Asus A8n-SLI and pc3200 ram running at 333 MHz?

[Spork]

I have an A8n-SLI motherboard with 2 512mb sticks of corsair 3200xlpt ram. (twinx1024-3200xlpt). Using this ram, the motherboard detects the ram speed correctly, 400mhz. However, when i add 2 matched sticks of corsair 512mb 3200-llpt ram in order to bring my ram up to 2gb, the motherboard knocks the speeds down to 333 mhz. Yes, i did manually set the latency settings to that of the 3200llpt, because that is slower. When i tried to set the RAM speed to 400 mhz manually in the bios, i would get the system to boot up, but it would then crash while i was playing a game.

What do i need to do in order for my system to run stable with an FSB of 400mhz with these mixed pairs? If i can't, is it better to run with 2gb at 333mhz or with 1gb at 400mhz?

thanks in advance.

[Garvin]

Sounds like you got lucky. Most can't get mismatched pairs to run dual channel at all. The 3500Amd64 comes in different core flavors. The older newcastle core will automatically downstep 2 banks (4 sticks) to 333mhz. The newer venice (and sandiego) core is capable of running 2 banks (4 matched sticks) at 400mhz if the command rate is set to 2T. You might try setting the command rate to 2T and see if it will run at 400mhz; I wouldn't hold my breath though as the pairs are mismatched. As to whether 1gig at 400mhz is better than 2 gigs at 333mhz, it depends on what you plan on running on the rig and how you like to run. Personally, I'm a big fan of gobs of ram, always have been; so my opinion is going to be biased in favor of the two gigs at 333mhz. With 2 gigs I never need to shut anything down to run something else, including games. My setup with Xp is pretty loaded; after booting into Windows, the rig's already using 520 megs of ram before I use anything. Games such as Doom3/Half Life2/Far Cry in ultra settings at 1280x1024 resolution run flawlessly with the two gigs of Corsair. When I originally had only one gig of Corsair(1 Twinx1024-3200xl kit) I would have to turn quite a bit of stuff off to run in ultra settings. I had an extra gig of cheap ram sitting around and on a lark added it to the gig of Corsair to see if it would run. The memory controller on the fx53 downstepped the speed to 266mhz which surprisingly was still able to run Doom3 on high quality settings without turning anything else off running in the background. I got another Twinx kit pronto. Now I sit in 2 gig nirvana. At 333mhz with 2 gigs, you should be able to run at near ultra settings with the added bonus of not having to shut anything down. In addition some new games are even more ram hungry than the above mentioned three, such as Battlefield2 -1.2 to 1.5 gigs worth in ultra/high resolutions. If your looking for screaming benchmark numbers or plan on overclocking, the 1gig setup would be the way to go. Another thing to consider is that 2 gigs in four sticks places a bigger load on the memory controller onboard your cpu causing more heat to be generated.

 

ps: With 2gigs I've even had my virus scanner break into a Doom3 fight in ultra asking if I want to update, hit update, and was immediately back in the fray , while the scanner updated itself in the background on an active dsl hookup behind hardware and software firewalls, a virus scanner, four different anti-spyware/adware programs and bunches of other running utilities.

[Wired]

Garvin, who the hell needs 4 anti-spyware programs? And why run them ALL at the same time? :)

[Spork]

If your looking for screaming benchmark numbers or plan on overclocking, the 1gig setup would be the way to go. Another thing to consider is that 2 gigs in four sticks places a bigger load on the memory controller onboard your cpu causing more heat to be generated.

 

would that extra load (and heat) be placed on the cpu or the chipset? It seems that whatever speed i run it at, my computer freezes up eventually

I am not sure if I am freezing up because of overheating or bad ram (more likely i think).

 

PS thanks for the reply

[Garvin]

to Spork-

Both the memory controller on your cpu and the motherboards chipset will bare the additional load, necessitating good cpu and case cooling. Have you tried the Asus probe utility or the free Sisoft Sandra Lite program to see what your temperatures are like? Did you try manually setting the command rate to 2T? Also, I don't know which bios revision your running on your board. I seem to recal reading that some bios revision after 1006 was supposed to address/resolve some mixed pair problems, think it was 1008, not sure though. It's somewhere in the later pages of the following useful link (the first page is the most important for setting up this board):

 

http://hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/38623/

 

to Wired-

reasons:

1. I'm bulletproof, both incoming and outgoing.

2. No one program is totally effective.

3. I sit in 2 Gigs of Corsair Nirvana; I can so I shall.

[Spork]

to Spork-

Both the memory controller on your cpu and the motherboards chipset will bare the additional load, necessitating good cpu and case cooling. Have you tried the Asus probe utility or the free Sisoft Sandra Lite program to see what your temperatures are like? Did you try manually setting the command rate to 2T? Also, I don't know which bios revision your running on your board. I seem to recal reading that some bios revision after 1006 was supposed to address/resolve some mixed pair problems, think it was 1008, not sure though. It's somewhere in the later pages of the following useful link (the first page is the most important for setting up this board):

 

http://hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/38623/

 

to Wired-

reasons:

1. I'm bulletproof, both incoming and outgoing.

2. No one program is totally effective.

3. I sit in 2 Gigs of Corsair Nirvana; I can so I shall.

 

 

Thanks for the help again! I will try to find where that mention of the 1008 information is, but I had one question. I hope i can get it stable with 2 gigs!

 

*edit* I can't seem to find anything about the newcastle core and supporting more than one gb, but i have heard that it is not possible at all to get this stable. Do you remember what page that mention was on? (or a range of pages, i went back to 135 and didn't see anything)

[Wired]

It'll support more than 1 GB, however XLs and LLs use different ICs and as such will cause their own world of problems.

[Garvin]

Sorry don't remember what page. As Wired mentioned, getting different sets with different ic's to run stabilly at 333mhz is a miracle; you may not be able to get them to run at 400mhz even if you relax the timings. The newcastle core will support more than 1gig of ram. It just won't support it at 400mhz as far as I Know.