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Abit BF6 refuses to work with 768 Mb Ram

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Andreas0815

Registered
Joined
Mar 10, 2002
Location
Germany
hi guys,

before i was running the mentioned Board with 256 Mb Infineon Cas 2 Ram. Using a Intel Tualatin 1100@1466 and 133 Mhz FSB on a moded SlotKet.
It was very stable and nothing to complain about.

But now i upgraded with 2 more Ram Sticks (the same brand and size) that i got nice 768 Megs. But now i can't run my System stable anymore.

Does anyone have an idea what's the matter with this ?
What makes the difference between 1, 2 or 3 Ram sticks ?


Thanks

Andi
 
Yes, i did. Running each of them alone works without problems..

It seems to me the chipset has a problem to arrange more than 256 Megs at 133 FSB.

Any suggestions ?
 
yes, latest Bios from ABIT.

I mean the really strange thing is: why before and not with the "more" ram ?
 
my Abit bx6r2.0 wouldn't run with two 256MB sticks...but's ok with 128, 128, 256...I couldn't get 128, 256, 256 or any other combo of two 256MB DIMMS to work.

512MB is enough though :) I donated the stick to my dad's PII-450, upgraded it from 64MB to 512MB and bumped the CPU to 530MHz :)
 
The Thing is: Why does Abit mention then the usage of 3 sticks of 256 Megs ?
( the marketing interests of Abit excluded of course)

I mean its frustrating to make such expieriences when you upgrade or intent to.

Current Status of information: Older Chipsets have problems with a lot of ram. Registered DRAM should solve this matter.
 
I believe you are running into the classic "4 banks only issue"...like with P4's....its really not the P4, its the chipset - the memory controller can only recognize so many banks of memory accurately, which means it only "knows" it has so many to use..the others are sometimes recognized, but of course *sometimes* also means *some problems*. A few things to check:

Are the mem sticks the same brand? Yes.

Same speed? I don't know you didn't tell us...but...

If they are same latency, same speed and same size and same brand....and the ALL work when used alone, you definately have a chipset problem.....it might just be a voltage issue, or like I said above, it may be a memory controller issue specifically.

Try upping the voltage and see what happens.
 
That is the trick registered/buffered RAM, it's hard to find and all the memory has to be it. The problem with my BX6r2 is there is a buffer built-in to the board, however, test prove it to be only about 103MHz stable....it is needed if 4 DIMMS or more than 1 256MB DIMM is used.
 
Mushkin sells (resells samsung actually)....quality buffered ram that you can order as SPECIFICALLY ECC...

Have you read the Alchemist? Is that where the screen name came from?
 
Didn't read that....:) but nice DM avatar.

The name comes from my hacking/pharmacy days :) around 1992 I made the name and it's been my pseudoname since.
 
Everyone

Clarpet said:
Mushkin sells (resells samsung actually)....quality buffered ram that you can order as SPECIFICALLY ECC...

Have you read the Alchemist? Is that where the screen name came from?

Everyone should read the Alchemist. Very GOOD book..easy read, but good story....a story to live by no $hit.
 
My BE6-II (the same board as the BF6 except for the Highpoint controller) runs two 256MB unbuffered, unregistered PC133 CAS333 sticks at 133FSB CAS322 in DIMM slots 1 and 2 cuz slot 0 is blocked by the Alpha PEP66 HSF. If your sticks are exactly the same like mine, maybe you could try to get two of them to run in the last two slots, who knows?! Good luck and let us know what happens ok?!
 
Lancelot said:
My BE6-II (the same board as the BF6 except for the Highpoint controller) runs two 256MB unbuffered, unregistered PC133 CAS333 sticks at 133FSB CAS322 in DIMM slots 1 and 2 cuz slot 0 is blocked by the Alpha PEP66 HSF. If your sticks are exactly the same like mine, maybe you could try to get two of them to run in the last two slots, who knows?! Good luck and let us know what happens ok?!

Dude, Lancelot, your case is P!MP $H!T, that rocks..the blue lighting and all.:clap:
 
Andreas,
It's an age old pheonema (sp) that running multiple dimms while overclocked greatly decreases the max FSB you can attain on BX boards.

With a single 128MB cas2 PC100 Infineon dimm, and BH6 1.1, I was able to run 142 FSB cas 2-2-2, and 150 FSB cas 3-2-2 rock solid (600e @ 900 cB0). Rock solid even with a case temp (in that miserable small place where I was living) as high as 50 C. Stick in a second 100% identical dimm, and I can only do 137 FSB cas 2-2-2, and 142 FSB cas 3-3-3. Note that I was unable to do 155 FSB stable at all with a single dimm, regardless of settings (the board seemed to have reached its limit at 150 for that dimm, although 155 FSB MIGHT have been possible with a PC133 cas2 dimm, as long as it was 128 MB and not 256).

When I went to a 256MB infineon dimm (briefly had a Micron PC133 cas3 dimm, that did 150 cas 3-3-3, although needed a case fan or Unreal would sometimes bomb with REALLY weird errors while loading, but I wanted cas 2, dangit), I could do 144 FSB cas 2-2-2 with case temp at 55 C (!), and 150 FSB cas 2-2-2 just fine, provided I blew a fan on the motherboard (it wasn't the RAM at fault here, as switching to cas 3-3-3 made no difference). 155 FSB was unstable regardless of timings.

I've heard from others (including, I believe, the author of burnBX), that a 128 MB dimm is more stable than a 256MB dimm, when overclocked, although I don't remember why. That might explain me being able to do 150 cas 3-2-2 on the 128MB dimm with my case as a raging inferno of heat, while the 256MB dimm required a fan for stability. 144 FSB with the 256MB dimm was as stable as granite, even when I tried heating everything up past 55 C with direct sunlight in summer, case fan off :)

Likewise, on my 1.4-S Tualatin, I can do 150 FSB somewhat stable (Prime95 seems to either run for a very long time or it gives a roundoff error after awhile--roundoff errors are almost always RAM related, lockups or illegal sumouts are CPU), with Kingmax PC133 256MB cas2 dimm, 3dmark likes to sometimes quit for no reason, but UT2003 runs forever, BF1942 has lasted a few 1.5 hour sessions without dumping to desktop since I put vcore at the powerleap default of 1.55, etc, and Serious sam 2 hasn't crashed YET, with the vcore bump to 1.55 (I had it at 1.50 originally). 144 FSB is as stable as granite. 150 FSB isn't QUITE as stable as it was on my 1000EB @ 1125; I suspect either the powerleap adapter or the CPU is putting more load on the memory controller or causing more crosstalk than the MSI 6905 2.3 did, with the 1000EB; on a different board, I might be able to do 155 FSB easily. The CPU is clearly capable of more than 1575 mhz.
 
What OS are you running? win98 has issues running more than 512MB of ram, It doesn't always cause problems, but sometimes it does, I RMAd my first TH711 because, when I installed the video drivers, it would crash every time. I was running 2 sticks of 512MB RDRAM, and had to run both of them. I ended up installing W XP just to get it to run. I later installed a different vid. card and had no problem with w98, and 1GB mem.

This might not be the problem, but it might.

steve
 
Are you still running overclocked? And are you using win9x? If you are using win9x, ignore everything else below, and do a search for "768 MB in win98" stability problems on google, for the fix

Putting multiple dimms in a BX board causes the stability to plummet through the floor, when you are overclocking to a high FSB speed. Expect a system that is stable at 150 FSB with one dimm, to sometimes only be stable at 135 FSB and two dimms, without reducing cas latency, and sometimes, less than 133 FSB with all banks filled.

This has been a known issue for years.

This is also the reason why many people were getting extraordinarily high FSB speeds with just a single 128MB ram cas2 stick, several years ago. Several posts on the Abit newsgroup mentioned that a 128MB dimm is usually more stable at a high FSB, than a 256MB dimm of the same brand and cas latency. I've actaully seen that myself, as I lost a little stability going from a 128MB infineon cas 3 (!) dimm (cas 2 up to 142 fsb, verified cas 3 up to 159 fsb from a RAM review), running at 150 cas 3-3-3, to a 256 mb cas 2 dimm (also infineon), (verified cas 2 up to 155 FSB--not on my system of course), running at 150 fsb, with cas latency totally irrelevent...had minor stability problems until I blew a case fan on the motherboard.

Going from a 128mb pc133 cas 2 stick to a 256mb pc133 cas2 stick is similar in loss of stability (but nowhere as extreme) as going from one 256mb dimm to two 256mb dimms.

I should also note that I tried two 128mb infineons, and could only run up to 140 fsb cas 3, instead of 150 fsb with just one dimm.
 
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