So I believe I made a mistake last month in purchasing new RAM as I didn't check out what I was buying very thoroughly and bought some Corsair budget RAM. It was cheap and I don't really have the money for anything better.But because of it I'm stuck in a Catch-22. The RAM's default speed is 667mhz and if it runs below 800mhz the system irregularly crashes because the motherboard is not adapted to run below 800mhz. If it's overclocked past 800mhz the RAM can't handle it and I begin to lose processes randomly and the system irregularly crashes. This is beginning to frustrate me.So first of all: Is there any high quality 2x2GB RAM that I can get for a good price?Second: Is there at all a fix to my problem? Right now I can only raise the FSB to 400 with the RAM locked at 1:1 (I don't think it can go lower). I tried feeding the RAM a few more volts but it still crashes.Any help?Thanks guysAlex

Loosing, i.e. increasing, the timings for that RAM might fix your 800 mhz stability problems (if you've not yet done this). Try increasing the first three timing values by 1 and the last by 2; doing this is completely safe. Some experimentation may be required with the amount of increase needed (or not needed). Good Luck.

Thanks for that I'd forgotten I can loosen the timings and not just tighten them :P It started at 5-5-5-15 and I loosened it to 6-6-6-16.Is there a good place to start timings at for overclocking? I'd like to overclock to about 3.85ghz which is an FSB of about 425 so 850mhz for the RAM.Also what's the performance trade-off between loosening timings versus increasing clock speed?

This function give the relationship between RAM CAS timing and frequency:response latency (nsec) = 2000 * CAS / frequency (mhz) So for your RAM running at 800 mhz cas 6, the latency is 15 nsec (which btw is somewhat slow, 10 nsec or less is desired). Say to reach 850 mhz you need cas 7, then the latency increases to 16.5 nsec. You've increased RAM bandwitdh at the expense of slowing down its response time; yet in the end you've got a decent CPU overclock too which was the desired effect to begin with. IMO if you are going to upgrade your RAM, get 800 cas 4 or 1000 cas 5 DDR2, otherwise it's not worthwhile to upgrade unless you cannot hit your desired cpu OC with your current RAM kit.

Thanks for that I'd forgotten I can loosen the timings and not just tighten them :P It started at 5-5-5-15 and I loosened it to 6-6-6-16.Is there a good place to start timings at for overclocking? I'd like to overclock to about 3.85ghz which is an FSB of about 425 so 850mhz for the RAM.Also what's the performance trade-off between loosening timings versus increasing clock speed?

So for the overclock yes 428 FSB so 856Mhz RAM, I'm not sure I'm it's gonna be able to handle that but check and let us know.

Well I upped the CAS to 7-7-7-17 voltage at 1.84 just to give it some headroom, FSB set to 428 (maximum I've hit before was about 415) and increased the voltage from 1.2375 to 1.2500 but it failed to post. So I tried again with RAM timings at 8-8-8-18 and still no post. Maybe I didn't feed the CPU enough volts but this seems unlikely... I feel as though it's the RAM causing this problem.

Ya that's what I think too low end ram does NOT like to be pushed.

The only thing I can think of is: downclock back to stock. Check what timings your memory is defaulted to, and then use those exact timings with the FSB back to 425. I've found that certain combinations of "unbalanced" timings have caused inestability for me in the past.DDR2 RAM overclocks better than DDR3, maybe it's the board itself that can't cope with the increased FSB, but then again that looks like a fine board

The only thing I can think of is: downclock back to stock. Check what timings your memory is defaulted to, and then use those exact timings with the FSB back to 425. I've found that certain combinations of "unbalanced" timings have caused inestability for me in the past.DDR2 RAM overclocks better than DDR3, maybe it's the board itself that can't cope with the increased FSB, but then again that looks like a fine board

Alright I restored the timings back to their default setting of 5-5-5-15 and got the FSB up to 420 to start with but it feels unstable already (my quick stability test is to try compiling photo scenery and the terrain resampler usually crashes in an unstable overclock). Should I start bumping the timings up a bit now?I don't think my board has any problem it's the top of the line for socket 775... I think it is just my budget RAM I accidentally bought.

Alright I restored the timings back to their default setting of 5-5-5-15 and got the FSB up to 420 to start with but it feels unstable already (my quick stability test is to try compiling photo scenery and the terrain resampler usually crashes in an unstable overclock). Should I start bumping the timings up a bit now?I don't think my board has any problem it's the top of the line for socket 775... I think it is just my budget RAM I accidentally bought.

I'm telling you it's the RAM that's lower quality so it doesn't like to be overclocked. And if you need to yes you can lossen the timmings but you might loose a little performance. Your proably gonna need high end 800Mhz RAM but it's better just to get some good 1066MHz DDR2 so you have more leway

What about trying one stick at a time to rule out there's a faulty one? Also running memtest could help find out if that's the case or not.Worst case, and if it's stable at 415 FSB, that's a nice 3.63GHz anyway

I'm telling you it's the RAM that's lower quality so it doesn't like to be overclocked. And if you need to yes you can lossen the timmings but you might loose a little performance.

Yeah I know it's the RAM and I'm still kicking myself two months later for buying it without looking into the actual specs instead of just searching for Corsair and buying the cheapest I saw.

What about trying one stick at a time to rule out there's a faulty one? Also running memtest could help find out if that's the case or not.Worst case, and if it's stable at 415 FSB, that's a nice 3.63GHz anyway

I haven't tried running only one stick at a time I may try and see if it's faulty what I could do about getting a refund. I did memtest a week or two ago and after 12 hours it came back with no problem. I brought the clock back down to 3.6ghz then put the RAM voltage up to 1.9 from 1.8 and increased timings to 6-6-6-16 which both of those combined should have it running easy. But as soon as I brought the FSB up to 410 it became unstable yet again. Any last thoughts on what I can do to get any more overclock out of this RAM?

Here's a quick update I gave one last effort just a minute ago. I increased the timings to 7-7-7-17 and then did something I had completely forgotten to do earlier, increased CPU voltage. It had stayed at the minimum setting 1.23750 all this time and I forgot that E8400's can hit 3.6ghz with no increase in voltage but after that it has to get bumped up a little. Actually I remember I did increase voltage earlier... but who knows maybe it wasn't quite right. So I'll keep notching it up until it hits 428FSB then see if the RAM timings can be brought down to 6-6-6-16 or if it's happy at what it is now. Also... is the performance difference really noticeable? I calculated it and it's about 17 nanoseconds... I don't feel like that would make too much of a difference. Or would it?

You mean memory right? Maybe a 5% performance loss at worse, no big deal really. Even CPU clock speed has more of an impact on memory bandwidth than timings themselves.But man, it's the Vcore for sure! you nailed it there. Don't C2D need some 1.35V - 1.4V to be stable @ 3.8GHz?

I too agree: don't bother upgrading your RAM if you can hit your desired OC. The expense of a new RAM kit will not give you that much bang for the buck for your rig.