RAM issues

[John Crane]

Hi John,
I have a working hypothesis for you: if the memory isn't from the same 
manufacturer/batch, and you're having problems with it, you should send 
it back and get memory that is.

Here's why...
Last year I bought a DELL 530 Precision Workstation (I know, I know... 
but it's a Brute of a machine to do my 3D work on... and Max doesn't 
run on a Mac) and bought the memory from an East-Coast place. I 
specifically asked for all the memory (2Gigs of RAMBUS) from the same 
manufacturer, from the same batch. They moaned about the impossibility 
of this from a fulfillment/distribution stand point, blah blah blah, 
and sent me two sticks from from the same batch, and two miss-matched 
sticks. When I called, they said give it a try-if it didn't work, 
they'd make good on it.

For the next two weeks I routinely tortured all the RAM-I was working 
on a rather large architectural project and watched Max fill, unload, 
fill, unload-rinse and repeat ad nauseum, during a very intense period 
of rendering. When the memory filled up, oft-times it crashed. Hard, 
nasty crashes that brought the whole house down, corrupted files, the 
whole ball of wax.

I finally gave up, called the east coast place, sent it back. They sent 
me 4 new sticks-what I'd originally asked for - and I haven't had the 
problem since. It has been nearly a year now.

Send it back and ask for the same RAM from the same manufacturer (at 
least) and preferably the same batch. I'm telling ya...

Good luck,
John B. Crane

On Tuesday, May 20, 2003, at 07:16 PM, PowerBook G4 Titanium List wrote:
> I'm looking for a working hypothesis, if anyone has one.
> I'm wondering if I should send the memory back to Small Dog. I'm not
> 100% convinced it's a memory issue, but everything else checks out OK.

John B. Crane
CraneDigital, LLC
Industrial Strength Visual Communications For All Media
Fort Collins, Colorado
jbcrane at cranedigital.com
www.cranedigital.com