Sudden FPS drops from swapping out faulty RAM

[petethelich]

I recently had some RAM sticks go bad this is my ram from before

so I requested a RMA from corsair and when the new ram arrived I swapped them out (4x4gb @ 1600) I ran it through memtest86 and didnt get any errors
and booted up my PC just fine. So my new ram sticks appear to be working

I ran a windows assessment and nothing had changed from 7.6/7.9 and decided to put it through its paces opening up photoshop + dota 2 + minecraft server + many chrome tabs and it didnt blink whereas I was getting "Running low on memory" errors when that maxes out at 10gb.

I started playing a game of dota with just my minecraft server + 1 chrome tab open. I was getting wild FPS swings from 120 to 25 via Nividia GeForce FPS counter

the only thing I changed about my system is the RAM from my system not experiencing any slowdowns just the "out of memory" errors

I tried different RAM configurations in my motherboard 1 2 3 4 and 1 3 2 4 and it doesnt seem to have made a difference. Running 3dMark11 at 720p would average 30 for tests 1-4 and the physics tests it would only pull around 10 FPS.

What is going on?
the only thing I can imagine is the ram showing up at 667MHz but from what ive read that should be correct for 1600MHz ram when I went into the BIOS it showed it clocked at 1333MHz


System specs:

Operating System
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit SP1

CPU
Intel Core i5 3570K @ 3.40GHz 47 °C
Ivy Bridge 22nm Technology

RAM
16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 666MHz (9-9-9-24)

Motherboard
ASRock Z77 Extreme4 (CPUSocket) 47 °C

Graphics
ASUS VE278 (1920x1080@60Hz)
ASUS VE278 (1920x1080@60Hz)
Intel HD Graphics 4000 (ASRock)
2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 (EVGA) 54 °C

Storage
232GB ATA Samsung SSD 840 SCSI Disk Device (SSD) 35 °C
931GB ATA WDC WD10EZEX-75Z SCSI Disk Device (SATA) 37 °C

 

[James Mason]

666mhz dual channel ram is only 1333mhz speed. 800mhz in dual channel mode is 1600mhz in real life. basically your Bios isn't lying to you.

But running a minecraft server AND playing dota 2 would actually make FPS drops like that seem normal, as minecraft can certainly use up a lot of system resources, especially like when new chunks are being populated.

 

[petethelich]

666mhz dual channel ram is only 1333mhz speed. 800mhz in dual channel mode is 1600mhz in real life. basically your Bios isn't lying to you.

But running a minecraft server AND playing dota 2 would actually make FPS drops like that seem normal, as minecraft can certainly use up a lot of system resources, especially like when new chunks are being populated.

Yeah found that I changed it to 1600 MHz in my bios and started getting BSOD memory errors on my old RAM so i decided to live with my motherboards auto 1333MHz

but this is a small unoccupied at the time server and I never had any problems running it during a game before. I closed everything but DotA 2 and was still getting the FPS drops particular during team fights where buildings were being destroyed. I dont believe it to be a heat throttling issue but I will check to see the graph during the game. I have pretty good cable management and an aftermarket heat sink

 

[James Mason]

Uhh, what about if you only have 2 sticks of ram in the motherboard, any FPS drops then? (maybe not running the server but it seems to happen regardless)
It may also be because you're trying to use a quad channel memory kit in a dual channel board, you may have been better off getting 2 2x4 sets of ram than 1 4x4 set, as they're designed for different applications.

 

[petethelich]

Uhh, what about if you only have 2 sticks of ram in the motherboard, any FPS drops then? (maybe not running the server but it seems to happen regardless)
It may also be because you're trying to use a quad channel memory kit in a dual channel board, you may have been better off getting 2 2x4 sets of ram than 1 4x4 set, as they're designed for different applications.

I havnt tested that but the only thing I have done was replace faulty Corsair Vengeance CML16GX3M4A1600C9 ram with new Corsair Vengeance CML16GX3M4A1600C9 ram nothing else

also according to http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z77%20Extreme4/?cat=Memory
(control+F CML16GX3M4A1600C9 for my ram) and it shows 4PCS = dual channel, supports 2 modules and 4 modules

 

[James Mason]

Well, why don't you try testing each memory stick individually, and starting with memory slot A2:
ftp://66.226.78.21/manual/Z77%20Extreme4.pdf
"Note1: It is recommended to install a memory module in DDR3_A2 or DDR3_B2 slot first!"

See if you get FPS drops with any single one of them.