RAM is a dud?

mazchazo

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I have this motherboard.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157271

I have this RAM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231428

Months ago, I kept receiving BSODs on the first minute of windows start up. I reinstalled windows, and the BSOD happened during windows installation. I then used memtest and found one of the sticks to give me errors. I took it out of the rig, and the system was fine and stopped receiving BSODs. The system is still running fine and BSOD free, but I am on 4GB of RAM, instead of 8 because one stick went bad.

However, I was wondering if this was a motherboard problem that made the stick have errors. The RAM has a XMP feature and I never updated my motherboard's bios or got the XMP update with the motherboard. I was wondering if the RAM's errors is because of that or if it is just a dud.

The RAM is not on my motherboard's QVL list. I was wondering if I should RMA this RAM, if this problem won't happen again or if I should get a new pair of RAM that is on my motherboard's QVL list. Thanks.
 

mazchazo

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mazchazo

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I tested both sticks individually, the other stick was fine, which is the one running at the moment. The other one gave errors in memtest so I removed it from the system.
 

mazchazo

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Do I have to enable XMP when I use these? I found I am not the only person with this problem. I read customer reviews in newegg and found many people complain that the RAM gave them BSODs also. Somehow, the RAM has 5 stars on it because many people gave it good feedback, but a considerable amount gave it 1 or 2 stars because it gave them BSODs like me.
 
"Do I have to enable XMP when I use these? "

No. But its one way how to get @ 1600MHz.

Another is to go to BIOS and set it to 1600MHz.

110117160750.png
 

mazchazo

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I was thinking to buy Corsair memory for 53 bucks if it's not worth the hassle of RMAing. I hate waiting for those, if it will take more than 2 weeks. I have read buyer feedback on newegg and people said the RAM has BSOD problems, and this RAM does not seem like very reliable RAM. What do you think? I will RMA this anyway, but I will use this Corsair for reliable RAM, so I don't have to encounter these problems in the future. I will end up with 16GB of RAM because I will use 2 kits together, I only need 8, but 16 is fine.

Should I get the Corsair and RMA, or just skip out on the Corsair. This is what I am planning to get.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233180
 

mazchazo

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The Corsair I chose was the same 1600 Mhz and it had the same timings as the Ripjaws I have. How long does it take to RMA an item on average? This is the first time I ever had to RMA something.

Thanks for fast replies.