View Full Version : Need some help here!
I need some help with installing some Crucial Ballistix DDR 2 667 ram in my sig rig. I posted on the memory part of the forum a few weeks ago but got practally no response. Since I'm upgrading for the purposes of folding (not only the science but keeping ahead of rpkole :shrug: and maybe even catching up to AlabamaCajun :p although everytime I think that's going to happen he pulls another trick out of his hat :bang head ) I was hoping someone here might help out. If this is inappropriate I have no problem with a mod deleting it and appologize in advance but I'm desperate.
Here's my story:
I've already rma'd 1 pair of sticks because I could not get my computer to post with them installed and the replacements will not post either. Crucial says they should work on my motherboard.
I tried one at a time;
switching them around;
single channel;
dual channel;
setting the bios to default which is 200 fsb and 533 mhz (Crucial says the memory is backwards compatible and should work at 533 mhz);
all bios settings pertaining to memory set to auto detect;
memory timings to be controlled by spd and not manually controlled;
manually forcing the memory to run at 533 mhz;
memory voltage set to auto in bios (my Kingston Value ram runs at 1.8v and the Crucial Ballistix runs at 2.1v; I'm afraid to set it to 2.1v with the Kingston ram in place, that's why I set it to auto select);
memory voltage set manually to 1.8v;
I tried all combinations of the above when possible as well and yes they snapped into place like they are supposed to (first thing Crucial asked).
No, I don't have another computer to test them on.
Question:
If they are designed for this motherboard shouldn't they work by just installing them with default bios settings and no overclock?
Does anyone have any ideas? Is there anything I've missed?
I've never upgraded to performance ram before so I don't know what to expect in the way of problems or their solutions.
HELP!!!!
WarriorII
01-10-06, 10:21 PM
Do you know anyone who could test it locally? (the memory?)
Yes, it should work. - should.
doesn't mean it will though.
Your old memory works fine right?
Test locally if ya can, if not, send it back & try something else.
remember the ocz mem & NF-7's not working together?
you might have something here.
Sorry, Hope ya get it worked out.
I think you've tested all you can.
:attn:
WarriorII: Do you know anyone who could test it locally? (the memory?)
Yes, it should work. - should.
doesn't mean it will though.
Your old memory works fine right?
Test locally if ya can, if not, send it back & try something else.
remember the ocz mem & NF-7's not working together?
you might have something here.
I figured it should work at default settings; Thanks for confirming this.
My old memory does work fine. When I put the old memory back in after the Ballistix failure the computer starts up in safe mode and says my overclock failed. I guess it thinks when I put in the Ballistix that I'm trying to overclock. Could this be the problem or is it a normal response to a failed post with new hardware?
I can't test it locally. Everyone I know is still using DDR.
remember the ocz mem & NF-7's not working together?
you might have something here
I don't know what this is about but I will try to check it out.
Since I'm upgrading for the purposes of folding (not only the science but keeping ahead of rpkole :shrug: and maybe even catching up to AlabamaCajun :p although everytime I think that's going to happen he pulls another trick out of his hat :bang head )
LOL guess its time to pull out the whip on my K7D and its 2400+'s so it will start pumping out some ppd for me
Hope you get your ram fixed but i dont think i am going to pass you any time soon cause we are putting out about the same ppd but i think we can catch AC :p
Hi CJ,
If the memory is bad, on POST, you should get repeated long beeps from the system speaker. Let's hear it for the old Beep code!
No time to o'clock, of course. Find the safest POST mode your BIOS has, for the troubleshooting. I've never had a BIOS or OS tell me an overclock was not safe after a failed POST.
Does your mobo have a website and support forum? Once when I was having a dilly of a time with 2 MSI boards, their support forum was pure joy.
If no progress on this, and no way to test locally, I'd return it and specify a different brand of well-known and respected, compatible memory. Take it for granted that both sets were not bad, and there's just a design incompatibility in them.
Good luck!
Adak
WarriorII
01-11-06, 07:12 AM
Quote:
remember the ocz mem & NF-7's not working together?
you might have something here
I don't know what this is about but I will try to check it out.
There was a compatability problem between the 2.
I think OCZ had a work around for it.
It was oly with OCZ mem & the NF-7 mobos though.
Haven't heard of anything like it since.
you might be a 1st, or the 1st I've heard.
I wouldn't doubt it though.
Try a different brand maybe.
you have Crucial,
Try
-Mushkin/OCZ / Kingston/Corsair / PCQ-? PQI ... there's a few.
GL
:attn:
when i built my first ddr2 system i did so with a bit of trepidation on the memory side.
Getting recommended memory was a bit of a challenge.
It seems not all of the first ddr2 sticks were really compatible with the spec.
Newer mem should not have this problem, but i did read about some prob's with ocz sticks that were programmed with spd's that would not allow post to run. On the ocz support forum at bleeding edge, one of the reps talked about reprogramming the spd for one of the customers. I was also suprised a bit that the support guys late last fall, didn't apprear to have the latest mobos to work with ... so there seemed to be a lot of guesswork.
So, if ocz, had this problem, I suppose others might as well.
When i selected the mem I have now, i made sure that either the manufacturer stated that the mem would work in my mobo, or that I had found others in the fora who were using it sucessessfully on my identical mem/mobo combination.
My first sticks were corsair, and i got a definite 'it will work' from their support forum. the muskin listed my mobo as suppprted for the mem i was going with and people on extreme fora were using/recommending it. Did not find a pqi support forum. I got lucky with my used pqi mem bought cheap, and could have returned the ocz 1gb if it had not worked.
My mobos are p5ld2, p5wd2-p and non p ... mem is corsair 5400c4 (2x512), mushkin 6400 (2x512), ocz 667 1x1gb, pqi turbo 667 1x1gb (non current version).
I suppose ddr has matured so much that we don't even think about mem compatilbilty with DDR2.
Before returning them, I am wondering if your mobo is at latest bios level ... if not you might try getting it at the latest with your working mem, and then giving the new mem another shot. Default spd's might work better?
Also, as Adak said, to diagnose mem post errors, you need a speaker connected to the mobo to get the post beeps.
ADAK: If the memory is bad, on POST, you should get repeated long beeps from the system speaker. Let's hear it for the old Beep code!
I never get that far. There is some hard drive activity and then nothing!
I never get that far. There is some hard drive activity and then nothing!
I forget all the deatils of diagnosing with post beep codes ,,, but If you have a speaker on the mobo, you should get beep codes when you have no memory installed. Thie post sequence checks cpu and mem first before going on to the other peripherals including video. So pull your mem, and you should get beep codes.
I seem to recall you have an asus mobo?
pscout: I seem to recall you have an asus mobo?
Yes, it's the one in my sig: Asus P5AD2-E Premium
pscout: So pull your mem, and you should get beep codes.
I pulled the memory and got a series of 3 beeps.
When I put the Ballistix into the board afterwards I got hard drive activity with no beeps. So the MB recognizes that memory is present (somethings in the slots) but will not give the beep for POST.
Adak: If the memory is bad, on POST, you should get repeated long beeps from the system speaker.
I assume you mean like the no memory situation above but with the memory installed I get no beeps.
I turned off AI Booster in the bios since I sometimes get the message that my 'overclock failed' after trying the Ballistix when booting up with the old memory.
All bios settings were set to default except for turning off AI Booster; no difference.
I'm going to look on the Asus forums to see if anyone else has mentioned a compatibility problem.
The only reference that I found on the ASUS forums was someone else asking if there was a known compatibility issue before buying since the ASUS User Guide does not mention Crucial Ballistix DDR2 667 as one of the compatible upgrades but yet the Crucial site does.
EDIT: I've asked ASUS (online) technical support if there are any known compatibility issues with the P5AD2-E premium and Crucial Ballistix DDR2 667 (BL6464AA663). This memory is not listed in the ASUS User Guide as compatible but Crucial says it is. I just figured that the Crucial memory was made after the User Guide was printed and that's why it was not listed.
I'll let everyone know what ASUS has to say when they reply.
The only reference that I found on the ASUS forums was someone else asking if there was a known compatibility issue before buying since the ASUS User Guide does not mention Crucial Ballistix DDR2 667 as one of the compatible upgrades but yet the Crucial site does.
EDIT: I've asked ASUS (online) technical support if there are any known compatibility issues with the P5AD2-E premium and Crucial Ballistix DDR2 667 (BL6464AA663). This memory is not listed in the ASUS User Guide as compatible but Crucial says it is. I just figured that the Crucial memory was made after the User Guide was printed and that's why it was not listed.
I'll let everyone know what ASUS has to say when they reply.
I don't think any of my ddr667 mem is listed as supported by asus. I beleive their tests are at time of initial release of the mobo.
I have found the asus support to be good when i have had a problem during setup ... once you actually get to talk to a tech support person.
I didn't find their support forum too useful though.
It seems unlikely that you would get rma'ed mem that would be bad ... but i don't know much about crucial. I have read about people getting rma'ed asus boards multiple times with replacements not working.
You must be frustrated ... i know i would be. I hope asus can lead you to the source of the problem but it seems hard to imagine that it is not mem compatibility/problem given that everything works fine with your original mem. :bang head
/edit ... in one of your tests along the way, did you ever clear cmos in one of them? Also, in your bios, do you have system and video cache diasbled? (still scratching head)? and I assume your initial setup was all done at stock/default settings.
On saome of my ddr boards recently i was doing some mem swaps and at least one of them behaved strangely when i did it ... some but not all of my bios settings were changed on me.
Well, it's been over 24 hrs since I asked ASUS support a very simple question about whether or not they knew of any compatability problems with my MB and my Crucial Ballistix and as yet I have not heard back from them. :bang head
I tend to agree with all of you that said it was probably a compatability issue. There are a lot of very experienced and computer smart people on this forum and I think if there was any other possibility someone would have presented it.
I want to thank all of you who responded to my plea for help. I felt I could count on all of you at the FAH forum even when my problem was not a particularly interesting one to come through with helpful ideas and suggestions. Thank you very much for your help and support! :)
Ok, I was going to let this thread die when I noticed some inconsistancies on start up. I hadn't noticed it before because I rarely ever turn the computer off; only when I have to for an update.
When I would put in the Ballistix ram and boot I would get the message that my overclock failed. :shrug: The bios was set to default when this happened, so I was not overclocking. I thought maybe the computer thought I was overclocking because the Ballistix runs at 2.2v and the old memory runs at 1.8v. I uninstalled AI Booster just to make sure it wasn't the problem trying to overclock my computer.
Now I'm finding that when I reboot the system with the original (known to work) memory that after POST the screen is blank (no visible messages or the option to enter the bios), a vocal message about my CPU fan failing occurs with appropriate beeps, which is to be expected since the fan has been removed (water cooled), and then after awhile it boots into Windows and runs normally.
Only on about 1 out of maybe 20 reboots is there an option to enter the bios (since it is not visible the other 19 times, it should be visible everytime but it is not).
After trying the Ballistix and getting the vocal 'Overclocking has failed' message, then rebooting with the old ram the computer goes into safe mode. Only sometimes is there a screen message which allows you to enter the bios setup (screen is usually blank) and then eventually Windows boots. Just because the bios screen isn't visible doesn't mean it can't be entered. It's there, just not visible. If I press the correct key sequence at just the right time I can load the default setup and continue to Windows with the default settings without ever seeing what I'm doing.
I have on occasion gotten the voice message that CPU Test Failed, I have never gotten the message that the memory test failed.
So are there any experts out there that can make since out of all this?
Is it a motherboard problem?
Is it a cpu problem?
Is it a video card problem?
What gives here? :bang head Any ideas? :eh?:
Last night there was a wind storm. There were several reboots due to low line voltages and at least 2 complete, although very brief power failures. The computer is acting normally since and showing the bios upon boot everytime.
Go figure! :shrug:
New memory still does not post however. I just get the message that "system failed due to CPU overclocking". Not a message saying the memory has failed or is bad, but due to CPU overclocking which I am not doing to my knowledge. :bang head
Had to post this. It's my 100 post! One more and I get 3 stars. :clap:
Edit: Looks like I got my 3 stars with this post. :cool:
you might want to try posting this (or a linK) in the mobo forum?
I think you said earlier you had tried the mem forum already?
I am scratchin my head still .. although it is late and after a day and a half of playing with the new toy.
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