DDR3 Degradation ? DIM slot order matters (DDR3)

[SignedAdam]

XMP is meant to be timing : 9, 10, 9, 27 clock 1866mhz at voltage 1.5000 "branding CORSAIR dominator platinum CMD16GX3M2A1866"
im running the free version of memtest, so have to run the test again, after the 6th pass i get the error :

Addr: XXXXXXXXX Expected: XXXXXXXXXX Actual: XXXXXXXXXXX CPU: 0


I don't get an error if I run the timing at : 12, 11, 12, 28 clock 1866mhz voltage 1.4750v after full run, i changed the number up independently and ran a test after each change, as you can tell from the number that's a lot of reboots and hours before settling with the above digits,

question as these sticks are 6-7 years old does this prove that ram degrades over time?

motherboard : p8z77-v premium
cpu : i5-3570k

[David (PassMark)]

does this prove that ram degrades over time?

Maybe they were faulty from day one and no one ever noticed?

As these old 8GB DDR3 sticks are now only worth about $10 each 2nd hand I wouldn't have thought it would be worth spending hours trying to find a slow enough speed to make them work?

Also if you run RAM tests for long enough you'll eventually get some soft errors, which make it hard to know if a one off single bit error are a real hardware failure or not.

[SignedAdam]

images have been resized*
hardware information :

[SignedAdam]

images have been resized*
hardware information 2 :



above you'll see the lay out they were put in to the dram slots, if 2 was put in 1, and 1 was put in 2 so on so on, i would end up with errors,

the version 3.24 sticks had to go in slot (A1) and (B1) where as the version 8.22 had to go in slot (A2) and (B2) putting the worst foot 1st then the best foot last
as you can see from the slot read outs, the sticks are not the same, yet looking at them, they are the same, this was one of the hardest problems ive worked on, as you wouldn't know just by looking really

[SignedAdam]

Xmp off, manual



if i go manual i end up with errors and i dont know why ? 1866mz

[SignedAdam]

this is with xmp on, this gets me no errors, i also override xmp voltage to 1.4600v


again all images have been resized, taking up hardly anything, so please dont delete the images

i would like someone to help me work out what xmp is setting to make this ram work ? cause i cant see what its changing, it doesn't seem to be listing it in the bios ?

[SignedAdam]

zoomed in view of what is says on the ram its self

[David (PassMark)]

Maybe you can narrow it down to a single bad stick and just buy the same model as a replacement of eBay for $10 (would need to get a bit lucky however).

But all corsair memory modules have a lifetime warranty, If you are sure they are bad just get them replaced for free. Doesn't make sense to spend days tweaking things to get them to work in a stable fashion.

[SignedAdam]

David (PassMark) you won’t believe this! It was the order of the dims in the slots, all 4 dims have sticks, but if I swapped version 3.24 sticks with places the version 8.22 sticks were in, I would get errors, no joke. The ver 3.24 sticks had to go in the 1st row that go to the cpu (A1 and B1) and ver 8.22 had to go in (A2 and B2) I can’t believe swapping which go where would be such an issue? they are all working at the same timing and voltage, I can manually input the settings again with out xmp. what the developer is going on!

24 hours no errors at the xmp settings in manual

[SignedAdam]

Please edit the title of this post as “DIM slot order matters (DDR3)”

[David (PassMark)]

Order shouldn't matter.
So I think it is more likely one of the sticks was marginal in terms of voltage or timings and moving the slot slightly altered this, and got it working.

[SignedAdam]

I switched them back to how they were before and the problem came back, order definitely matters

this is definitely a thing, I’ve moved them back and forward and having the lower version number 1st and the higher number last in each zone (A1-ver3.24) (A2-ver8.22) (B1-ver3.24) (B2-ver8.22) definitely solve the issue.
in my line of work this kind of information is very valuable. I’m glad I’ve been able to add to the Community, even if the hardware is dated

thanks for updating the title

[SignedAdam]

I’d be interested in hearing why this is a thing? if anyone can add to this