On 12/01/2014 11:52, John Williamson wrote:
On 11/01/2014 19:32, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Sat, 11 Jan 2014 19:08:13 -0000, tony sayer wrote:


No great fan of m$ but we still have a couple of olde WIN2K machines one
has been up for 8500 odd hrs and as to the main machine WIN 7 and I
really can't fault it at all!...

Plus the odd couple of XP machines no problems there either..

M$ gets blamed for blue screens. 99% of them are due to faulty memory.
Always run 3 passes of memtest on a new machine.

Most BSODs that I've had have turned out to be faulty hardware drivers,
mostly video card ones, and the others to badly written programmes or HD
corruption. I've never yet had one that could be traced to faulty memory.

I have recently been involved with a Dell that was BSODing. Took one
stick of memory out - OK. Obviously that as at fault. Make sure - swap
the removed stick back in and take the other one out. Still OK.

Ended up that both sticks were fine - and motherboard was happy with
either stick in either socket. But as soon as there were two sticks, it
BSODed again. Confirmed by Dell engineer (was still under warranty) -
and replaced.

--
Rod

On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 16:59:55 -0000, Mike Tomlinson wrote:

En el artículo , Uncle Peter
escribió:

I have no idea

Quite. Glad you're able to admit it.

Grow up.

--
"I went to a fight the other night and a hockey game broke out." -- Rodney Dangerfield.

On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 11:52:03 -0000, John Williamson wrote:

On 11/01/2014 19:32, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Sat, 11 Jan 2014 19:08:13 -0000, tony sayer wrote:


No great fan of m$ but we still have a couple of olde WIN2K machines one
has been up for 8500 odd hrs and as to the main machine WIN 7 and I
really can't fault it at all!...

Plus the odd couple of XP machines no problems there either..

M$ gets blamed for blue screens. 99% of them are due to faulty memory.
Always run 3 passes of memtest on a new machine.

Most BSODs that I've had have turned out to be faulty hardware drivers,
mostly video card ones, and the others to badly written programmes or HD
corruption. I've never yet had one that could be traced to faulty memory.

I've found brand new cheap memory to be faulty 10% of the time. And decent memory to be faulty 3% of the time.

I always install the latest drivers and the only blue screen I ever saw that wasn't to do with faulty memory was a disk controller fault, and that was a hardware fault, not the driver.

--
Setting a good example for your children takes all the fun out of middle age.

On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 19:06:34 -0000, SteveW wrote:

On 12/01/2014 11:52, John Williamson wrote:
On 11/01/2014 19:32, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Sat, 11 Jan 2014 19:08:13 -0000, tony sayer wrote:


No great fan of m$ but we still have a couple of olde WIN2K machines one
has been up for 8500 odd hrs and as to the main machine WIN 7 and I
really can't fault it at all!...

Plus the odd couple of XP machines no problems there either..

M$ gets blamed for blue screens. 99% of them are due to faulty memory.
Always run 3 passes of memtest on a new machine.

Most BSODs that I've had have turned out to be faulty hardware drivers,
mostly video card ones, and the others to badly written programmes or HD
corruption. I've never yet had one that could be traced to faulty memory.

I have, on three different machines.

On the first, Win NT ran, crashing once or twice a day, but otherwise
okay. I needed USB support for something and tried to install Win ME,
which would not even get past the installer (Win 98 would, but crashed
every half hour or so). A memory test proved one stick of memory faulty.
Replacing it cured the problem.

Years later, on the other two machines, both running the same
motherboards, same processors and same memory but different version of
Windows (Vista and 7) , first one stick and then the other of each
failed - again the machines became crash prone, a memory check showed
the fault and removing the faulty stick cured the problem until the
other stick went faulty a few months later. Replacing the memory has
kept both machines running (one is now running Windows 8 and I am using
the other to try out Zentyal).

I've never known memory to BECOME faulty, it's usually faulty on purchase.

--
Statistics show that 25% of all women are on medication for mental illness.
That's scary! It means 75% are running around with no bloody medication at all!!!

On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 22:01:10 -0000, polygonum wrote:

On 12/01/2014 11:52, John Williamson wrote:
On 11/01/2014 19:32, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Sat, 11 Jan 2014 19:08:13 -0000, tony sayer wrote:


No great fan of m$ but we still have a couple of olde WIN2K machines one
has been up for 8500 odd hrs and as to the main machine WIN 7 and I
really can't fault it at all!...

Plus the odd couple of XP machines no problems there either..

M$ gets blamed for blue screens. 99% of them are due to faulty memory.
Always run 3 passes of memtest on a new machine.

Most BSODs that I've had have turned out to be faulty hardware drivers,
mostly video card ones, and the others to badly written programmes or HD
corruption. I've never yet had one that could be traced to faulty memory.

I have recently been involved with a Dell that was BSODing. Took one
stick of memory out - OK. Obviously that as at fault. Make sure - swap
the removed stick back in and take the other one out. Still OK.

Ended up that both sticks were fine - and motherboard was happy with
either stick in either socket. But as soon as there were two sticks, it
BSODed again. Confirmed by Dell engineer (was still under warranty) -
and replaced.

You can also lower the clock speed to avoid a fault.

--
"An abstract noun," the teacher said, "is something you can think of, but you can't touch it. Can you give me an example of one?"
"Sure," a teenage boy replied. "My father's new car."

On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 18:48:51 -0000, Jim Hawkins wrote:


"Uncle Peter" wrote in message
news
On Wed, 08 Jan 2014 12:47:29 -0000, John Williamson
wrote:

On 08/01/2014 12:30, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 08/01/14 09:14, soup wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:



Seriously, three hours? What on earth were you doing to it?
I ran XP for 7 years( fair enough it was switched off each night and
restarted the next day) and only once saw a BSOD.

oh its never a BSOD - it just hangs - runs out of memory.

You must be doing something extremely odd then, as I have had XP SP3
running reliably (As in days between reboots for other reasons) in 2
gigabytes of RAM and no swapfile, all held on a 4 gigabyte SSD. It was
slow, but then again, it *was* running on the EEEPC.

XP SP3 is v e r y s l o w with less than a gigabyte of RAM due to the
paging needed, but I've never had the OS hang due to memory problems as
long as the swapfile is enabled and big enough. XP SP1 and SP2 used to
run quite nicely in 128 megabytes of RAM using a Pentium 300 processor.
The bloat didn't arrive until SP3 was released.

With Windows 7 and 8 I never use less than 8GB. 16GB if you're doing
anything more than just word processing or emails.


Does that mean you only use 64bit OSs ?

Of course. I switched to them as soon as they were out, why wouldn't I?

--
Why isn't 11 pronounced onety one?

On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 19:20:29 -0000, John Williamson wrote:

On 12/01/2014 18:57, Jim Hawkins wrote:
"John Williamson" wrote in message
...
On 12/01/2014 18:48, Jim Hawkins wrote:
"Uncle Peter" wrote in message
news With Windows 7 and 8 I never use less than 8GB. 16GB if you're doing
anything more than just word processing or emails.


Does that mean you only use 64bit OSs ?

Uses a third party utility to let 32 bit Windows 8 see all the RAM and
then use it as a RAMdisk with the swapfile on it?


Which utility might that be ?


It's as real as the need for 8 Gig of RAM to do more than e-mail or word
processing.

Disk cache.

--
The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck is probably the day they start making vacuum cleaners.

On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 22:23:38 -0000, Huge wrote:

On 2014-01-12, Jim Hawkins wrote:

"Uncle Peter" wrote in message
news


With Windows 7 and 8 I never use less than 8GB. 16GB if you're doing
anything more than just word processing or emails.


Does that mean you only use 64bit OSs ?

No, it means he's a troll.

Why do you think decent motherboards take 64GB memory, and standard ones take 32GB?

--
The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck is probably the day they start making vacuum cleaners.

On 12/01/2014 22:49, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 19:06:34 -0000, SteveW
wrote:

On 12/01/2014 11:52, John Williamson wrote:
On 11/01/2014 19:32, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Sat, 11 Jan 2014 19:08:13 -0000, tony sayer
wrote:


No great fan of m$ but we still have a couple of olde WIN2K
machines one
has been up for 8500 odd hrs and as to the main machine WIN 7 and I
really can't fault it at all!...

Plus the odd couple of XP machines no problems there either..

M$ gets blamed for blue screens. 99% of them are due to faulty memory.
Always run 3 passes of memtest on a new machine.

Most BSODs that I've had have turned out to be faulty hardware drivers,
mostly video card ones, and the others to badly written programmes or HD
corruption. I've never yet had one that could be traced to faulty
memory.

I have, on three different machines.

On the first, Win NT ran, crashing once or twice a day, but otherwise
okay. I needed USB support for something and tried to install Win ME,
which would not even get past the installer (Win 98 would, but crashed
every half hour or so). A memory test proved one stick of memory faulty.
Replacing it cured the problem.

Years later, on the other two machines, both running the same
motherboards, same processors and same memory but different version of
Windows (Vista and 7) , first one stick and then the other of each
failed - again the machines became crash prone, a memory check showed
the fault and removing the faulty stick cured the problem until the
other stick went faulty a few months later. Replacing the memory has
kept both machines running (one is now running Windows 8 and I am using
the other to try out Zentyal).

I've never known memory to BECOME faulty, it's usually faulty on purchase.

Well I usually test it on purchase and in each case it's been running
between 6 months and 2-1/2 years before failing.

SteveW

"Huge" wrote in message
...
On 2014-01-12, Jim Hawkins wrote:

"Uncle Peter" wrote in message
news


With Windows 7 and 8 I never use less than 8GB. 16GB if you're doing
anything more than just word processing or emails.


Does that mean you only use 64bit OSs ?

No, it means he's a troll.

Spot on.

On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 23:00:16 -0000, SteveW wrote:

On 12/01/2014 22:49, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 19:06:34 -0000, SteveW
wrote:

On 12/01/2014 11:52, John Williamson wrote:
On 11/01/2014 19:32, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Sat, 11 Jan 2014 19:08:13 -0000, tony sayer
wrote:



M$ gets blamed for blue screens. 99% of them are due to faulty memory.
Always run 3 passes of memtest on a new machine.

Most BSODs that I've had have turned out to be faulty hardware drivers,
mostly video card ones, and the others to badly written programmes or HD
corruption. I've never yet had one that could be traced to faulty
memory.

I have, on three different machines.

On the first, Win NT ran, crashing once or twice a day, but otherwise
okay. I needed USB support for something and tried to install Win ME,
which would not even get past the installer (Win 98 would, but crashed
every half hour or so). A memory test proved one stick of memory faulty.
Replacing it cured the problem.

Years later, on the other two machines, both running the same
motherboards, same processors and same memory but different version of
Windows (Vista and 7) , first one stick and then the other of each
failed - again the machines became crash prone, a memory check showed
the fault and removing the faulty stick cured the problem until the
other stick went faulty a few months later. Replacing the memory has
kept both machines running (one is now running Windows 8 and I am using
the other to try out Zentyal).

I've never known memory to BECOME faulty, it's usually faulty on purchase.

Well I usually test it on purchase and in each case it's been running
between 6 months and 2-1/2 years before failing.

What make of memory was it? I've found Corsair Vengeance memory to be reliable.

--
Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what the **** happened.

On 12/01/2014 23:03, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 23:00:16 -0000, SteveW
wrote:

On 12/01/2014 22:49, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 19:06:34 -0000, SteveW
wrote:

On 12/01/2014 11:52, John Williamson wrote:
On 11/01/2014 19:32, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Sat, 11 Jan 2014 19:08:13 -0000, tony sayer
wrote:



M$ gets blamed for blue screens. 99% of them are due to faulty
memory.
Always run 3 passes of memtest on a new machine.

Most BSODs that I've had have turned out to be faulty hardware
drivers,
mostly video card ones, and the others to badly written programmes
or HD
corruption. I've never yet had one that could be traced to faulty
memory.

I have, on three different machines.

On the first, Win NT ran, crashing once or twice a day, but otherwise
okay. I needed USB support for something and tried to install Win ME,
which would not even get past the installer (Win 98 would, but crashed
every half hour or so). A memory test proved one stick of memory
faulty.
Replacing it cured the problem.

Years later, on the other two machines, both running the same
motherboards, same processors and same memory but different version of
Windows (Vista and 7) , first one stick and then the other of each
failed - again the machines became crash prone, a memory check showed
the fault and removing the faulty stick cured the problem until the
other stick went faulty a few months later. Replacing the memory has
kept both machines running (one is now running Windows 8 and I am using
the other to try out Zentyal).

I've never known memory to BECOME faulty, it's usually faulty on
purchase.

Well I usually test it on purchase and in each case it's been running
between 6 months and 2-1/2 years before failing.

What make of memory was it? I've found Corsair Vengeance memory to be
reliable.

The first I can't remember, the later two sets (4 sticks) were matched
pairs from Crucial. I can't remember the particulars, but they were
metal encased ones at the pricier end of their range at the time. I've
still got them somewhere as I had to buy replacments immediately and
never got around to sending the originals back.

SteveW

On Mon, 13 Jan 2014 00:01:58 -0000, SteveW wrote:

On 12/01/2014 23:03, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 23:00:16 -0000, SteveW
wrote:

On 12/01/2014 22:49, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 19:06:34 -0000, SteveW
wrote:

On 12/01/2014 11:52, John Williamson wrote:




I have, on three different machines.

On the first, Win NT ran, crashing once or twice a day, but otherwise
okay. I needed USB support for something and tried to install Win ME,
which would not even get past the installer (Win 98 would, but crashed
every half hour or so). A memory test proved one stick of memory
faulty.
Replacing it cured the problem.

Years later, on the other two machines, both running the same
motherboards, same processors and same memory but different version of
Windows (Vista and 7) , first one stick and then the other of each
failed - again the machines became crash prone, a memory check showed
the fault and removing the faulty stick cured the problem until the
other stick went faulty a few months later. Replacing the memory has
kept both machines running (one is now running Windows 8 and I am using
the other to try out Zentyal).

I've never known memory to BECOME faulty, it's usually faulty on
purchase.

Well I usually test it on purchase and in each case it's been running
between 6 months and 2-1/2 years before failing.

What make of memory was it? I've found Corsair Vengeance memory to be
reliable.

The first I can't remember, the later two sets (4 sticks) were matched
pairs from Crucial. I can't remember the particulars, but they were
metal encased ones at the pricier end of their range at the time. I've
still got them somewhere as I had to buy replacments immediately and
never got around to sending the originals back.

I guess any memory would fail if you overheated it. Was it in one of those horridly small cases?

--
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, Managers are from Uranus.

"Uncle Peter" wrote in message
news
On Mon, 13 Jan 2014 00:01:58 -0000, SteveW
wrote:

On 12/01/2014 23:03, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 23:00:16 -0000, SteveW
wrote:

On 12/01/2014 22:49, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 19:06:34 -0000, SteveW
wrote:

On 12/01/2014 11:52, John Williamson wrote:




I have, on three different machines.

On the first, Win NT ran, crashing once or twice a day, but otherwise
okay. I needed USB support for something and tried to install Win ME,
which would not even get past the installer (Win 98 would, but
crashed
every half hour or so). A memory test proved one stick of memory
faulty.
Replacing it cured the problem.

Years later, on the other two machines, both running the same
motherboards, same processors and same memory but different version
of
Windows (Vista and 7) , first one stick and then the other of each
failed - again the machines became crash prone, a memory check showed
the fault and removing the faulty stick cured the problem until the
other stick went faulty a few months later. Replacing the memory has
kept both machines running (one is now running Windows 8 and I am
using
the other to try out Zentyal).

I've never known memory to BECOME faulty, it's usually faulty on
purchase.

Well I usually test it on purchase and in each case it's been running
between 6 months and 2-1/2 years before failing.

What make of memory was it? I've found Corsair Vengeance memory to be
reliable.

The first I can't remember, the later two sets (4 sticks) were matched
pairs from Crucial. I can't remember the particulars, but they were
metal encased ones at the pricier end of their range at the time. I've
still got them somewhere as I had to buy replacments immediately and
never got around to sending the originals back.

I guess any memory would fail if you overheated it. Was it in one of
those horridly small cases?

You should be in bed.

En el artículo , SteveW steve@walker-
family.me.uk escribió:

The first I can't remember, the later two sets (4 sticks) were matched
pairs from Crucial. I can't remember the particulars, but they were
metal encased ones at the pricier end of their range at the time. I've
still got them somewhere as I had to buy replacments immediately

Crucial have no-quibble lifetime warranty, so you should still be able
to get them exchanged.

They had problems with their Ballistix DDR2 range - I had to have a
couple of sets replaced. They even shipped one replacement set from USA
and upgraded it from 4Gb (2x2) to 8GB (4x2) because they were out of UK
stock.

--
(\_/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")

In message , Mike Tomlinson
writes
En el artículo , SteveW steve@walker-
family.me.uk escribió:

The first I can't remember, the later two sets (4 sticks) were matched
pairs from Crucial. I can't remember the particulars, but they were
metal encased ones at the pricier end of their range at the time. I've
still got them somewhere as I had to buy replacments immediately

Crucial have no-quibble lifetime warranty, so you should still be able
to get them exchanged.

They had problems with their Ballistix DDR2 range - I had to have a
couple of sets replaced. They even shipped one replacement set from USA
and upgraded it from 4Gb (2x2) to 8GB (4x2) because they were out of UK
stock.

While the thread is still discussing memory, can simply fitting faster
memory (faster than that for which the motherboard is specced) cause
possible problems? I recently added more - and faster - memory to a
middle-aged XP Pro PC. I swapped a pair of 512MB PC2-4200 (533MHz) for a
pair of 1GB PC2-6400 (800MHz).

Although I didn't really notice any significant increase in performance,
all seemed absolutely fine for at least a week. However, the PC then
started to play up - crashing and seizing up, rebooting, and also
failing to reboot (requiring a restart). I've restored the original
memory, and I'll have to see if the trouble persists.

It has been suggested that the problem might be that the 800MHz memory
is too fast. I've Googled to try to find a definitive yes/no answer, but
there's so much waffle, and nowhere can I find a simple statement saying
"Yes, you can use a memory which is faster than the motherboard spec".
[I suspect that the specs were written at a time when faster memory
wasn't available.] At best, the answers are typically "You can use a
faster memory if the motherboard will support it".

So what's the real answer?
--
Ian

On 12/01/2014 22:49, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 11:52:03 -0000, John Williamson
wrote:

On 11/01/2014 19:32, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Sat, 11 Jan 2014 19:08:13 -0000, tony sayer
wrote:


No great fan of m$ but we still have a couple of olde WIN2K machines
one
has been up for 8500 odd hrs and as to the main machine WIN 7 and I
really can't fault it at all!...

Plus the odd couple of XP machines no problems there either..

M$ gets blamed for blue screens. 99% of them are due to faulty memory.
Always run 3 passes of memtest on a new machine.

Most BSODs that I've had have turned out to be faulty hardware drivers,
mostly video card ones, and the others to badly written programmes or HD
corruption. I've never yet had one that could be traced to faulty memory.

I've found brand new cheap memory to be faulty 10% of the time. And
decent memory to be faulty 3% of the time.


Which suggests that you are handling improperly and causing the failures
you observe (or attributing some other fault to memory)

I don't recall having any failure on new memory devices from a range of
manufacturers, after many hundreds of installs.


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On Mon, 13 Jan 2014 12:22:46 -0000, John Rumm wrote:

On 12/01/2014 22:49, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 11:52:03 -0000, John Williamson
wrote:

On 11/01/2014 19:32, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Sat, 11 Jan 2014 19:08:13 -0000, tony sayer
wrote:


No great fan of m$ but we still have a couple of olde WIN2K machines
one
has been up for 8500 odd hrs and as to the main machine WIN 7 and I
really can't fault it at all!...

Plus the odd couple of XP machines no problems there either..

M$ gets blamed for blue screens. 99% of them are due to faulty memory.
Always run 3 passes of memtest on a new machine.

Most BSODs that I've had have turned out to be faulty hardware drivers,
mostly video card ones, and the others to badly written programmes or HD
corruption. I've never yet had one that could be traced to faulty memory.

I've found brand new cheap memory to be faulty 10% of the time. And
decent memory to be faulty 3% of the time.

Which suggests that you are handling improperly and causing the failures
you observe

No.

(or attributing some other fault to memory)

Since replacing the memory makes the fault disappear, then no.

I don't recall having any failure on new memory devices from a range of
manufacturers, after many hundreds of installs.

Try cheap **** like Komputerbay.

Even Corsair Vengeance sometimes fails. In fact I've just found a dodgy stick today. It passed one round of memtest when I set the machine up a few days ago, I should have gone for 3 but I was in a hurry. It's now failing 30 seconds into the test.

--
If you believe in telepathy, raise my hand.

On Mon, 13 Jan 2014 12:22:46 +0000, John Rumm wrote:

On 12/01/2014 22:49, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 11:52:03 -0000, John Williamson
wrote:

On 11/01/2014 19:32, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Sat, 11 Jan 2014 19:08:13 -0000, tony sayer
wrote:


No great fan of m$ but we still have a couple of olde WIN2K machines
one has been up for 8500 odd hrs and as to the main machine WIN 7
and I really can't fault it at all!...

Plus the odd couple of XP machines no problems there either..

M$ gets blamed for blue screens. 99% of them are due to faulty
memory.
Always run 3 passes of memtest on a new machine.

Most BSODs that I've had have turned out to be faulty hardware
drivers, mostly video card ones, and the others to badly written
programmes or HD corruption. I've never yet had one that could be
traced to faulty memory.

I've found brand new cheap memory to be faulty 10% of the time. And
decent memory to be faulty 3% of the time.


Which suggests that you are handling improperly and causing the failures
you observe (or attributing some other fault to memory)

I don't recall having any failure on new memory devices from a range of
manufacturers, after many hundreds of installs.

+1



--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK: http://www.mirrorservice.org
My posts (including this one) are my copyright and if @diy_forums on
Twitter wish to tweet them they can pay me £30 a post
*lightning surge protection* - a w_tom conductor

On Mon, 13 Jan 2014 19:12:26 -0000, Bob Eager wrote:

On Mon, 13 Jan 2014 12:22:46 +0000, John Rumm wrote:

On 12/01/2014 22:49, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 11:52:03 -0000, John Williamson
wrote:

On 11/01/2014 19:32, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Sat, 11 Jan 2014 19:08:13 -0000, tony sayer
wrote:




M$ gets blamed for blue screens. 99% of them are due to faulty
memory.
Always run 3 passes of memtest on a new machine.

Most BSODs that I've had have turned out to be faulty hardware
drivers, mostly video card ones, and the others to badly written
programmes or HD corruption. I've never yet had one that could be
traced to faulty memory.

I've found brand new cheap memory to be faulty 10% of the time. And
decent memory to be faulty 3% of the time.


Which suggests that you are handling improperly and causing the failures
you observe (or attributing some other fault to memory)

I don't recall having any failure on new memory devices from a range of
manufacturers, after many hundreds of installs.

+1

That is the nature of stats.

--
The Artist Formerly Known As Prince has a new album out.
It's called "The Songs Formerly Known As Hits."

In article , Uncle Peter wrote:

I've found brand new cheap memory to be faulty 10% of the time. And
decent memory to be faulty 3% of the time.

Blimey...

Do you install it on a nice nylon carpet with no static protection or
something??

Out of hundreds (possibly even thousands - some machines take many
DIMMs) I've had one failure that I remember, and that was far from
cheap RAM. Sun microsystems stick of ram in a T5220 that buggered
around from new (I think it was rebadged micron IIRC).

I've fitted all sorts of cheap nasty RAM in machines over the years.
Never had f single one turn out to be faulty (yet...)

In terms of failures once installed - someone said they had never had
RAM fail once installed? After hard drives (very frequent) and PSUs
(fairly often) I'd say RAM is probably up there with CPU fan failures.
Many of our machines run mirrored RAM so it doesn't take out the system
but it's still far from unheard of.

Darren

On Mon, 13 Jan 2014 20:33:18 -0000, D.M.Chapman wrote:

In article , Uncle Peter wrote:

I've found brand new cheap memory to be faulty 10% of the time. And
decent memory to be faulty 3% of the time.

Blimey...

Do you install it on a nice nylon carpet with no static protection or
something??

Out of hundreds (possibly even thousands - some machines take many
DIMMs) I've had one failure that I remember, and that was far from
cheap RAM. Sun microsystems stick of ram in a T5220 that buggered
around from new (I think it was rebadged micron IIRC).

I've fitted all sorts of cheap nasty RAM in machines over the years.
Never had f single one turn out to be faulty (yet...)

Komputerbay DDR3 1600MHz. I always test with memtest before even installing an OS.

In terms of failures once installed - someone said they had never had
RAM fail once installed?

I did.

After hard drives (very frequent) and PSUs
(fairly often) I'd say RAM is probably up there with CPU fan failures.
Many of our machines run mirrored RAM so it doesn't take out the system
but it's still far from unheard of.

Hard drives I agree.
PSUs, only if they're underrated for what you're running off them. I always get one that will never go over 50-75% load.
Memory, no. If it works when I buy it, it lasts forever.

--
When you're having a really bad day and it seems like people are trying to **** you off, remember it takes 42 muscles to frown and only 4 to extend your middle finger.

En el artículo , Ian Jackson
escribió:

Although I didn't really notice any significant increase in performance,
all seemed absolutely fine for at least a week. However, the PC then
started to play up - crashing and seizing up, rebooting, and also
failing to reboot (requiring a restart). I've restored the original
memory, and I'll have to see if the trouble persists.

Download and run Mentest86+ from http://www.memtest.org/ and run it
overnight. If it passes, download Prime95 from http://www.mersenne.org/
and run the torture test overnight. If that passes, the memory is most
likely OK.

It has been suggested that the problem might be that the 800MHz memory
is too fast.

Memory can't be "too fast". It can, however, be too slow (not rated to
run at the speeds at which it is operating).

It sounds as if you've been unlucky and your new memory has failed.
Running the diagnostics above will tell you.

--
(\_/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")

In article , Uncle Peter wrote:
On Mon, 13 Jan 2014 20:33:18 -0000, D.M.Chapman wrote:

After hard drives (very frequent) and PSUs
(fairly often) I'd say RAM is probably up there with CPU fan failures.
Many of our machines run mirrored RAM so it doesn't take out the system
but it's still far from unheard of.

Hard drives I agree.
PSUs, only if they're underrated for what you're running off them. I
always get one that will never go over 50-75% load.

Can be very inefficient. Many (most?) of our servers have many small
PSUs these days and shut them down when not needed to keep the remaining
ones running at high load/efficiency.

It's normally the fans that die in them tbh - small, noisy and prone to
fail. Desktop PCs with decent PSUs are less of an issue admittedly.

Memory, no. If it works when I buy it, it lasts forever.

It's unusual, but not unheard of. Certainly I've had more die in service
(can think of 3 in the last 12 months) than when new (can think of 1 in
20 years).

Darren

On 13/01/2014 00:13, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Mon, 13 Jan 2014 00:01:58 -0000, SteveW
wrote:

On 12/01/2014 23:03, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 23:00:16 -0000, SteveW
wrote:

On 12/01/2014 22:49, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 19:06:34 -0000, SteveW
wrote:

On 12/01/2014 11:52, John Williamson wrote:




I have, on three different machines.

On the first, Win NT ran, crashing once or twice a day, but otherwise
okay. I needed USB support for something and tried to install Win ME,
which would not even get past the installer (Win 98 would, but
crashed
every half hour or so). A memory test proved one stick of memory
faulty.
Replacing it cured the problem.

Years later, on the other two machines, both running the same
motherboards, same processors and same memory but different
version of
Windows (Vista and 7) , first one stick and then the other of each
failed - again the machines became crash prone, a memory check showed
the fault and removing the faulty stick cured the problem until the
other stick went faulty a few months later. Replacing the memory has
kept both machines running (one is now running Windows 8 and I am
using
the other to try out Zentyal).

I've never known memory to BECOME faulty, it's usually faulty on
purchase.

Well I usually test it on purchase and in each case it's been running
between 6 months and 2-1/2 years before failing.

What make of memory was it? I've found Corsair Vengeance memory to be
reliable.

The first I can't remember, the later two sets (4 sticks) were matched
pairs from Crucial. I can't remember the particulars, but they were
metal encased ones at the pricier end of their range at the time. I've
still got them somewhere as I had to buy replacments immediately and
never got around to sending the originals back.

I guess any memory would fail if you overheated it. Was it in one of
those horridly small cases?

Nope all three were in decent sized cases - of the latter two, the main
PC is in an NZXT full tower, with PSU and case inlet and outlet fans and
runs very cool and the other PC is a midi-tower with PSU and case
exchaust fans.

SteveW

On Mon, 13 Jan 2014 21:54:02 -0000, D.M.Chapman wrote:

In article , Uncle Peter wrote:
On Mon, 13 Jan 2014 20:33:18 -0000, D.M.Chapman wrote:

After hard drives (very frequent) and PSUs
(fairly often) I'd say RAM is probably up there with CPU fan failures.
Many of our machines run mirrored RAM so it doesn't take out the system
but it's still far from unheard of.

Hard drives I agree.
PSUs, only if they're underrated for what you're running off them. I
always get one that will never go over 50-75% load.

Can be very inefficient. Many (most?) of our servers have many small
PSUs these days and shut them down when not needed to keep the remaining
ones running at high load/efficiency.

I read something somewhere (Corsair instruction manual?) that they are LESS efficient at full load. Best efficiency is either 50% or 75%, can't remember which. Anyway, a decent PSU provides almost no heat (if you have a case where the PSU gets its own air intake, you can easily verify this), so it's way more efficient than what it's powering.

It's normally the fans that die in them tbh - small, noisy and prone to
fail. Desktop PCs with decent PSUs are less of an issue admittedly.

A decent PSU has a 120mm fan running slowly (for quietness), hence it also does not wear out. Especially if it's not running at full load so requires little cooling.

Memory, no. If it works when I buy it, it lasts forever.

It's unusual, but not unheard of. Certainly I've had more die in service
(can think of 3 in the last 12 months) than when new (can think of 1 in
20 years).

Pot luck. 4 failures is not a very big data set.

--
Illegal is a big sick bird.

On 13/01/14 20:33, D.M.Chapman wrote:
In article , Uncle Peter wrote:

I've found brand new cheap memory to be faulty 10% of the time. And
decent memory to be faulty 3% of the time.

Blimey...

Do you install it on a nice nylon carpet with no static protection or
something??

Out of hundreds (possibly even thousands - some machines take many
DIMMs) I've had one failure that I remember, and that was far from
cheap RAM. Sun microsystems stick of ram in a T5220 that buggered
around from new (I think it was rebadged micron IIRC).

I've fitted all sorts of cheap nasty RAM in machines over the years.
Never had f single one turn out to be faulty (yet...)


well I have. hundreds of machines over the years. Half a dozen bad RAM
often after several years, or only showing up when some other card was
plugged in the bus

Mosdt common fault is hard disk failure then fan failure then RAM and
then CPU. Managed to escape the 'bad capacitor' phase.



In terms of failures once installed - someone said they had never had
RAM fail once installed? After hard drives (very frequent) and PSUs
(fairly often) I'd say RAM is probably up there with CPU fan failures.
Many of our machines run mirrored RAM so it doesn't take out the system
but it's still far from unheard of.

I'd be in agreement there.

Semiconductors age with time and temperature, and timings start to drift
to edge-of-spec esepcailly if the originals weren't great to start with.

Given that commercial stuff is NOt enigeneered tpo 'worst case' but
generally engineered to 99.99% chance' level, it's surprsng that stuff
works as well as it does.


Darren



--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

On Mon, 13 Jan 2014 22:51:38 -0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 13/01/14 20:33, D.M.Chapman wrote:
In article , Uncle Peter wrote:

I've found brand new cheap memory to be faulty 10% of the time. And
decent memory to be faulty 3% of the time.

Blimey...

Do you install it on a nice nylon carpet with no static protection or
something??

Out of hundreds (possibly even thousands - some machines take many
DIMMs) I've had one failure that I remember, and that was far from
cheap RAM. Sun microsystems stick of ram in a T5220 that buggered
around from new (I think it was rebadged micron IIRC).

I've fitted all sorts of cheap nasty RAM in machines over the years.
Never had f single one turn out to be faulty (yet...)


well I have. hundreds of machines over the years. Half a dozen bad RAM
often after several years, or only showing up when some other card was
plugged in the bus

Mosdt common fault is hard disk failure then fan failure then RAM and
then CPU. Managed to escape the 'bad capacitor' phase.

Did you memtest the memory when you bought it? Perhaps you only find out years later because you tax the memory more?

In terms of failures once installed - someone said they had never had
RAM fail once installed? After hard drives (very frequent) and PSUs
(fairly often) I'd say RAM is probably up there with CPU fan failures.
Many of our machines run mirrored RAM so it doesn't take out the system
but it's still far from unheard of.

I'd be in agreement there.

Semiconductors age with time and temperature, and timings start to drift
to edge-of-spec esepcailly if the originals weren't great to start with.

RAM don't run so hot as CPU and GPU.

Given that commercial stuff is NOt enigeneered tpo 'worst case' but
generally engineered to 99.99% chance' level, it's surprsng that stuff
works as well as it does.

You could always buy RAM rated much faster than you're going to run it.

--
While the Swiss Army Knife has been popular for years, the Swiss Navy Knife has remained largely unheralded.
Its single blade functions as a tiny canoe paddle.

On 13/01/2014 23:02, Uncle Peter wrote:


Given that commercial stuff is NOt enigeneered tpo 'worst case' but
generally engineered to 99.99% chance' level, it's surprsng that stuff
works as well as it does.

You could always buy RAM rated much faster than you're going to run it.


Not always..
sometimes the designer will use the minimum hold time for the ram to
allow them to change the address to start the next cycle early.
If the ram is too fast the output will change too soon and put the CPU
into a metastable state.
Then anything could happen.

On Mon, 13 Jan 2014 23:17:55 -0000, Tim Streater wrote:

In article , Uncle Peter wrote:

A decent PSU has a 120mm fan running slowly (for quietness), hence it also
does not wear out. Especially if it's not running at full load so requires
little cooling.

How am I supposed to get a 120mm fan on a Mac Mini and why would I need
one? The actual fan is running at about 1800rpm and is inaudible. I can
crank that up to 5500rpm at which point it gets a bit noisy.

I thought we were talking about proper computers, not ones Clive Sinclair could have invented.

--
"All you need is love, money, broadband, good health, satellite TV, a fast car, ......." - The Beatles

On Mon, 13 Jan 2014 23:24:16 -0000, dennis@home wrote:

On 13/01/2014 23:02, Uncle Peter wrote:


Given that commercial stuff is NOt enigeneered tpo 'worst case' but
generally engineered to 99.99% chance' level, it's surprsng that stuff
works as well as it does.

You could always buy RAM rated much faster than you're going to run it.


Not always..
sometimes the designer will use the minimum hold time for the ram to
allow them to change the address to start the next cycle early.
If the ram is too fast the output will change too soon and put the CPU
into a metastable state.
Then anything could happen.

You've lost me there. You don't have to use the RAM's limits for anything.

--
I thought I wanted a career. Turns out I just wanted paychecks.

On 13/01/2014 23:58, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Mon, 13 Jan 2014 23:17:55 -0000, Tim Streater
wrote:

In article , Uncle Peter wrote:

A decent PSU has a 120mm fan running slowly (for quietness), hence it
also
does not wear out. Especially if it's not running at full load so
requires
little cooling.

How am I supposed to get a 120mm fan on a Mac Mini and why would I need
one? The actual fan is running at about 1800rpm and is inaudible. I can
crank that up to 5500rpm at which point it gets a bit noisy.

I thought we were talking about proper computers, not ones Clive
Sinclair could have invented.

Now, they *did* have RAM problems.....

The 16K packs kept falling off, even if you used velcro to hold them in
place.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

On Tue, 14 Jan 2014 00:17:45 -0000, John Williamson wrote:

On 13/01/2014 23:58, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Mon, 13 Jan 2014 23:17:55 -0000, Tim Streater
wrote:

In article , Uncle Peter wrote:

A decent PSU has a 120mm fan running slowly (for quietness), hence it
also
does not wear out. Especially if it's not running at full load so
requires
little cooling.

How am I supposed to get a 120mm fan on a Mac Mini and why would I need
one? The actual fan is running at about 1800rpm and is inaudible. I can
crank that up to 5500rpm at which point it gets a bit noisy.

I thought we were talking about proper computers, not ones Clive
Sinclair could have invented.

Now, they *did* have RAM problems.....

On purpose, Clive bought broken ones and used the half of the chip that worked. Cheaper that way.

The 16K packs kept falling off, even if you used velcro to hold them in
place.

Not sure what you mean. I had a 48K spectrum with an extra 32K soldered on to make 80K. Only thing that ever used the extra memory was a chess database.

--
If you believe in telepathy, raise my hand.

"Uncle Peter" wrote in message
news
On Mon, 13 Jan 2014 23:24:16 -0000, dennis@home
wrote:

On 13/01/2014 23:02, Uncle Peter wrote:


Given that commercial stuff is NOt enigeneered tpo 'worst case' but
generally engineered to 99.99% chance' level, it's surprsng that stuff
works as well as it does.

You could always buy RAM rated much faster than you're going to run it.


Not always..
sometimes the designer will use the minimum hold time for the ram to
allow them to change the address to start the next cycle early.
If the ram is too fast the output will change too soon and put the CPU
into a metastable state.
Then anything could happen.

You've lost me there. You don't have to use the RAM's limits for
anything.

Go to bed FFS you dimwit.

En el artículo , Vir
Campestris escribió:

You are Doing Something Wrong.

He's breathing.

--
(\_/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")

In article , Uncle Peter wrote:
On Mon, 13 Jan 2014 21:54:02 -0000, D.M.Chapman wrote:

I read something somewhere (Corsair instruction manual?) that they are
LESS efficient at full load. Best efficiency is either 50% or 75%,
can't remember which. Anyway, a decent PSU provides almost no heat (if
you have a case where the PSU gets its own air intake, you can easily
verify this), so it's way more efficient than what it's powering.

This is true for decent expensive PSUs in PCs. Not they case in many
server PSUs though.

It's normally the fans that die in them tbh - small, noisy and prone to
fail. Desktop PCs with decent PSUs are less of an issue admittedly.

A decent PSU has a 120mm fan running slowly (for quietness), hence it
also does not wear out. Especially if it's not running at full load so
requires little cooling.

A decent *desktop* PC does, yes. Probably half of our desktops (2000 PCs)
are small formfactor so don't have. Also, hundreds of laptops - they don't
either. Also pretty much none of our servers have large fans these days.


Memory, no. If it works when I buy it, it lasts forever.

It's unusual, but not unheard of. Certainly I've had more die in service
(can think of 3 in the last 12 months) than when new (can think of 1 in
20 years).

Pot luck. 4 failures is not a very big data set.

Right. Be interested to know what your experience is - in terms of scale.
How many machines do you look after?

Darren

On Tue, 14 Jan 2014 06:33:31 -0000, D.M.Chapman wrote:

In article , Uncle Peter wrote:
On Mon, 13 Jan 2014 21:54:02 -0000, D.M.Chapman wrote:

I read something somewhere (Corsair instruction manual?) that they are
LESS efficient at full load. Best efficiency is either 50% or 75%,
can't remember which. Anyway, a decent PSU provides almost no heat (if
you have a case where the PSU gets its own air intake, you can easily
verify this), so it's way more efficient than what it's powering.

This is true for decent expensive PSUs in PCs. Not they case in many
server PSUs though.

It's normally the fans that die in them tbh - small, noisy and prone to
fail. Desktop PCs with decent PSUs are less of an issue admittedly.

A decent PSU has a 120mm fan running slowly (for quietness), hence it
also does not wear out. Especially if it's not running at full load so
requires little cooling.

A decent *desktop* PC does, yes. Probably half of our desktops (2000 PCs)
are small formfactor so don't have. Also, hundreds of laptops - they don't
either. Also pretty much none of our servers have large fans these days.


Memory, no. If it works when I buy it, it lasts forever.

It's unusual, but not unheard of. Certainly I've had more die in service
(can think of 3 in the last 12 months) than when new (can think of 1 in
20 years).

Pot luck. 4 failures is not a very big data set.

Right. Be interested to know what your experience is - in terms of scale.
How many machines do you look after?

Around 500 desktops and 8 servers. No failures in service, 5 per year when bought for upgrades.

--
A conscience just costs you money.

In message om,
"dennis@home" writes
On 13/01/2014 23:02, Uncle Peter wrote:


Given that commercial stuff is NOt enigeneered tpo 'worst case' but
generally engineered to 99.99% chance' level, it's surprsng that stuff
works as well as it does.

You could always buy RAM rated much faster than you're going to run it.


Not always..
sometimes the designer will use the minimum hold time for the ram to
allow them to change the address to start the next cycle early.
If the ram is too fast the output will change too soon and put the CPU
into a metastable state.
Then anything could happen.

This disagrees with what Mike Tomlinson has just said when I asked the
specific question as to whether 'faster than motherboard spec' memory
could screw up your computer. A couple of weeks ago I replaced a pair of
512MB PC2-4200 (533MHz) with a pair 1GB PC2-6400 (800MHz). After a week
of faultless operation, the PC suddenly started to play up. Another 1GB
PC2-6400 pair (different make) also gave problems. [As Mike advises,
I'll be carrying out more memory tests.]

I have to say that despite extensive Googling, I have found it very
difficult to find any definitive and authoritative statements about
using 'too fast' memory. When the subject is raised, most discussions
rapidly veer away from the original question, and your are left
wondering whether the answer was 'yes', 'no', 'maybe' - or, more often,
'nobody here knows the answer, so we'll answer a question that no one
asked'.
--
Ian

On 14/01/14 08:52, Ian Jackson wrote:
In message om,
"dennis@home" writes
On 13/01/2014 23:02, Uncle Peter wrote:


Given that commercial stuff is NOt enigeneered tpo 'worst case' but
generally engineered to 99.99% chance' level, it's surprsng that stuff
works as well as it does.

You could always buy RAM rated much faster than you're going to run it.


Not always..
sometimes the designer will use the minimum hold time for the ram to
allow them to change the address to start the next cycle early.
If the ram is too fast the output will change too soon and put the CPU
into a metastable state.
Then anything could happen.

This disagrees with what Mike Tomlinson has just said when I asked the
specific question as to whether 'faster than motherboard spec' memory
could screw up your computer. A couple of weeks ago I replaced a pair of
512MB PC2-4200 (533MHz) with a pair 1GB PC2-6400 (800MHz). After a week
of faultless operation, the PC suddenly started to play up. Another 1GB
PC2-6400 pair (different make) also gave problems. [As Mike advises,
I'll be carrying out more memory tests.]

I have to say that despite extensive Googling, I have found it very
difficult to find any definitive and authoritative statements about
using 'too fast' memory. When the subject is raised, most discussions
rapidly veer away from the original question, and your are left
wondering whether the answer was 'yes', 'no', 'maybe' - or, more often,
'nobody here knows the answer, so we'll answer a question that no one
asked'.

I will concede the possibility that fast DRAM relies on - say - being
refreshed more often than slower, and might leak charge away at a slower
clock rate.

I will also concede that it may be possible to rely on a propagation
delay to achieve the desired result and getting rid of it could cause
problems, though I am not so clear that anyone actually does this.

So, whilst I will concede a possibility, I am pretty sure (and most
people writing on the subject agree) that the actuality is that faster
RAM wont do any harm *on account of being faster*.

I suspect what dennis is hinting at is an incomplete understanding of
how SDRAM works...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchro..._access_memory

it is in fact pretty complicated. Quite a long way from 'here's an
address, give me some data'

And if you read it its pretty clear that there is plenty of room for
'one manufacturers implementation of the spec != another manufacturers
implementation', with possible results being less than ideal.

So I'd be inclined to lay that at the door of 'instant incompatibility'
rather than speed.



--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

On 13/01/2014 20:33, D.M.Chapman wrote:
In article , Uncle Peter wrote:

I've found brand new cheap memory to be faulty 10% of the time. And
decent memory to be faulty 3% of the time.

Blimey...

Do you install it on a nice nylon carpet with no static protection or
something??

Out of hundreds (possibly even thousands - some machines take many
DIMMs) I've had one failure that I remember, and that was far from
cheap RAM. Sun microsystems stick of ram in a T5220 that buggered
around from new (I think it was rebadged micron IIRC).

I've fitted all sorts of cheap nasty RAM in machines over the years.
Never had f single one turn out to be faulty (yet...)

In terms of failures once installed - someone said they had never had
RAM fail once installed? After hard drives (very frequent) and PSUs
(fairly often) I'd say RAM is probably up there with CPU fan failures.
Many of our machines run mirrored RAM so it doesn't take out the system
but it's still far from unheard of.

Yup had RAM failures after use. but as you say DOA type failures are
very rare if the devices have been properly treated prior and during
install.

I would concur with HDs being the most common failure, Either PSUs next
(but they are closely tied with motherboards), and RAM quite a way
after. I have also had one CPU failure in use.


--
Cheers,

John.

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