taeric Posted May 24, 2005 Share Posted May 24, 2005 I recently built a PC around an Asus P4P800-E Deluxe motherboard, Pentium 4 3.2E CPU, and TWINX1024-3200XLPT (the other components had been previously tested on another build). All of the BIOS settings were left at default/auto, and everything appeared to be running at spec. The initial Windows XP installation went smoothly, but I started noticing stability problems shortly after. Without going into too much detail, after a week of reformats and reinstalls, I finally managed to generate a reproducable error. Searching for that error online, a support thread refered to Memtest86. I was quite surprised to find 700+ errors on my first time through memtest (all on tests 3, 4, and 6 if that is relevant). I ran the test on the two sticks of RAM separately, and both passed without an error (first in one of the original slots and then in the other - the two blue slots on the mobo). I ran the test again but had the two sticks in the opposite slots from the initial test and again ran into lots of errors. I swapped the two sticks from the blue slots to the black, ran the test again, and only came up with two errors (another reinstall of XP yielded an unstable system yet again). The system runs fine with one stick of RAM installed. Although I haven't run any torture tests in that configuration (usually use Prime95 for this purpose), the XP installation and updating went smoothly quite unlike when I have both sticks installed (frequent crashes, etc.) I'm not sure if this is a RAM or motherboard issue. I'm assuming it's not an issue with the CPU or other components since the stability seems to be linked to RAM configuration. I'm getting close to the time limit to RMA my motherboard, so if this sounds like an issue with that, please advise so I can sent it in for replacement. If it sounds like a RAM issue, I would like to engage the warranty (beyond the merchant's RMA time on it already) so I can get things up and running. If further information is needed, please let me know and I'll be happy to provide it. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employees RAM GUY Posted May 24, 2005 Corsair Employees Share Posted May 24, 2005 First thing the minimum suggested voltage for these modules would be 2.75 Volts and with this MB you will need to disable legacy USB when running any memory test. Please try these settings after you load setup defaults. AI Over Clock Tuner: Manual CPU Freq: 200 MHz Memory Frequency: 100%/DDR400 Dim Voltage to 2.75 Volts (but if you over clock 2.85 Volts) Resulting Frequency: 200MHz/400DDR Legacy USB: Disabled SDRAM CAS Latency: 2T SDRAM RAS to CAS Delay (tRCD): 2T SDRAM Row Precharge (tRP): 2T SDRAM Active to Precharge Delay (tRAS): 5T Then test the modules one at a time with http://www.memtest.org. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taeric Posted May 25, 2005 Author Share Posted May 25, 2005 First thing the minimum suggested voltage for these modules would be 2.75 Volts and with this MB you will need to disable legacy USB when running any memory test. Please try these settings after you load setup defaults. AI Over Clock Tuner: Manual CPU Freq: 200 MHz Memory Frequency: 100%/DDR400 Dim Voltage to 2.75 Volts (but if you over clock 2.85 Volts) Resulting Frequency: 200MHz/400DDR Legacy USB: Disabled SDRAM CAS Latency: 2T SDRAM RAS to CAS Delay (tRCD): 2T SDRAM Row Precharge (tRP): 2T SDRAM Active to Precharge Delay (tRAS): 5T Then test the modules one at a time with http://www.memtest.org. Thanks, Ram Guy. Doing the manual settings in the BIOS greatly improved the performance. I ran two tests (4 cycles each) with the DIMMs in slots 2/4 and 1/3. The first test yielded only two errors and the second just one (both ran for over an hour). I tested just one of the DIMMs, but I only let it run for two cycles as both tested well individually One other question - Along with the BIOS settings you gave me, DRAM Burst Length is the only other option that does not have an Auto setting (choices are 4T/8T). I'm assuming lower is better. Please advise if not. I have a new PSU arriving tomorrow (550 Watt, dual 19 amp 12 Volt rails). Once that's in and installed, I plan on pushing this build pretty hard. Thanks again for the info. :): If only I would have isolated the problem earlier to post here, I would have saved on a whole bunch of frustration and some unfortunate data corruption. :[pouts: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employees RAM GUY Posted May 25, 2005 Corsair Employees Share Posted May 25, 2005 Taken from http://www.rojakpot.com Burst Length Common Options : 4, 8 Quick Review This BIOS feature allows you to control the length of a burst transaction. When this feature is set to 4, a burst transaction can only comprise of up to four reads or four writes. When this feature is set to 8, a burst transaction can only comprise of up to eight reads or eight writes. As the initial CAS latency is fixed for each burst transaction, a longer burst transaction will allow more data to be read or written for less delay than a shorter burst transaction. Therefore, a burst length of 8 will be faster than a burst length of 4. Therefore, it is recommended that you select the longer burst length of 8 for better performance. or Burst Length 8QW Common Options : Enabled, Disabled Quick Review This BIOS feature allows you to control the length of a burst transaction. When this feature is set to Disabled, a burst transaction can only comprise of up to four quadword (QW) reads or writes. When this feature is set to Enabled, a burst transaction can only comprise of up to eight quadword (QW) reads or writes. As the initial CAS latency is fixed for each burst transaction, a longer burst transaction will allow more data to be read or written for less delay than a shorter burst transaction. Therefore, a burst length of 8 will be faster than a burst length of 4. Therefore, it is recommended that you enable this BIOS feature for better performance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taeric Posted May 31, 2005 Author Share Posted May 31, 2005 Thanks for all of the help. Things stablized nicely after manually setting the BIOS. Since then, I've pushed the clock up to 240 MHz and only had to loosen timings to 2-3-3-5. I'm hoping to push it to 251 MHz (just to break the 4.0 GHz barrier) and then back down to something more reasonable. This is definitely some good RAM, and I appreciate the quick, quality tech support. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employees RAM GUY Posted June 1, 2005 Corsair Employees Share Posted June 1, 2005 No problem, and thanks for the compliment! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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