cbarnard Posted November 20, 2008 Share Posted November 20, 2008 Hey everyone, I just built this system the other day. It is my first build. After looking in to things I found that My comp is only showing that I installed 2 GIGs of Ram when I actually Installed 4 GIGS. My MOBO manual says it supports up to 4GIGs. and I have windows XP. But I want to learn more... and get my perfomance levels up.. any help or sugestions... Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DerekT Posted November 20, 2008 Share Posted November 20, 2008 Enter your BIOS and look for the "Memory Remap" Feature. Enable it and you will see the full 4GB on a 64bit OS. If you are running with a 32bit OS, then you will not see the 4GB regardless. http://www.houseofhelp.com/v3/showthread.php?t=63681 Let me clarify. Your computer has many methods in which to use memory. There are memory storage and caches all over the motherboard. These devices contain some of the below method of storage: * RAM * ROM * Cache * Dynamic RAM * Static RAM * Flash memory * Virtual memory * Video memory * BIOS For example, your sound, video, keyboard, chipset caches, I/O controller (IDE, SATA, etc) caches . . . Now these device with discrete and cache RAM need to have their "Addresses" so that the computer knows where they are in order to query and access them. You computer also has System Resource Memory. Consider this as an index of addresses that tell the computer where everything is for access as mentioned above. The computer needs to know that a certain boundary of addresses will contain certain functions to perform when commanded. Memory-mapped devices (such as your video card) will use some of that physical address space, as will the BIOS ROMs. After all the non-memory devices have had their say, there will be less than 4GB of address space available for RAM below the 4GB physical address boundary. Now a 32bit Operating system such as Windows XP 32bit and VISTA 32bit have the ability to access 2^32 bits = 4GB. Now if you have an 8800GTX with 768MB of DRAM, then that memory must be addressed in the space of the 4GB and you lose some of the system dram to the addressing. This continues with all other devices, leaving you with less than the 4GB. Since Windows can address up to 4GB, then with 3GB, there will be the 3 --> 4GB mapping so you should not lose that DRAM with 3GB unless your devices demand it. For example, SLi with 2 X 8800GTX 768MB will certainly take away from the 3GB. If you had a 2 GB system, then the addressing is done in the discrete video card DRAM. In your system, the Shared Video is accessed by the CPU and a set amoung of memory is addressed and requested of the OS. There is no addressable space since you are at the 4GB plateau level. Thus the CPU reserves a set amount of that 4GB. In a 64bit OS, the 4GB is like the 2GB is in a 32bit OS and the CPU just addresses the Video cards discrete DRAM above the 4GB level. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbarnard Posted November 22, 2008 Author Share Posted November 22, 2008 Thank you for your quick response... It was very helpful I have a 32 bit system and will be upgrading to a 64bit system in the near future... I have SIW installed on my pc... it works well and it logs that I have full $ gigs in Ram, but Win system states 2.93gig. and My installed (My Gaurd) forom my MOBO says I only have @ gig. but that is behind me I down loaded and ran the Mem test. it took a period of 1hr and 7 min.. to complete with 0 errors... I have OC'D to 2995mhz and I have set my ram to 5-5-5-18-2T and DDR800 running at almost 500mhz when I was reading the memtest... and my amd k8 ecc was disable was this a good test and should I change anything thank you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DerekT Posted November 23, 2008 Share Posted November 23, 2008 Thank you for your quick response... It was very helpful I have a 32 bit system and will be upgrading to a 64bit system in the near future... I have SIW installed on my pc... it works well and it logs that I have full $ gigs in Ram, but Win system states 2.93gig. and My installed (My Gaurd) forom my MOBO says I only have @ gig. but that is behind me I down loaded and ran the Mem test. it took a period of 1hr and 7 min.. to complete with 0 errors... I have OC'D to 2995mhz and I have set my ram to 5-5-5-18-2T and DDR800 running at almost 500mhz when I was reading the memtest... and my amd k8 ecc was disable was this a good test and should I change anything thank you Your system is tuned pretty nicely. When you transition to a 64bit OS you will gain full DRAM use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbarnard Posted November 26, 2008 Author Share Posted November 26, 2008 Well I have been working on my computer... I ran Orthos Beta stress test on my CPU... It appeared to run well, it ran for several hours without any errors... I also didn't realize I accidentally was running to separate stress tests at the same time because the program had minimized and I thought it had closed because I could not readily see how to open up the test I was on... they both ran for several hours... But I had 1 Error after about two hrs. on the second test. My computer has been BSOD on me last night I ran AVG and Spybot at the same time like I always do... When I went to check on its progress It said it had BSOD, because of the hard drive and a hardware driver... It is inconsistent when it happens, But it appears my platform is becoming unstable so I'm probably going to have to back off the clock... I also ran the memtest 86 again and it ran though 2x in about 2hrs and 15min... Also I forgot to write about my memtest that it was reading ddr997 for my ram along with 498mhz for ram... But It hasn't produced any errors in the memtest in its current settings... Well I don't know.... I can't wait to upgrade to a 64bit OS... Well if anyone has any thoughts I be around... thank you... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbarnard Posted November 26, 2008 Author Share Posted November 26, 2008 I forgot to mention, that when I go in to cpu Z to read about my set up, that my dram timing is set for only half of the ram module... I have 5-5-5-18-2t set and it reads on both channels... but I also have 4-4-4-16-2t and I can't figure out how to adjust it... any thoughts or is this another thing that happens when you have a 32bit os... I can't find a way to set it in the BIOS just wondering if it has more potential memory wise... thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yellowbeard Posted November 26, 2008 Share Posted November 26, 2008 Check your manual. In the BIOS section, it should tell you if your board allows you to adjust DRAM timings and voltage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbarnard Posted November 27, 2008 Author Share Posted November 27, 2008 I have already adjusted the ram to the settings specified by corsair... 5-5-5-18-2t with 1.9v but my problem is it is only allowing me to adjust only 2 DIMMS out of 4. I looked at my manual and it explains nothing. Jetway barely explains anything in it. and it doesn't explain anything about the bios. Well i should have just spent more money on an ASUS, but I didnt, I was lucky just to build what I did. "The wife don't like this" It is still leaps and bounds from what I was running before. I have pushed this machine to the limit I will just have to wait till I can upgrade again... Thank you all Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbarnard Posted November 27, 2008 Author Share Posted November 27, 2008 Well I'm back up and running again... I shut down and tried to work on the timing some more... I backed my Ram down to min. settings and then tried to increase fsb setting, I set it at 235mhz x 13 but it refused to boot, so I backed it off to 230x 13 were I had it before. but it crashed. so 2nd time this morning I had to clear Cmos. (man that is annoying) just a thought has any one ever put in a switch, and wires to clear the Cmos with out having to take the case apart... I'm thinking I might do that, Because it is clear that when you play around with the timing and you get it wrong that you have to reset a lot... I don't know just a thought. My wife wants the tower to stay in the closet and it is not easily assessable so I thought that would make it a lot easier... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbarnard Posted November 27, 2008 Author Share Posted November 27, 2008 On the above post I said fsb speed... just realized I said wrong thing... correct numbers... fsb is at 1150mhz system clock is 230 mhzx 13 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DerekT Posted November 27, 2008 Share Posted November 27, 2008 Well I'm back up and running again... I shut down and tried to work on the timing some more... I backed my Ram down to min. settings and then tried to increase fsb setting, I set it at 235mhz x 13 but it refused to boot, so I backed it off to 230x 13 were I had it before. but it crashed. so 2nd time this morning I had to clear Cmos. (man that is annoying) just a thought has any one ever put in a switch, and wires to clear the Cmos with out having to take the case apart... I'm thinking I might do that, Because it is clear that when you play around with the timing and you get it wrong that you have to reset a lot... I don't know just a thought. My wife wants the tower to stay in the closet and it is not easily assessable so I thought that would make it a lot easier... Most of the time (Unless you fully hard lock the system) you can shut the system down, wait 30 seconds, press the insert key and restart the system. Once the green light of your monitor turns on, you can release the insert key and you will be able to continue. Be sure to set your PCI-e to 100Mhz and PCI to 33Mhz in your BIOS when you raise the FSB. If you can't do this with your board, then I would not clock the CPU HT (FSB) to > 225Mhz as you are concurrently raising the PCI-e and PCI busses and this will not be good for your system. Very likely you will damage the onboard video and/or the on CPU memory controller. Be Clear though, that I would NOT overclock much with that system personally. The speed increase you get is not worth the quite high likelihood that you damage your system in the longer term. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbarnard Posted November 30, 2008 Author Share Posted November 30, 2008 I haven't been on the computer working with it much, I will try the Insert key, When my system refuses to boot, the green light just flashes and the system sits without even any info coming up... Will check through things and see if I can slow other parts down Thank you very much... You have been very helpful Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DerekT Posted November 30, 2008 Share Posted November 30, 2008 Try working on the settings with a single stick of DRAM. Then, insert the second stick once you have found stability. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbarnard Posted November 30, 2008 Author Share Posted November 30, 2008 Well I work on this thing last night till 1 am... I have taken all i have learned and read from this forum and DEREK T It looks like I have started to get this thing figured out... I went in and found the multiplier for my FSB ht so I changed that and several other of my settings... I ran LINPACK and passed... Results... error reporting on max stress test #1 5 tests 2 gigs of ram due to OS limitations time to complete 1862.9 sec 2.944629E-002 x 5 My current settings are: PCIE 100mhz CPU 225x13 2925mhz DIMM CLOCK DDR800 VDIMM 1.85 thinking about changing to 1.9 My VLDT is 1.2 What voltage is this adjusting My NBCHIP 1.2v select is 1.25 what voltage is this adjusting MY FSB HT multiplier is 225x4 for 900mhz DRAM frequency is 417.9 mhz supported frequencies are 270\400mhz my 270mhz settings are 4-4-4-13-15 and my 400 mhz settings are 5-5-5-18-22 both at 1.8v currently My current physical memory is 2815mb My virtual memory is at 6749mb... I increased this in windows is this even necessary just thought it might help so I have over 90 gigs of usable space... Before I got to those current settings I tried to put FSB HT multiplier to 3 and my CPU clock to 240x13 and my memory to lower settings. but I BSOD so eventually I came to those settings... I have been thinking about working with only 1 stick of RAM thank you for the suggestion, I wasn't sure but now I will. I still have to zero in on what setting is causing my BSOD, But that will be another day... Any thoughts on any of this... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbarnard Posted November 30, 2008 Author Share Posted November 30, 2008 Well I decided to try 10 consecutive tests of linpack... it ran for 3697.3 sec without any errors and the same code as the first test... I will run it through Mem Test 86 and see how long it takes we will see Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DerekT Posted November 30, 2008 Share Posted November 30, 2008 VDIMM 1.85 thinking about changing to 1.9 My VLDT is 1.2 What voltage is this adjusting My NBCHIP 1.2v select is 1.25 what voltage is this adjusting Any thoughts on any of this... That is the life of the computer enthusiast. Tweaking and testing. I have been working on this mainboard of mine for a month now. :D: If you are stable on your system, then I don't see why raising the Vdimm would be necessary. The VLDT (Lightning Data Transfer Voltage) pertains to the motherboards HTT BUS. and it affects the HTT multiplier and stability. The only time you would make changes to the VLDT is if you are overclocking the HT link and that is not really a useful thing to do. The NBCHIP voltage is the voltage pertaining to the North Bridge chip which on the AMD solution relates to the onboard video. My advice? Be careful overclocking any motherboard with Onboard video. Be certain that your board allows for PCI-e and PCI bus locks before overclocking as you may easily end up frying the board. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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