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Asus SK8V with 4GB? Or other recommendations?


mieses

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I would like to install 4GB PC3200 into an Asus SK8V with an AMD FX-51 CPU. There are conflicting reports as to whether or not this is possible. It would be very helpful to get this sorted out. Currently I have 4 modules of 512MB PC3200 running stable on this SK8V. I'm using 2x TWINX1024RE-3200LL kits. Will 4 modules of 1GB PC3200 also run stable on the SK8V with FX-51 CPU? (2x TWINX2048RE-3200 = 4GB) My PSU is a 460 Watt Seasonic which should be adequate. The graphics card is a PNY NVIDIA Quadro FX 500 AGP. 2 hard drives, 1 cdrom. No other PCI devices. If the answer is no, then are there any FX51 (socket 940) motherboards that can handle 2x TWINX2048RE-3200?
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  • Corsair Employee
You should have no problem with the memory, however what O.S. are you using? Win2K and WinXP will only cache 2Gig of Ram max to programs and 4 Gig Max total system memory! For 99.9% of us, we would not need more than 1.0 Gig of total ram In addition, unless you are using the enterprise edition of any server O.S. even Linux, you would not be able to use more than 4.0 Gig of Ram. And even then you may have to make some changes to the system files to make it work!
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Thanks for the optimism. I'm currently running gentoo linux 2004.0 for amd64 which is a highly configurable OS. The purpose of this PC is code development and calculations that quickly fill all 4GB and would use more RAM if it was available. We're also looking at the dual and quad opteron systems and larger amounts of memory. Ultimately we may set up a cluster (with a more appropriate type of motherboard). We've used SGI Origin 2000's and 2100's in the past and are interested in porting our code to Linux clusters. It would be good to see the SK8V + 4GB and other high-memory configurations added to the compatibility list. Do you think that 4 modules of CM72SD1024RLP-3200 would also work in an SK8V? Are the CM7 parts designed specifically for Tyan and Intel server boards?
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  • Corsair Employee
With this O.S. and the way you are using the platform I do understand and you should have no problem running 4 1.0 Gig Modules. However, with many of the MB's using this chipset they will not allow the full size, basically, there is bios limitation in that some of the Ram will be reserved for PCI and other devices. However, the MB will run with out problems with either Twinx2048RE-3200 or CM72SD1024RLP-3200. In addition, since you mentioned Tyan, I would suggest you use CM72SD1024RLP-3200 with the Tyan MB, per the requirements listed in the user manual!
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  • 2 months later...
.. just following up with some info that will hopefully be useful. It turns out that the Asus SK8V does not work with 4GB and Linux. The cause is the VIA chipset which is not able to recognize RAM over 3GB. Google "VIA IOMMU AMD64". For example: [url]http://lists.suse.com/archive/suse-amd64/2004-Mar/0314.html[/url] This problem only affects VIA-based boards like the Asus SK8V. Other chipsets (nvidia, amd, etc) are ok.
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Sorry but the SK8V does not work with more than 3GB under Linux. Asus can write whatever they want in their specs but it just doesn't work. Many reports indicate that people have hit upon this issue with the Via K8T800 chipset while AMD, Nvidia, and SiS chipsets are ok. I don't know if this is true or not for Windows as I haven't tried it on the SK8V. If you dig deeper into this issue, you will find that a workaround has been added to to the amd64 linux kernel that moves some memory operations to software, which causes a big degradation in performance. quoting from: [url]http://www.x86-64.org/lists/discuss/msg04845.html[/url] "The biggest change is probably a workaround for [B]the VIA IOMMU problems[/B]: when there is more than 3GB of memory on a VIA chipset, don't use the hardware IOMMU (which doesn't seem to work for chipset devices); use the software copying IOMMU code instead. This is slow, but better than a hanging system."
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I would like to hear the results from this experiment, since I based my selection of components on the possibility of upgrading to 4GB, or beyond. Also n my need for this amount of memory for my work. My new 2GB is doing the job, (1 part of it), but with a lot of hassle, and with, what should be unnecessary work. Not in a hurry for an answer though, since it seems that it will only matter,(for me), when win64 becomes available. At the moment, the 3GB switch seems to be a lottery, and PAE a kludge (windows). In my web searches, apart from info similar to the links provided by mieses. I have only found this thread:- [url]http://forums.amd.com/index.php?showtopic=15293&st=0&#entry122507[/url] , which is innconclusive, but mentions a BIOS setting that I would have msised, but I assume that the linux guys wouldn't. DRAM Over 4G Remapping [Disabled]. When 4 Gigabytes or more of total memory are installed in the system, the continuous memory space will overlap with the PCI memory space making it unavailable for use....
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I'm only commenting on native amd64 Linux. My observations might not apply to 32bit Linux running on a 64 bit chip, or any version of Windows. Native amd64 Linux has excellent memory scaling on other chipsets. This VIA K8T800 chipset seems to have been a mistake. It sounds like the VIA IOMMU workarounds in the newer amd64 kernels will slow the system down when all 4GB are used, which is all the time for my application. I will probably replace the SK8V with a Tyan board. If the K8T800 requires performance limiting workarounds to scale beyond 3GB in 64bit Linux, then wouldn't it also require similar workarounds in 64 bit Windows? It would be great if someone could explain this.. I got memory errors in memtest86+ with "DRAM Over 4G Remapping" enabled and 4x1GB. Both the Corsair part mentioned earlier and a part from another manufacturer specifically designed for Opteron produced errors. I tried 3 different SK8V's. I used the default auto-detected memory settings in the BIOS. The PSU is a 460 Watt SeaSonic Super Silencer, so I don't think this is a power problem. I'll try to post back when I try a Tyan board. For now, the SK8V runs extremely fast with 2GB and amd64 gentoo linux.
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  • 3 months later...
I have the ASUS SK8V and 4GB of ram (CORSAIR CMX1024RE-3200), which is from 2 TWINX sets. I have tried running x86_64 Debian, Fedora Core, as well as 32 bit Debian (highmem support on), Suse, and Fedora Core. All boot with only 2 sticks (2GB) installed. With all four installed every installation failed to boot. I'm running the newest BIOS (its 1003.004 beta). The major annoyance is that this system was purchased as a whole, and the vendor is not aware of this problem. (I'm holding out on releasing the name of the vendor until I find out whether they are willing to resolve the problem or not) Has anyone else had verfied this incompatiblity?
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  • Corsair Employee
Well I have tested this MB with 4 1.0 Gig modules and not had any problems. For Debain, you have to compile the kernel your self for your configuration. I would suggest you try and fresh install of the latest pre compiled SUSE and see if that does not work correctly. And to verify there is no some problem, you should be able to run [url]www.memtest.org[/url] with all 4 modules, if not then there is some hardware problem.
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  • 1 year later...
I'm trying to install 4GB in a SK8V motherboard and having some problems. I started with Corsair XMS 1GB(2 x 512MB) DDR400 Registered Dual Channel DIMMs installed for a total of 1GB RAM and two DIMM sockets used. The system has run stable with them for over a year. I removed them and purchased two CORSAIR XMS 2GB(2 x 1GB) DDR400 ECC Registered Dual Channel Kits(TWINX2048RE-3200) for a total of 4GB filling up all four sockets. The problem is that with the new RAM installed, I'm only seeing 3GB of RAM- in both the BIOS system information and the Windows XP System icon in the control panel. Reading over the manual, I found instructions to enable the "DRAM Over 4G Remapping" BIOS setting when installing 4GB or more of RAM. After enabling this option, the system would freeze during POST. The only way I could get it to boot was to remove two of the DIMMs. I then tried to updating the mobo BIOS- to ver 1003. I didn't really want to update to the beta 1003.008 unless I could confirm that it would solve my problem. The system again boots up with all four DIMMs installed, but still only registers 3GB(3072MB) in both the BIOS and Windows XP. Plus the "DRAM Over 4G Remapping" BIOS setting was no longer available after the BIOS upgrade. The system seems to be stable, but try as I might I can't get the system to recognize all the RAM. I've swapped both sets of DIMMs in and out 2GB at a time to make sure none of the DIMMs are defective and they seem fine. To add to the confusion, the specs for the SK8V state that the max RAM is actually 8GB, but the manual only lists configurations for up to 4GB. The manual also states that "When all four sockets are populated with 1GB DIMMs(total 4GB), the system may detect only 3+ GB (a little less than 4GB) due to the Southbridge resource allication". Now alittle less I can live with, but I'm out an entire GB! Any advice/knowledge regarding how to fix this problem- or even authoritatively state that it's just plain unfixable, would be greatly appreciated. Kelvin
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  • Corsair Employee
Kelvin, With 4 gig remapping enabled it should show the coorrect ram in Bios. I would test the modules one ata time to be sure one is not failing but beyond that this is normal for this MB. In addition you might check the main ftp site for newer bios Ftp.asus.com.tw
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Hey RAM GUY, They are dual channel DIMMs so I can only swap them out two at a time- and they seem to work with any combination of 2 of the 4 DIMMs. The 4 gig remapping seems to have disappeared since I updated to BIOS ver 1003. I will look on the Asus ftp and see if there's anything newer. I've been trying to work using the 3GB I'm seeing from all 4 DIMMs installed, but have found the system to be unstable- 3 hard lock-ups in the last 24 hrs. Don't know whether to think it's a problem with defective RAM or if it's due to the configuration.
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