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I bought two 512 Meg XMS 3200 modules from Best Buy today and couldn't get the memory to run at anything faster than 3-3-3-8 even though it's spec'd for 2-3-3-6 because the fucking SPD isn't programmed correctly.
To add insult to injury, Asus dumbed down my board's (K8V-SE Deluxe) BIOS and removed most of the manually set memory configuration options so I couldn't even force it to run at Corsair's claimed specifications.
I wound up taking them back for a refund (and BB gave me no trouble on this one ) as I shouldn't have to send brand new memory for use in a mature board like mine off to have the fucking SPD reprogrammed.

Screw Corsair.
The true irony is that the two sticks of cheap Corsair ValueRam I'm currently using are both rated at and correctly programmed to run at 2.5-3-3-8 and have been stellar perfomers for the price.
Meanwhile, the memory I paid four times as much for wasn't programmed correctly and wouldn't run as fast as the cheap stuff.

I've had a great experience with Kingston support, did you ever consider contacting Corsair regarding this problem perhaps?

The usual solution for this is to reprogram the SPD, and Corsair did just that for a buddy of mine a few years ago when his Intel board wouldn't run it correctly.
However, like I said, I shouldn't have to send off brand new RAM in order to be reprogrammed for compatibility with a board that's been out for about a year and a half, especially since Corsair's cheap stuff worked perfectly out of the box when I built the system in December 2004.

I did what I should have done in the first place, and that's order a Gig and a half of Crucial from mwave.
It may not have the pretty lights that the Corsair had, but I've never had Crucial fail to perform to spec, either.

I've used Kingston in the past and had good luck with them.
The only reason I chose Crucial was that it was a hair cheaper.

You're in the opposite boat I'm in. My Crucial (Ballistix) is dying on me, and I've already gone through one RMA. I originally bought the sticks (2x1GB) at the end of August/beginning of September. Basically, the chips just run too damn hot, and cook themselves. HardOCP had a thread full of people with different batch numbers having same problem. So I ordered some Corsair XMS to replace it. The XMS sticks are rated for 2-3-3-6, but I already know the SPD is set to 3-3-3-8, which (from what I understand) was done to increase capability with some motherboards/chipsets.

Honestly, I see no real performance different between 3-3-3-8 that Ballistic currently run at versus the 2-2-2-6 I had them running at. The only setting I've noticed that makes any significant difference in Sandra's memory bandwidth benchmark or 3DMark is setting the command rate down to 1T instead of the default 2T.

Arrow wrote:You're in the opposite boat I'm in. My Crucial (Ballistix) is dying on me, and I've already gone through one RMA. I originally bought the sticks (2x1GB) at the end of August/beginning of September. Basically, the chips just run too damn hot, and cook themselves. HardOCP had a thread full of people with different batch numbers having same problem. So I ordered some Corsair XMS to replace it. The XMS sticks are rated for 2-3-3-6, but I already know the SPD is set to 3-3-3-8, which (from what I understand) was done to increase capability with some motherboards/chipsets.

Honestly, I see no real performance different between 3-3-3-8 that Ballistic currently run at versus the 2-2-2-6 I had them running at. The only setting I've noticed that makes any significant difference in Sandra's memory bandwidth benchmark or 3DMark is setting the command rate down to 1T instead of the default 2T.

I admit that I probably wouldn't see the difference between the timing rates, but it's the idea that I'm not getting what I paid the price premium for (the 1.5 Gig of Crucial is cheaper than the 1G of Corsair) that would drive me nuts.

When I googled about the problem, it turns out there are a lot of K8V owners who tried XMS ram and have the same problem. I would have lived with the misprogrammed SPD *if* Asus hadn't dumbed down the BIOS from the earlier versions and removed most of the manual settings, thus preventing me from fixing the issue myself.

I thought about going to earlier BIOS revisions, but the version the board came with doesn't have the settings either and going back earlier than the shipping BIOS just doesn't strike me as a good idea.

Might I suggest buying value ram?

Unfortunately, Corsair ValueRAM only has SPDs for their rated speed - and not lesser speeds. I got burned when I bought some PC3200 SDRAM for my father's PC2700 box.

InnocentBystander wrote:Might I suggest buying value ram?

Which is proven to be only slightly slower then quality RAM.

phongn wrote:Unfortunately, Corsair ValueRAM only has SPDs for their rated speed - and not lesser speeds. I got burned when I bought some PC3200 SDRAM for my father's PC2700 box.

You should have bought their 'performance' RAM.
From the 'It's not a bug, it's a feature' department

Corsair Tech Support wrote:I am sorry to hear the disappointment in our product. Actually all low latency settings need to be manually configured in the bios. That is why we recommend XMS versions mainly for motherboards that have the ability to manually configure. I would have downgraded to the old bios to utilize the
faster timings available on your motherboard. Hope we have a chance to
provide better products for you in the future.

WTF? They promote it as high performance RAM, but it defaults to el cheapo performance specs, and that's normal????

Glocksman wrote:You should have bought their 'performance' RAM.
From the 'It's not a bug, it's a feature' department

I know, it was horribly annoying. My super-cheap Centon RAM has SPDs for that, yet Corsair - which markets itself as quality - does not.