P7P55D-E LX: Bad Memory or Wrong Memory?

[salendrak]

I recently bought some new RAM for my home built PC that I put together about two years ago. The RAM I got is:

* G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL10D-16GBXL

Here are the other key parts in the machine:

* ASUS P7P55D-E LX LGA 1156 Intel P55 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
* Intel Core i5-750 Lynnfield 2.66GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor BX80605I5750
* MSI N460GTX CYCLONE 1GD5/OC GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
* CORSAIR TX Series CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply
* Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
The system generally seemed to be working fine, and all 16GB was showing up as available memory. But I was getting pretty regular application crashes in Planetside 2, and even firefox was crashing fairly regularly. At first I thought it was just Planetside being a new, buggy game, and tried a couple of video drivers to no avail. But after a BSOD, I decided to test the RAM.

I fired up MemTest86+ and tested each stick in each slot, and both were giving all sorts of errors. But I also double checked my motherboard manual, and it says, under memory configurations, "You may install 1GB, 2GB, and 4GB unbuffered and non-ECC DDR3 DIMMs into the DIMM sockets." Obviously, 2x8GB sticks don't meet that description, and the sticks in question aren't on the list of qualified vendors.

So are the MemTest errors (and system crashes) likely just the result of incompatible RAM? Or did I happen to get two failed sticks? Should I try to return the new ones and get 4x4GB instead?

Thanks for all suggestions!

 

[Wasabi Punani]

It's funny that you are doing this now when I just decided to add more RAM to the same MOBO today.

I first had 2x4 Corsair 1600 9-9-9-24, and decided to add another 2x4 of G Skill, same timing and all. I was originally on BIOS version 1301 and firefox was crashing, BSOD, etc. I just updated thru Windows to BIOS 1602, using ASUS Updater (both available thru ASUS support/download website.

No more crashes or BSOD. I would check your BIOS first.

 

[salendrak]

Yeah, I thought about getting two kits of 2x4GB ram for the same price as the single set of 2x8GB. I am running BIOS 1602 though, and have tried a couple of different timing/voltage settings with the RAM and still get MemTest errors.

Question still remains though: do 8GB sticks just not work (well) with this mobo?

 

[salendrak]

Doh. Just found this thread on the G.Skill forums: http://www.gskill.us/forum/showthread.php?t=11849&highlight=P7P55D-E+LX

Looks like I did buy the wrong RAM. What's odd though is that my computer did in fact work (most of the time with application crashes and one BSOD in the past week or so), but the guy in that other post froze up at the BIOS screen.