Christobol Posted June 21, 2005 Share Posted June 21, 2005 I have TWINX1024-4000PRO, which bought at Fry's Electronics approximately 8 or 9 months ago. During that time I have never gotten the memory to run faster than ~209 Mhz (the exact speed escapes me right now but I know it was no where near 250) while still being able to POST in the bios. When I ran it above 200 Mhz I would experience system crashes, and it wasn't until I slowed my system down to 200 Mhz that the crashes mostly went away. When I've tried to run the memory at 250Mhz the system will not post and I am forced to clear the bios. As of this week I have tried to run each chip individually at 250 Mhz and in each case the system will not post. Approximately a week ago I started having problems with Battlefield 2 Demo and Guildwars, in trying to figure out the problem I swapped out my motherboard for another one (exact same motherboard), I also removed my 3200+ CPU and put in an older 2500+. I have run Prime 95 with both CPUs, new MB, memory settings at Auto (200 Mhz and whatever is programmed into the SPD settings) and gotten errors on each memory stick individually. I ran memtest+ on one of the sticks @200 Mhz (with the 2500+ CPU and new MB and received 6 errors over a period of 4 hours (there were 3 errors around 171.x MB and 3 around 41x.x MB); however I do not recall the test # that the errors showed up on as I rebooted the computer by accident. The other memory chip did not have a single error when I ran Memtest+ at 166 mhz, though I should try it again at 200 Mhz. Again this chip did experience problems when I ran Prime95 at 200 Mhz, and I am currently running Prime 95 with that chip @166 Mhz and haven't had an error over the past 2 hours. System Config: Asus A7N8X-e Delus Rev 2.xx (Bios Rev 1013) Athlon XP 3200+ (plus backup Athlon XP 2500+) TWINX1024-4000PRO (plus backup memory 1 gig match from another mfg) BFG GeForce 6800 Ultra WD Raptor WD74 0GD-00FLA1 WD WD1200JB-75CRA0 PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-107D CREATIVE DVD8400E Thermaltake 480 Watt (plus backup 550 Watt, have not tested in system yet) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CandyKid Posted June 21, 2005 Share Posted June 21, 2005 You don't happen to have a friend with a Pentium 4 system to try those out on, do you? 250MHz for an AMD system is quite a leap and may be part of the problem. PLUR CK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christobol Posted June 21, 2005 Author Share Posted June 21, 2005 I'll see what I can do. Any other suggestions? What about the problem with the memory errors? Like I said even at 200 MHz at least one of the two sticks is getting errors. So even though the memory was tested in an AMD based system it normally won't work with AMD based systems? I'm confused. So the nVidia chipset I have isn't capable of running at 250 Mhz, even though the MB says it is? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employee RAM GUY Posted June 21, 2005 Corsair Employee Share Posted June 21, 2005 Please try these settings: With the A7N8X-E please set the FSB jumper to pins 2-3 with the modules in slots 2-3 and then reset or clear the bios and load setup defaults and set the Dim Voltage to 2.7 Volts and set the timings manually. Then please test the system with http://www.memtest.org. If you do get errors please test the modules one at a time and lets make sure its not just a failing module. Also I would try and set the CPU VCore up a few tenths of a Volts as well. CPU Freq: 200 MHz Memory Frequency: 100% Dim Voltage to 2.7 Volts Resulting Frequency: 200 MHz SDRAM CAS Latency: 3.0T SDRAM RAS to CAS Delay (tRCD): 3T SDRAM Row Precharge (tRP): 3T SDRAM Active to Precharge Delay (tRAS): 8T In addition, a few other's had some success disabling Spread Spectrum in the bios as well. I would take a look at http://www.asusforums.org as well in the AMD section. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christobol Posted June 21, 2005 Author Share Posted June 21, 2005 I will give that a shot when I get home tonight... what about getting the system to run at 250 Mhz? Should I try these settings at 250 Mhz first, and then step them down to 200? I will test this tonight and put off testing on a friend's P4. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employee RAM GUY Posted June 21, 2005 Corsair Employee Share Posted June 21, 2005 No I really doubt that a 3200+ or 2500+ would ever run much over 210-220 Mhz. Just test the modules at these settings one at a time to see if you have a failing module. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christobol Posted June 22, 2005 Author Share Posted June 22, 2005 What I mean is that I can adjust the memory speed independenty of the CPU speed... so shouldn't I attempt that first? Unless the bios is designed to be misleading, I'm able to select a FSB speed along with a CPU to memory speed ratio (200%, 166%, 133% 125% 100%.... etc). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employee RAM GUY Posted June 22, 2005 Corsair Employee Share Posted June 22, 2005 You would never get the system stable if you set the memory frequency at anything over 100% with the CPU you have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christobol Posted June 22, 2005 Author Share Posted June 22, 2005 Using the new MB I've completed the following testing. On the old MB the system would rarely boot. It would boot more often if the memory timings were 166 Mhz. Okay here are my test results: Both modules Memtest86+ Test #5 5590 errors (2500+ CPU) Prime95 Failed quickly (both CPUs and MBs) Windows Memory Diagnostic Did not attempt Module 1 Memtest86+ Various errors (did not write down tests #'s) Prime95 Fails almost instantly on each attempt (Blended settings) Windows Memory Diagnostic No errors in two passes (will conduct more this evening) Module 2 Memtest86+ No errors found over 3 hours of testing Prime95 Failed with running at 200 Mhz, did not fail in 9 hours running at 166 Windows Memory Diagnostic Failed Strike6 19 times over an 8 hour period I'm not sure what to make of these results. I'm at a loss as to what else I should test. I've swapped out the CPU, I've swapped out the MB (which did have an improvement). I'm going to swap out the Power Supply tonight and try to rerun some of these test (won't have time for all of them obviously). Other than that the only remaining options are to get a third MB, swap out the vid card, and remove all CD/DVD and HDs. What should I do next? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employee RAM GUY Posted June 22, 2005 Corsair Employee Share Posted June 22, 2005 This is a chipset limitation. If the FSB of your CPU is 400 For Intel and 100 MHz for AMD, the memory speed supports only DDR 266. If the FSB of your CPU is 533 For Intel and 133/166 MHz for AMD, the memory speed supports DDR 266/333 If the FSB of your CPU is 800 MHz for Intel and 200 MHz for AMD, the memory speed supports DDR 333/400 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christobol Posted June 22, 2005 Author Share Posted June 22, 2005 Okay got it about the speed being limited to 200 Mhz. So where do I go from here? As I said in the previous post it looks like I'm running out of options to test. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employee RAM GUY Posted June 22, 2005 Corsair Employee Share Posted June 22, 2005 Did you try these settings and test the modules one at a time? If so what was the out come? Please try these settings: With the A7N8X-E please set the FSB jumper to pins 2-3 with the modules in slots 2-3 and then reset or clear the bios and load setup defaults and set the Dim Voltage to 2.7 Volts and set the timings manually. Then please test the system with http://www.memtest.org. If you do get errors please test the modules one at a time and lets make sure its not just a failing module. Also I would try and set the CPU VCore up a few tenths of a Volts as well. CPU Freq: 200 MHz Memory Frequency: 100% Dim Voltage to 2.7 Volts Resulting Frequency: 200 MHz SDRAM CAS Latency: 3.0T SDRAM RAS to CAS Delay (tRCD): 3T SDRAM Row Precharge (tRP): 3T SDRAM Active to Precharge Delay (tRAS): 8T In addition, a few other's had some success disabling Spread Spectrum in the bios as well. I would take a look at http://www.asusforums.org as well in the AMD section. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christobol Posted June 22, 2005 Author Share Posted June 22, 2005 I did try those, the only thing I didn't do was change the jumper. I'm not sure what pins the jumper is currently on and I can't find out because Asus's support site is down. Regardless I had the jumper setup for FSB of 166/200, the other option was for FSB of 100/133, so I make sure it was setup for the 200 FSB. Otherwise here are the results: Both modules Memtest86+ - Test #5 5590 errors (within 20-30 minutes) Prime95 - Did not attempt Windows Memory Diagnostic - Did not attempt Module 1 Memtest86+ - Did not test with above settings (will do further testing), previously tested with 2500 (FSB 166) and memory freq at 166.. incured numerous errors. Prime95 - Fails almost instantly on each attempt (Blended settings) Windows Memory Diagnostic - No errors in two passes (will conduct more this evening) Module 2 Memtest86+ - No errors found over 3 hours of testing Prime95 - Did not test Windows Memory Diagnostic - Failed Strike6 19 times over an 8 hour period I concentrated my testing on Module 2 as it did not show any errors at 166 previously. Sorry if I'm posting this before having a chance to throughly test everything... during the day I need access to my computer so I can't let tests run on it, limiting me to 12 hours or so worth of test time (3-5 before bed and then 7 to 9 while I sleep). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employee RAM GUY Posted June 22, 2005 Corsair Employee Share Posted June 22, 2005 Please try and set the FSB Jumper to pins 2-3 furthest away from the CPU and then reset the bios and set the timimgs and voltage manually and then test the modules one at a time, if you still get errors with both module we can try replacing them, but that would suggest some other problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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