Using DDR3 ram on a P45 Chipset

[clairvoux]

Greetings.

I'm currently running a Q9400 @ 3,8GHZ on a EP45C-DS3 board. This is a board that supports both DDR2 ram and DDR3. Weird setup, I know.

I used to run 4x1GB of Samsung 800mhz DDR2, and it worked pretty well, but I was a little limited on my overclock. Currently I'm running a single stick of 4GB Crucial Ballistix DDR3 1600mhz.

Since day 1 it has always been pretty unstable, with many BSODs and I couldn't really find out where the problem was. It could be incompatability with the board, it could be defective RAM, too high of a CPU overclock... So I ran Memtest in another computer and it returned 7 errors (running memtest on mine would return hundreds).

So I got fed up with that RAM and was thinking of buying 4x2GB G.Skill Ripjaws X DDR3 2133 CL9 RAM, which where I live has a very good price and awesome speed. I was wondering if anyone could give some advice as to wether the ram will work on my board, or there is anything I could do to improve stability.

System specs are:

PSU: Enermax NAXN 550W
GPU: R9 270X
Motherboard: Gigabyte EP45C-DS3
RAM: 4GBx1 Crucial Ballistix DDR3 1600mhz (running at 1400mhz in an attempt to improve stability)
CPU: Q9400 2,66Ghz @ 3,8Ghz

 

[Wolfshadw]

From your motherboard specifications page

2 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 4 GB of system memory

This tells me that 4GB DDR3 memory modules are not compatible with your motherboard. Two slots, up to 4GB supported means only 2GB DDR3 memory modules.

-Wolf sends

 

[AdviserKulikov]

Sir I congratulate you on using such an insane setup. I don't imagine there would be any problems running ddr3 memory as it is all hooked up to the same CPU.

The only problem is that the Board officially only supports 4GB (2x2) of DDR3.

 

[clairvoux]

LOL, thanks AdviserKulikov

Yes, I am aware that only 4GB DDR3 is officially supported by my motherboard, but I have found plenty of forums where people with the P35 version of this board were using 8GB and have no problems at all. Also I once tried 8GB of Kingston Value RAM @ 1333mhz and it worked just fine, and the board recognized all 8GB, but unfortunately the sticks belonged to a friend so i couldnt keep them. I also tried running 8GB Corsair Vengeance 1600Mhz and couldn't get it to boot.

So I'm at a loss here, and I have no idea if this kit in particular G.Skill Ripjaws X DDR3 2133 PC3-17000 8GB 2x4GB CL9 would work on my motherboard.

 

[jitpublisher]

Your board was made as a "transitional" part when DDR3 was first becoming available as a memory standard. These boards are not known as the best solution for overclocking, or even running DDR3 as a matter of fact. They were made as cost saving parts for people to be able to carry over old memory to a newer platform. There is no performance advantage over DDR2 on these boards. If you did run across something that worked, get them back. Offer to buy that guy a bigger or better memory package. If you actually got something to work it was honestly a huge stroke of luck!

 

[clairvoux]

Ok, thanks for clearing that up . I did have some stability issues, but the board seems to be a pretty good overclocker nonetheless. I know there was no performance advantage over DDR2. I just want to use DDR3 because its cheaper, is much more available, and can be carried over to a new PC.