Test 6 and 7 fail, always in a specific range

[skoehler]

Hi,

so I bought 32 GB RAM (2x 16GB, Kingston HyperX Impact 2400, CL14) for my Dell XPS 15 9560 Notebook (Core i7 7700HQ). Dell Notebooks are known to cause problems with certain RAM, but I tried it anyways. Also, I found reviews by other XPS 9560 owners saying that the RAM is working fine.

Test 6 and Test 7 report errors, but only for addresses above 0x620000000 (=about 26GB). I also swapped the two modules and the addresses of the errors didn't change. Anyhow, should I expect them to change since dual-channel mode basically means that the address space of both modules is somehow interleaved?

I have not tried to only run with one module.

I ran Test 6 and 7 with the memory I have right now (2400, CL17) and that is working fine, but it's only 16GB.


The errors seems to somewhat sporadic, since the number of errors drastically reduces if I only run the tests with one CPU (I only tried CPU 0).

What do you advise? For now, I have announced that I will return the RAM. But I still have a few days left for testing.


Kind Regards,
Sven

[David (PassMark)]

If you reverse the sticks, then yes, the interleaving means the addresses might not change much. But they should change at least a bit (i.e. should not identical).

CL14 is significant lower latency than CL17. Are there any configuration options in BIOS to force a higher latency?

Are you testing on mains power?

[skoehler]

I tested each module individually. Both modules fail in both slots. Even Dell's built-in diagnostics detects the errors. At least it's consistent. I have returned the CL14 modules.

Dell's BIOS doesn't have any setting to modify the timing. In my case, I would have loved to try CL15, 16 or even 17. I got the RAM for a pretty good price.

I was testing on mains power and battery. No difference.

[A. H. A.]

I have the exact same thing on my laptop!!. Did you resolve the issue??

My laptop is Dell XPS 9550 equipped with i7 6700HQ and 2x8GB Kingston HyperX Impact 2400 (CL14).
The memory test stops at Test 6 (block move..) and the screen appears with black and white horizontal lines (with no response).
Dell's built-in diagnostics shows the same screen too once it starts the memory test.

I attached a snapshot of the screen

[David (PassMark)]

I assume your Dell XPS 9550 initially came with less RAM and you upgraded the RAM?

Maybe there is a UEFI BIOS bug on these machines. Such that the video RAM is flagged as free RAM. So the memory test writes over the video RAM. Causing display corruption and RAM errors in the test. This is only speculation.

[A. H. A.]

Yes, mine came with SK hynix (China) 2x4GB HMA451S6AFR8N-TF (PC4-2133p) and works fine with both diagnostics. I just want to upgrade only.

I forget to mention, I have tested the HyperX with windows memory diagnostic and there was no error... and yes the laptop seems to run fine with the HyperX but I found this problem only when I do the memtest86 and dell diagnosis.

[A. H. A.]

What do you think? should I return the HyperX or is there any solution for that?

[David (PassMark)]

Assuming it is a UEFI BIOS bug it would likely only take a Dell engineer 5 min to fix the problem (they would need to add a block of reserved memory to the memory map).
Maybe there is already updated BIOS available? Did you check?

But the real question is, do Dell care enough to fix the problem? And I suspect the answer to that question is no, they don't care.
(the exception might be if you had ordered 10,000 of these units and had an account manager in Dell)

Seems it is a known problem. There is a thread on Reddit about it with a video
https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/commen...rade_failures/

[A. H. A.]

That's really unfortunate, my bios version is 1.10 and yet dell did not resolve the issue.

Just to clarify from you when you said "add a reserved memory block"...
Do you mean that this issue will only happen whenever I run a similar test that required a reserved memory block?
I mean if I ignore this issue and continue using it daily with my windows 10, am I going to face such failure? (since I installed the RAM, no black & white screen when browsing, streaming, playing games, and vmware, ..)

I am really looking for a reason to not returning the RAM, but I am worried I might face an issue later.

[David (PassMark)]

According to that Reddit post, the problem also affected Windows. But they were going to 32GB, and you are going to 16GB. So not conclusive.

I don't have enough knowledge of what exactly the problem is, and what's happening in the internals of Windows in terms of RAM usage to tell you if it will be a problem.

It's really Dell's problem, as they claimed this machine would work with 32GB.

[A. H. A.]

Thank you, I have returned the RAM. Any recommendation for what brand should I go for that might work as an upgrade... Crucial 2400?

[David (PassMark)]

Given that the Dell looks to be quirky I would suggest getting whatever they recommend.
But if it really is a BIOS bug, it won't matter what brand you get, as the problem isn't in the RAM.