srock 939Dual-Sata2 and VS2GBKIT400C3 Memory

[leejhamilton]

I purchased both of these today, however i seem to be having a little trouble with teh memory. In the bios if i leave everything to auto, is detects the memory as DDR333 not DDR400, not i problem i thought, as i can manually set the memory to DDR400, that worked, and i left everything else to auto, however when i bbot into windows and run a diagnostic util (PC Wizard 2005), i get the following as the memory settings:

 

 

General Information :

DIMM0 (RAS 0, RAS 2) : 1024 (Double Bank) - ECC, DIMM

DIMM1 (RAS 0, RAS 2) : 1024 (Double Bank) - ECC, DIMM

DIMM2 : Empty

DIMM3 : Empty

 

Memory Controller Information :

Memory Controller : SIMM, DIMM, SDRAM

Number of connectors : 4

Max. Module Size : 1024 MB

Max. Memory Size : 4096 MB

Supported Speed : 70ns, 60ns

Supported Voltages : 3.3v

Error Detection Method : 64-bit ECC

Error Correction Capability : Unspecified

Current/Supported Interleave : 1-way/1-way

 

Chipset Information :

Type : DDR-SDRAM PC2100

Frequency : 129 MHz

FSB/RAM Multiplier : CPU/17x

Channels : Dual

ECC Diagnostic : No

CAS Latency (tCL) : 2.5 clocks

RAS to CAS (tRCD) : 3 clocks

RAS Precharge (tRP) : 3 clocks

Cycle Time (tRAS) : 8 clocks

Bank Cycle Time (tRC) : 11 clocks

DRAM Idle Timer : 16 clocks

 

To me that indicates that the memory is not running at the speed it should. Is it just me or is there something wrong with my memory

[RAM GUY]

These modules are Non ECC so please make sure that ECC is disabled. And I would try them in the other two slots and see if you can run at DDR400.

[leejhamilton]

Ok changed the slots, but still the same. Weird thing is the BIOS when set to auto detects then as PC2700(333) memory chips. I cant find anything in the motherboard bios setting that lets me set the ECC mode, so cant try changing that. :confused:

[Gulaschkanone]

I just bought the same mainboard in combination with the 2x512MB Corsair Valueselect kit. It looks like the Asrock board always defaults to DDR333 whenever one inserts double sided memory modules. I read that in the following review (it's in German, but the list beneath "Speicherkompatibilität" should give you a clue):

http://www.au-ja.de/review-asrock939dualsata2-6.phtml

 

It also says that the Asrock always sets MA timing to 2T for stability reasons. I ran memtest86 with the memory manually set to DDR400 / 1T, but at the beginning of test #8 the screen was filled with blue or green blocks, some strange chars and after a few seconds the PC rebooted.

 

I tried the other two DIMM slots with the same result. Right now I'm running memtest with DDR400 / 2T, which seems to do well.

 

BTW, is 2T bad? Does it remarkably slow down the system compared to 1T? Do suggested MA timings for memory modules exist (like those CL, RAS-to-CAS and whatsoever timings), or does that depend completely on the mainboard itself?

 

Back to the original posting: Does PC Wizard 2005 give reliable information? Was your memory really running at DDR266, while you manually selected DDR400 in the BIOS?

[leejhamilton]

Well i've RMA'd the Board, memory and processor back to the supplier, no matter what i did the system was still way too slow, i even tried changing the memory settings manually to ddr400. I upgraded from a AthlonXP2800 with 1gb Ram to the above system and using the same agp gfx card i had a drop of approx 700 in 3dmark05.

As for the settings that pc wizard displayed, who knows if they were correct, however i have run several other system diagnostics software and all of them report roughly the same thing that the memory is pc2100 and riunning at 129Mhz so i dont belive they are all wrong, and it didnt matter when i manually set the bios to use ddr400 as the speed of the memory.

[polariscon]

Disable Flexibility Option In BIOS.