DRAM refresh failure ?

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insider
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DRAM refresh failure ?

Post by insider »

I started my PC today and heard a short beep from my motherboard, a little searching revealed it, one short beep means a DRAM refresh failure http://www.bioscentral.com/beepcodes/amibeep.htm
I recently added 2x 8GB sticks but that was almost a month ago, does the error indicate one of the RAM's faulty, or is it a motherboard issue, that would be a nightmare as processing warranty on my motherboard would take up to 20 days and my work will be completely paralysed till then.

The usual answer on the PC forums is clear the CMOS, that's pretty easy my motherboard is an ASRock Z87 Extreme4 and has a clear CMOS button on it, but is the error serious or can it be ignored as my computer boots up and everything is fine and of course I am typing from it and I didn't hear the beep when I turned off my PC and rebooted after 10 minutes.

Any advice would be great.
Last edited by insider on Wed Mar 30, 2016 10:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
al2950
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Re: DRAM refresh failure ?

Post by al2950 »

I would be tempted to say its fine, however I would normally at this point run a number of stress tests on the CPU and RAM to make sure.
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Re: DRAM refresh failure ?

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Also check your ram configuration. Make sure your board detected it correctly I know my MB fails all the time on that always having to fix the settings manually.
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Re: DRAM refresh failure ?

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Well I ran the Windows memory diagnostics just as a basic test to see if it finds something before I do advanced tests, well nothing no errors and I checked the RAM in the bios all three 8GB sticks and frequency matching and nothing out of the ordinary there either, ran Seatools diagnostics on my 3 Seagate hard drives and SMART test passed and short drive test and short generic tests also passed, so RAM seems to be fine, HDD's fine, CPU nothing that I can notice and I am a pretty heavy user upto 10-15 hours of game dev every day, so I am not sure what the beep indicated.
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Re: DRAM refresh failure ?

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Sorry I was meaning the specific timings for the RAM other than the frequency the bios sometimes gets those wrong and that's what causes random errors.
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Re: DRAM refresh failure ?

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Zonder wrote:Sorry I was meaning the specific timings for the RAM other than the frequency the bios sometimes gets those wrong and that's what causes random errors.
Al right mate I'll check it out.
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Re: DRAM refresh failure ?

Post by Daixiwen »

You can try MemTest86 for a more thorough memory test. Although if the beep just did happen once it could just be something weird that happened during that POST and the RAM could be fine.
If you get errors with MemTest, try again with only one RAM stick and check each one of them individually. It should help you find out of the problem comes from the RAM or the motherboard.
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Re: DRAM refresh failure ?

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Daixiwen wrote: if the beep just did happen once it could just be something weird that happened during that POST and the RAM could be fine.
Yes that's exactly what I thought, I'll run memtest86 if it beeps again.
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Re: DRAM refresh failure ?

Post by syedhs »

More often that not, when I encountered DRAM issues I will just take the ram out, and insert them back after 'cleaning' the contact with eraser..
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Re: DRAM refresh failure ?

Post by Zonder »

Something else I though of are you overloading your power supply? If you are near capacity something powering up (ob board usb drives etc) can cause a power fluctuation which can cause random problems.

Here is a calculator so you can check http://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator

My system comes out at 550w recommended I have 1200w :) but I only have 1 GPU in at the moment and I intend to put 2 more in. which pushes me to 1050w
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Re: DRAM refresh failure ?

Post by insider »

Zonder wrote:Something else I though of are you overloading your power supply? If you are near capacity something powering up (ob board usb drives etc) can cause a power fluctuation which can cause random problems.

Here is a calculator so you can check http://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator

My system comes out at 550w recommended I have 1200w :) but I only have 1 GPU in at the moment and I intend to put 2 more in. which pushes me to 1050w
I think not, my PSU is a Corsair RM750 that's 750 Watts.

Here's as per your site the power requirement is 469Watts so I think it's fine, anyway I have booted my PC around 8 times now since the beep and no beeps so far and no system issues either.
Here my specs http://outervision.com/b/urL6Sp

I have mentioned 4x 3.0 and 4x 2.0 in the specs above that would never occur as I only turn on any one of my 6 external drives at any time, that's 2 USB 2.0 one's and 4 USB 3.0 one's, and they are all external drives so the have their own power supply, so the wattage is well below 469.

The only things new are the 2x 8GB sticks that I got last month and a Targus USB 3.0 Hub that I got a week ago, not sure if that can be a issue, the things plugged into it are a USB2.0 Thrustmaster Joystick and a Desktop external HDD which is never in use, I bought it for future use as my other USB 3.0 HUB is full.

Any inputs would be great.
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Re: DRAM refresh failure ?

Post by insider »

syedhs wrote:More often that not, when I encountered DRAM issues I will just take the ram out, and insert them back after 'cleaning' the contact with eraser..
Thanks syedhs for replying, yes I mostly do that when there is no display on the monitor and I am aware of erasing the RAM :mrgreen: :lol:
Will try it out if it beeps again and yes technically my locality is pretty dusty, it's near one of the busiest roads in town.
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