Soltek SL-K8AN2E-GR problems

I just purchased my new Soltek board the other day and I received my Thermalright XP-90 HS yesterday so I configured my new rig, but all I get are constant problems.

First of all I havent even OCed anything yet and everything is on default settings. Everytime I run Prime95 the test will fail within a minute w/ "Hardware failure... round was .5..." and I will constantly get blue screen errors. I try to play FFXI on it and it will crash on me within 5 minutes. This is my system specs:

AMD Athlon64 2800+ (/w ArcticSilver 5)
Soltek SL-K8AN2E-GR
2x512 Mushkin 3200 Blue line
Radeon 9700 Pro
60 GB IBM Ultra DeskStar
400W PS

have you run memtest yet?
tried giving the memory more voltage?
how are your voltage rails?

What brand power supply do you have?

I'm guessing that the mem is your problem, but tell us what psu you have it could also be that. And test each stick individually, or if you have one that you know that is/was working put that in and see what happens.

I have an Antec 400W PS, but somehow I messed up my Windows setup (accidentally pulled the plug while installing SP2) and now the system won't boot up. The boot will hang at the "welcome" screen then promptly resets and this repeats over and over even when I try to go into Safe Mode.

I think I'm going to format my HDD before trying to setting anything up again. The reformatting is 3-4 years over due anyways. Since I'm going to be busy with school work for the next 3-4 days I'm going to be using my Laptop more, but as soon as I find some time I will try the mem test and report my findings here.

Talk to y'all soon.

Ok folks I'm back! so here is my next problem. After setting up Windows XP and booting up I was getting constant blue screen errors.

something something ... PNL_LIST_FAIL .. or something like that

So naturally I tested out each RAM at a time today. In the morning I stuck only one of my RAM in ran Prime95 for about 8 hours or so (everythings on AUTO settings in the BIOS) and the stress test went fine.

Afterwards I inserted the other RAM by itself and also stress tested it for ~6 hours and it also worked fine.

So just now I inserted both RAMs and ran Prime95 and I got just what I expected... PNL_LIST error.

My memory is mushkin 3200 blue line. HDD is IBM Deskstar 60 gb.

I havent ran memory tests on each RAMs. But I figure they are working fine since I have been using them for the past 7 months on my other system.

Do I need to fine tune the timings on these RAMs and up the DRAM vdd? I would hate not being able to use both of my memory sticks so any help that can be offered will be greatly appreciated!

It's possible the motherboard doesn't like your memory. Up the VDIMM to 2.8V and up your CAS latency to 3.0 and see how it does. The memory you bought, were they dual-channel matched sticks, or not? Also, I wouldn't plan on that Deathstar HD lasting too long.

I wouldn't matter if they were dual channel or not since he is not running it in dual channel, not all deskstar live up to the Deathstar fame, and don't worry it will give plenty of notice before it goes and it's going to be load too.

It can matter if they are matched sticks as matched sticks are less likely to have compatibility problems vs non-matched sticks whether you're running dual channel or not. Dual channel matched sticks don't cost all that much more than individual sticks bought seperately and the piece of mind is worth it. Just because memory is labled dual channel doesn't mean you can't use them in single channel setups. Given a choice between dual channel matched sticks and two mismatched sticks, I'll take the matched sticks any day in my SINGLE CHANNEL motherboard.

Not all Deathstars live up to the fame.........yeah you're right............that's like saying not all girls get pregnant that don't use protection, so don't worry abou it.

Hmm I dont think the memory I purchased was only made for dual channel. All it said was "dual pack" so I'm assuming that it just came in a package of 2.

I tried to up my voltage to 2.8 and change the CAS to 3 but it does nothing. It actually made things worse because I couldnt even boot into Windows. It kept restarting as soon as it entered the XP Logo Boot screen.

MassiveOverkill said:

It can matter if they are matched sticks as matched sticks are less likely to have compatibility problems vs non-matched sticks whether you're running dual channel or not. Dual channel matched sticks don't cost all that much more than individual sticks bought seperately and the piece of mind is worth it. Just because memory is labled dual channel doesn't mean you can't use them in single channel setups. Given a choice between dual channel matched sticks and two mismatched sticks, I'll take the matched sticks any day in my SINGLE CHANNEL motherboard.

Not all Deathstars live up to the fame.........yeah you're right............that's like saying not all girls get pregnant that don't use protection, so don't worry abou it.

Click to expand...

I would expect two different sticks from different brands to give problems, but two from the same manufacturer rated at the same speed and timing would work together, the only difference between the two sticks would be that on might not oc as much as the other an holding back the oc, I'm not saying that dual channel can't be used in single channel I'm just saying that the chances of different sticks causing problems in single channel is much smaller then with dual channel, I know this because as you can see I have two different sticks in my second rig and they don't like each other much and don't like to run in dual channel with fsb spread spectrum on, but all the problems from using the two together was because one is rated at pc3200 and the other is pc3500 with lower timing, the pc3500 doen't like to run looser timings and because fo that they don't work well together.

No need to be sarcastic, if his hdd was to die it would still give him enough time to back up his data and get a new one, it's clicking sound is kind of loud and it just gets worst, and if your analogy was true then my wd 40gb would still be running.

sheemone00: I was looking at your mem online and its rated at 2 3 3, first make sure it's running with that timming first, if you still have problems raise the voltage if blue screen still comes up, raise the mem timing to 2.5 3 3, some mem won't run at 3cl, then if it is still not fixed chenge the slots in which the mem is, you might want to run memtest while doing these things, let us know how it goes.

Running 2-3-3 w/ single stick works fine. But its just when I try to do that with both stick of RAMs. The mobo will only let me go to 2.8 in VDRAM and I'm there already. Also what are some programs that I can use to test the memory?

It's called memtest86, http://www.memtest86.com/, did you try to put them in a different slot, sometimes a single slot could become defective, so if you have them in slot 1 and two try putting them in slot 2 and 3 or 1 and 3, I'ts a long shot but it will rule out a slot problem, sometimes when your troubleshooting you need to rule out stuff.

I sort of did something like that, heres what I did.

I only have 2 slots for the RAM and what I did was I tested the system with RAM#1 in slot #1 and RAM #2 in slot #2 individually. But I have not yet crossed them over yet. I will try that when I get home.

I fixed the problem. I underclocked my RAM to 166 and everything runs perfectly stable now. I guess the motherboard can't handle two sticks of ram running at 200 >.<

Probably not those particular sticks...............with better quality RAM you should get better results.

Hey give this one last try at running at 200mhz fsb, look in your bios for an option called "fsb spread spectrum", if you have it disable it, that will sometimes not let you get high oc or running stable at the speed the ram is rated at.

hmm ok thanx guys, I will go look for that option when I get home.