Unexpected quality, with a sting

[pfrcom]

Thought I'd show the build quality of this MSI KM2M Combo before selling it

Rubycon MBZ in the VRM, with heatsink on MOSFETs

Chemicon KZE elsewhere, just three Teapo in lesser roles

I got this a while ago, used, although everything looks original including soldering for all caps

Drawback of the board is being extremely finicky about DDR

I found if any double-sided DDR was used, whether as a pair or in conjunction with a single-sided one, there would be errors from Memtest which didn't necessarily show up in the first pass

Wasted a lot of time testing memory, and other debugging - first XP build would consistently get windows\system32\config\system missing or corrupt on a cold start, even though it'd had one successful pass of Memtest, and disk etc. tested fine beforehand

Was about to try SDRAM instead (it's a dual memory board) when I stumbled across its dislike of double-sided DDR

[bigbeark]

Re: Unexpected quality, with a sting

Thanks for the timely report. I just picked up one of these boards in a package deal with a malfunctioning Asus core 2 board.

I will definitely stick with single-sided DDR based on your experience.

[larrymoencurly]

Re: Unexpected quality, with a sting

I recently found an MSI MS-7309 that's all Panasonic FJ except for some 100uF G-Luxuons and one 470uF, 16V Teapo.

What RAM have you tried? Years ago, 60% of my Kingston 512MB PC3200 modules had errors, and last year I found 33% of Corsair 1GB modules were bad. All no-name chips, of course. With name brand chips I've had only one bad module, a CompUSA/PNY, and that was due to bad soldering:

[pfrcom]

Re: Unexpected quality, with a sting

What RAM have you tried?

Double-sided 512MB DDR400 PQI in conjunction with a single-sided 256MB DDR400 PQI

Double-sided 512MB DDR400 Veritech in conjunction with a single-sided 256MB DDR400 Veritech

Pair of double-sided 512MB DDR400 Kingston with Hynix chips

Pair of double-sided 512MB DDR400 Kingmax

Pair of double-sided 256MB DDR266 generic with Hynix chips

All of the above have been extensively tested in other boards, without an issue

No problems with a single-sided 512MB DDR400 Kingston in conjunction with a single-sided 512MB DDR400 Elixir, and a pair of single-sided 512MB DDR400 Starmax

[lti]

Re: Unexpected quality, with a sting

Years ago, 60% of my Kingston 512MB PC3200 modules had errors, and last year I found 33% of Corsair 1GB modules were bad. All no-name chips, of course. With name brand chips I've had only one bad module, a CompUSA/PNY

All of the PNY RAM I have seen used no-name chips. Some used PNY branded chips (made by an unknown company), and one had chips marked "BRAVO."

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Unexpected quality, with a sting

I would try a VDIMM increase. I wouldn't be surprised if it's undervolting.