of the specs of my PC are:
CPU : Intel i3 2100
RAM: F3-10666CL8D-4GBXM / DDR3 1333 2x2gb @ 1.5v
VGA: MSI GTX 560 TI Hawk ~ Single Card
MB: Asrock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3
PSU: CM Silent Pro M 700.
HD: 2x1 TB Seagate Barracuda 7200 @ sata2

[Tradesman]

Might want to see if CPU-Z 1.59 reads different. Also do you have the latest BIOS, 1.30? Can be found here:

http://www.asrock.com/mb/download.as...%20Gen3&o=BIOS

and have you tried to reverse the two sticks putting the one currently in slot 3 into 1 and the one in 1 to 3 to see if the reading change also....

Hopefully one of the above will straighten things out, else it's possible the set had either the wrong sticks in it or possible (more likely) something has happened to the SPD in the 2nd stick as while it reads as a 1600 stick by the part number, the XMP setting it shows is for a 2000 stick

[hakkai_10]

Yes, I've tried swapping the sticks, and no matter where the "1600" stick is inserted, it always gives the same result, whereas the other one works perfectly fine.

What really bothers me is the fact that this happened out of the blue. It really startled me when i ran the Windows Experience Index and it gave me a 5.9 result instead of the normal 7.5 on my previous board. Afterwards, I ran Cpu-z, and for the 1st time in my history with that stick, the SPD suddenly detailed that they were different. I pay great attention to the parts I purchase, and they were exactly the same when I bought it.

The Bios doesn't really concern me, and for a bnew board, I have full confidence in the product. Besides, there's an even greater risk in flashing it.

Instead, what I did is actually test the sticks on a different board, another pc of mine. This time, it's a combo board socket 775 that supports ddr2 and ddr3 with a frequency limit of 1333 for ddr3. I figured, my new board can read the 1600, but the old one can only handle an oc'd 1333 or stock 1066. The funny thing is, the board can actually read both sticks. The problem is, the results are exactly the same. Cpu-z reads both sticks in spd - one 1333 and the other 1600. Swapping them made no difference at all. Placing one stick and running the system as 2gb, spd proves that my boards are not the problem.

I went through my neighbors and checked my sticks through different boards.

It is indeed a pity. The ram sticks that I have been using for more than 6 months without a problem - and all of a sudden, one of the sticks begin showing a different side.

The real question is, what happened? 6 months, and a perfect ram stick suddenly changes its specs? Is that even possible? What happened? And what do i do with this? Is there a way to fix it?

[Tradesman]

Did you try ver 1.59 of CPU-Z, at times CPU-Z will read the SPD wrong, but haven't seen it do it with multiple mobos. Off hand the only thing I can think of is if somebody tried to flash the the SPD with different settings, possibly a power spike, haven't heard of any virus's that go after SPDs though.

[hakkai_10]

Only my PC used the outsated version. The rest of the boards I've tested didn't have it installed so I downloaded the latest from the cpuz website.

Actually, I'm the only one using my computers. I have no idea how to flash rams, nor will I attempt to do so just like my board.

The possibility you mentioned is the same thing I came up with, but having a stable electricity supply in the house, a surge protector, a psu with multiple voltage protection, and boards that do the same, it begs me to doubt the possibilities at all. Also, if that were indeed the case, I think I should see some issues within the board first, as well as the other ram stick, but all of them seem to be just fine - no capacitors blown, burn marks, faded or worn contact points, etc.

Is returning these chips, the only way for me to get back my money's worth?

[Tradesman]

Can always contact the RMA dept and see how they want to work it, contact info for US and Americas is rma@gskillusa.com, the rest of the world is rma@gskill.com