Gskill HZ mismatched sticks issue!

377 Views 7 Replies 4 Participants Last post by bibek888, Mar 16, 2009

bibek888

Discussion Starter · Mar 15, 2009

Well I just found something very weird yesterday. I bought my Gskill HZ DDR2 800MHz ram about 2 summers ago when I put my computer together. Currently it has a ASUS P5K-E MB with E8400 CPU, GSkill HZ 2GB (1x 1GB sticks) and a EVGA 8800 GTX. So I got a deal from a friend for another 2GB (1x 1GB sticks) to get me up to 4GB total. Well, with this I decided to go and get another 8800GTX which I also found for a great deal to do SLI. Only thing was my MB is a Crossfire board so I decided to pick up an EVGA nForce 750i SLI Desktop Board so I can do SLI. Well, I was putting the system together for its first run last night when I tried to boot everything on 4GBs of ram. I got a C1 error from the MB's post code which is "Base Memory Detect Error". So I took out 2 of the sticks and tried to run 2GB in dual channel. Well, I got the same error. I ended up looking closely at the memory and I saw that 1 of the 1GB sticks had a black heat spreader like they are supposed to but had a green memory card where are all the others have a black card with black heat spreader. I checked the serial numbers from the 2 sticks I got from a friend and they matched except for the last digit, which makes sense. The 2 I had previously in my system had completely different serial codes, and one said F2-6400PHU2-2GBHZ and the other said F2-6400PHU1 - 1GBHZ. So are these two different size memory or just from a different set?? For some reason the two different sticks worked on my ASUS P5K-E MB for 2 years. When I put in the HZ Sticks with the black ram color into the new EVGA MB, the system boots up and shows 3GB memory. But when I try to put in the 1GB stick that is different the system freezes on C1 post code. How is this possible? Why would it work on one MB and not the other? Also, I tested all 4 sticks by putting them in my ASUS MB and the computer booted into windows and showed 4GB of total memory. Would GSkill believe me if I told them this is what happened? Or should I call Newegg and tell them they gave me 2 different sticks when they were supposed to be paired?

Sorry for the long post! I thought I was going crazy last night when I figured this out.

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d0gZpAw

· #2 · Mar 15, 2009

F2-6400PHU2-2GBHZ is a 2x1GB kit, so maybe he had one that went bad in a kit and replaced it with with a 1GBHZ (single dimm).

Some boards just happen to be more picky than others about mismatched ram.. I used to run a F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ kit with a F2-8000CL5D-4GBPQ kit on my P5K-E no problems (now run two PC8000 kits, one much newer than the other).

I would just run 2GB (for dual channel) for now until you can replace them all with at least a 2x2GB kit, which would also be less load on your PSU than 4 dimms.

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bibek888

Discussion Starter · #3 · Mar 15, 2009

I see, I had no idea it depended on the MB about the memory. Thanks for that note.

The thing is, my friend gave me the 2x1GB kit. It was the one I got from newegg that was two different sticks. Would newegg accept its mix up 2 years later or do have to call GSkill?

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d0gZpAw

· #4 · Mar 15, 2009

You could probably RMA them with G.Skill since they have "100% Lifetime Warranty". Good luck.

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bibek888

Discussion Starter · #5 · Mar 15, 2009

thanks, I guess its worth a try.

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Danbeme32

· #6 · Mar 15, 2009

Last month I had to rma 3 sets of g.Skill. Out of each set one was bad..Did you ran memtest to see which one was bad...It took a week to get mine back from rma for each set..

You are better off with 2x2gigs then 1x4gigs...Less stress on the nb..

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18 is # 1

· #7 · Mar 15, 2009

The old ones were D9s, the newer ones weren't.

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bibek888

Discussion Starter · #8 · Mar 16, 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by Danbeme32

Well I know which stick is bad. Its the 1 that wasn't supposed to be in the 2x1GB kit that comes from GSkill. So I requested an RMA from Gskill and I guess I just wait and see if they will RMA it.

Also, I already had 2x1GB sticks in my computer from when I bought it so I don't see the point of spending more money to get 2x2GB. Do they even make HZ memory in 2GB sticks? Also if I did go that route of 2x2GB memory, which brand and model would you guys recommend? I'm looking to get my E8400 OCed somewhere between 3.7 - 4.0 on a Tuniq 120. It will be lapped soon.

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