Ram Causes Freezing

[eweiss15]

i built a new system a month ago and havent been able to keep it stable. after RMA'ing the motherboard the same problems persisted: freezing during windows install, freezing in the desktop, freezing in games... freezing whenever it felt like it. by freezing i mean the HD led would go off and the entire system becomes unresponsive to anything but a reset. i had hoped that purchasing a legit copy of windows (xp pro sp2c oem) the problem would be fixed. it wasnt. last night i took out one of my ram sticks and reinstalled windows and everything has run smoothly; all windows updates video/sound drivers and such.
system specs:

-gigabyte ep35c-ds3r
-OCZ Gold Edition 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600)
-intel core2duo e6850 conroe (3.0ghz stock speed)
-antec 900 case
-OCZ GameXStream OCZ600GXSSLI ATX12V 600W Power Supply
-evga 512mb 8800GT
-arctic cooling freezer 7 pro (with mx-2 thermal compound) -- cores idle at 27c

I've moved both sticks through the 2 ddr3 slots on the motherboard and booted up and got into hl2 with no problems. however when i put both sticks in hl2 freezes before it loads into the main menu. im assuming this freezing would continue in the desktop and other applications. I have run memtest 84 with both sticks in on both the RMA'd motherboard and the new one i have installed now for 13 passes with 0 errors. right now im running memtest86 on one of the sticks in ddr3 1 slot; but i doubt any errors will be reported.
basically my question is, if one stick works by itself in both slots; why doesnt the system function properly when both are installed?
(also not an esd problem i always wear a wrist strap when inside my computer).
thanks!

 

[boonality]

I dont' know enough about the specifics and what not with DDR3 memory but first things first, make sure that you set the voltage and timings manually to the specifications for the memory.

 

[Shadow703793]

^Agreed. You need to increase voltage and probably relax timing.

 

[eweiss15]

the specs listed on newegg were 1.7v and 9-9-9-26
i set the overvoltage in bios to .1v (ddr2/3 was running a 1.616 in pc health status in bios) and i put the timings to manual and changed them from 9-8-8-20 to 9-9-9-26. it seemed ok, loaded hl2 once but froze the second time. so i changed the first 9 (it was displayed as 9 (auto) ) to 9 (9). system froze loading into windows. i reset the bios to optimized settings and they are at:

CAS latency - 9 (auto)
DRAM RAS# to CAS# delay - 8 (auto)
DRAM RAS# precharge 8 (auto)
precharge delay(tRAS) - 20 (auto)

there are also settings for advanced timings beneath these. do the advanced timings need to be altered as well?
also, when i set the ddr2/ddr3 overvoltage to .1v should it show up in pc health status? it still displayed 1.616v there.

 

[nukemaster]

hit CTRL + F1 to open up the extra option in the bios then check MIT to make sure everything is set right.

EDIT

the rated voltage for your ram is 1.7 volts. you can try another 0.1 and see if that gets you to 1.7(it should since the default voltage for DDR3 is 1.5 so you need +0.2 to get to 1.7)

You should try to run memtest86 to see if its the ram or something else.
http://www.memtest86.com/download.html

Also available on the Ultimate Boot CD
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html

 

[eweiss15]

ive run memtest twice with both sticks in for 13 passes and received 0 errors. it's weird, im setting the ddr2/3 overvoltage up to +0.2v and it doesnt change the reading in pc health status. im combing the ocz forums atm; any other ideas?

 

[nukemaster]

you should try to run prime95, maybe the cpu is not happy...its along shot, but memory normally BSOD's not freezing...

What video drivers are you running?

http://www.freewarefiles.com/Prime-V_program_19638.html

 

[eweiss15]

i just updated today to the evga drivers (3/6/08 release i think).
i found a page on the ocz forums with a ss of advanced timing changes
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=233920&postcount=3
i set my adv timing changes to what was in that ss. hl2 just loaded up, going to get prime95 and run it anyway.
should i run memtest again with these new settings?
thanks man!

i just played with the overvoltage and finally got it to 1.7something
woot!

 

[SpinachEater]

So did your freezing stop?

 

[nukemaster]

one thing i do notice is that you said newegg shows timings of 9-9-9-26
and the board set 9-8-8-20. Those are tight timings for that memory...

Then it seems like you used 9-9-9-26(as per the OCZ forums). That may have been the problem the whole time....is it working better now?