Crucial Ballistix BL2KIT25664FN1608 SPD

The Ballistix BL2KIT25664FN1608 kit comes with 3 programmed JEDECs and one XMP profile. Those JEDECs have very low frequencies and relaxed timings to ensure motherboard's support at 1.5 volts. The XMP works at a rated 1600MHz frequency and 8-8-8-24-2T timings. Benchmark Reviews will test if this kit works at 1T command rate and how low does voltage can go without losing stability. Have a look at the CPU-Z SPD section.

Additionally, I always like to add a picture of CPU Tweaker since it reports a more complete list of timings and it confirms the readings obtained with CPU-Z.

Our first test is to check the memory will work at default settings to detect if any DIMM comes broken or damaged. I set Memtest 4 to cover all unused RAM and test it for 2-3 hours until it passes 100% just to check for any errors. I first thought one DIMM was damaged since I couldn't boot easily even with stock settings. Every time I tried to boot, I had to turn the machine off and turn it on again until it POSTed. Anyway, when I managed to get to the OS the memory showed 0 signs of instability, and I tried any benchmarks just to confirm it was stable.

I did a BIOS update to the most recent1706 version for the ASUS Maximus III Formula but it didn't solve the problem. Finally, I thought it was a cold boot problem. Yes...if you have suffered cold boot problems with any kind of hardware, it seems this kit had it also. That would be a very BAD step for Crucial with their first thermal-sensor-equipped kit, and it was getting to obvious. Any time I started the PC I had to wait until the memory get passed a certain temperature to boot up, which didn't take more than 30 seconds, but the bug was still there.

When I was almost ready to write this against the product it suddenly stopped. I have been using this kit for several days now without having any problems when booting and I didn't changed anything at the BIOS. Maybe this was a coincidence or a BETA kit, but again, the kit is working 100% stable without problems and there are little chances to experience something similar to what happened to me.

Memtest 4.1 has been running for 3 hours testing all unused RAM. At 116% coverage it doesn´t shows any errors yet.

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