Merkury Posted December 29, 2012 Share Posted December 29, 2012 My motherboard supports both DDR2 and DDR3, not at the same time, but separately. I have run both types in the past. First I had DDR3, 2x1GB of some OCZ Gold 1333 I believe. Then I decided to switch to DDR2, 2x2GB of Corsair Dominator 1066. Eventually I added DDR2 2x1GB XMS2 800 to the existing Dominator, for 6GB total. I had things running well and even OCd my machine significantly. I recently decided to try DDR3 2x4GB Vengeance 1600. I want more GB and the price of DDR2 is way too high compared to DDR3, so that is why I bought the Vengeance. My machine did not like the change. I was able to post occasionally and Windows 7 HP 64bit ran pretty stable with a moderate OC. I was only able to get the RAM speed into the 1400s. I had a BSOD one night, so I decided to just go back to a stock clock and voltage. I still have issues posting though. My machine will turn itself off and on, cycling as many as 5-10 times, trying to boot. I have tried manually setting the latency and set the divider as low as possible. Nothing seems to help. I tried removing one stick and that made no difference either. As a test, just now, I pulled the DDR3 and replaced it with 1GB of DDR2 XMS2 800 MHz 4-4-4-12. I reset my overclock exactly like I had it before and turned the PC on. The machine booted on the first try with no issue. Is the Vengeance just not going to work for me? Should I just return it to the store and not waste more time? I wonder if there are some advanced timings that are not being set right automatically. My options are these: ACT to ACT Delay (tRRD) Rank Write To READ Delay (tWTR) Write To Precharge Delay (tWR) Refresh to ACT Delay (tRFC) Read to Precharge Delay (tRTP) Static tRead Value (tRD) Static tRead Phase Adjust Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peanutz94 Posted December 29, 2012 Share Posted December 29, 2012 Is the Vengeance just not going to work for me? Should I just return it to the store and not waste more time? I wonder if there are some advanced timings that are not being set right automatically. My options are these: Unfortunately the Vengeance modules would not really be compatible with this MB. The chips used to make the modules are of a higher density thatn what your MB will support. Thats why your having the problems you are. This would be a limitation of the P35 chip set and not the modules which would only support DDR1066mhz with DDR3 modules. For what your going to pay for the correct DDR2 memory , you would be better off buying a new MB and processor that will support the DDR3 modules. With DDR2 modules with one foot in the grave upgrading these older boards are going to be pretty tough and expensive. As far as secondary timings go , those are best left on auto , they are more of a MB setting than they are a memory setting. The Mb will set them accordingly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merkury Posted December 30, 2012 Author Share Posted December 30, 2012 For what it's worth, I managed to get my computer to post reliably. I stumbled onto a 15 page thread about a guy trying to achieve 1600 MHz ram speed with this board. He was actually successful, believe it or not. The keys appear to be: A) You have to manually set the advanced timings in the BIOS. I used a little tool called Memset to figure all of them out. (I think that my motherboard would not recognize the "XMP" settings for 1600 MHz since it was designed with 1333 MHz as the high end. By setting these values manually, it makes the ram work better.) B) You have to increase the FSB Voltage by +.2 and the GmCH Voltage by +.2 The voltage seemed to be what was causing my repeating boot cycling issue. I overclocked the CPU frequency to 356 with a x9 multiplier, giving me my 3.2 GHz back. This pushes the ram up to 1428 MHz (712x2) with 9-9-9-24 timings. I tried to get 400 MHz out of the bus, but after trying voltage increases that I was comfortable with, I had no luck. I am happy, however, with what I have achieved and I will upgrade my motherboard and cpu within a year or two. If DDR3 is still king, I will transfer it. Thanks for the reply peanutz94. You make good points. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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