Motherboard not detecting RAM correctly

Hello,

I have an Asus Rampage iii Gene board and am using the following OCZ RAM.

http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/memory/ocz_ddr3_pc3_12800_gold_low_voltage_triple_channel

I kept getting BSODs and other instability during my Windows XP install and once I finally got it installed Memtest quickly gave me errors on all 3 DIMMs. I figured it's very unlikely that I got 3 bad sticks, so I checked the memory section of the BIOS and found that the auto settings don't work at all, according to the specs page of the above link. The settings are as follows:

1st Information: 7-7-7-20-4-59-8-6-20-0

CAS# Latency 7
RAS# to CASH Delay 7
RAS# to PRE Time 7
RAS# ACT Time 20
RAS# to RAS# Delay 4
REF Cyclye Time 59
WRITE Recovery Time 8
READ to PRE Time 6
FOUR ACT WIN Time 20
Back-To-Back CAS# Delay 0

2nd Information: 1N-48-48-48

Timing Mode 1N
Round Trip Latency on CHA 48
Round Trip Latency on CHB 48
Round Trip Latency on CHC 48

3rd Information: 6-6-14-9-9-9-7-6-4-7-7-4

WRITE To READ Delay (DD) 6
WRITE To READ Delay (DR) 6
WRITE To READ Delay (SR) 14
READ To WRITE Delay (DD) 9
READ To WRITE Delay (DR) 9
READ To WRITE Delay (SR) 9
READ To READ Delay (DD) 7
READ To READ Delay (DR) 6
READ To READ Delay (SR) 4
WRITE To WRITE Delay (DD) 7
WRITE To WRITE Delay (DR) 7
WRITE To WRITE Delay (SR) 4

I gathered from the specs page that the first 4 values should be 8-8-8-24, but I have no idea what the rest should be and I don't trust the BIOS to correctly detect the settings even though the RAM is listed as compatible in the Asus manual. What should I do about the settings?

Have you tried just setting the 8/8/8/24 and leave the rest auto, and set the voltage manually? also see what speed it is setting it at with those timings and set that manually also.

Also please put your info in your sig like mine below so people can read this. Basically cpu, mb, ram, ps, vid card.

Is there a pc health section in your bios, are all the voltage and temps within specs of your hardware? have you tried single sticks of RAM.

There are two other things you can try to solve some of the other problems you have in other posts (sorry not going to chase them).

Loading Windows 7
I have read several places where people have gone down to a single stick of memory in order to get the OS to load then installed the rest of the RAM and everything is fine.

Loading XP
When installing XP and you are getting errors when registering during the install if you are using a USB keyboard this will happen. I don't know if your board will allow you to have a PS2 keyboard but if it does then put one on if not then there is a setting in the bios you can change that should help you use the USB keyboard during the OS install, but I will have to exit and check my Bios in order to find what you need to change.

OK when loading XP and using a usb keyboard you will first want to go into the bios and DISABLE the Legacy USB Support, you can go check microsofts site and find that XP does NOT use Legacy USB Support so having it enabled messes up the loading of Windows XP when using a USB keyboard. Other option is to use a PS2 keyboard and mouse if you have that option but gains you nothing by doing this. I found this out the hard way I have two Biostar boards, the first one loaded fine, the second one would not load XP so I put the PS2 keyboard over and everything worked fine, then I read and found that solution.

If you're getting errors in memtest, Windows will never be stable. Try checking your DIMMS one at a time. For the purpose of testing, I'd keep the settings on auto; you can tweak later IF memtest runs without errors on all DIMMS.

Not arguing with you hafa but if auto is setting the memory to run at the wrong timings then this could be causing the problem on the memtest that I why I was suggesting setting the 8/8/8/24 and leaving the rest auto then try it (memtest) if it fails then go down to single sticks and test.

Can't hurt; I don't see higher latency causing instability. The important bit is to isolate variables, hence, one stick at a time, perhaps both as auto and with the suggested modified settings. (great avatar, BTW, CgS)

He is posting that the auto settings is setting it to 7/7/7/20 the RAM is spec'd at 8/8/8/24, but this is also without letting us know if it is trying to run at 1600/1333? or what voltage is being applied (hopefully at 1.65)

hafa said:

(great avatar, BTW, CgS)

Click to expand...

LOL, it's another stray someone decided we needed. Seems like every time we get close to no pets one shows up and adopts us.

Thanks for the replies guys. Sorry for the delay; I'm moving into a new apartment. The frequency was set to "auto"; I'm gonna try to manually set it to 1600. Before doing this, I tried going on one stick of RAM and still got BSOD on a Windows 7 upgrade. I'm now going on another stick in another slot and will use the 1600 frequency in the BIOS. BIOS shows DRAM bus voltage at 1.515 and QPI/DRAM core voltage at 1.177. I'm going to go ahead and leave those for now as they're safely below 1.65, but should I bring them up to 1.65 if this attempt fails?

Edit: OK sent a pm to ya.

Success! Setting timings to 8-8-8-24, voltage to 1.65 and frequency to 1600 (I realized at Auto it had it to 1066) allowed me to boot into Windows 7 with all three sticks inserted. I'm still going to run Memtest but I hope that was my problem. Thank you all for the help!

Danja said:

Success! Setting timings to 8-8-8-24, voltage to 1.65 and frequency to 1600 (I realized at Auto it had it to 1066) allowed me to boot into Windows 7 with all three sticks inserted. I'm still going to run Memtest but I hope that was my problem. Thank you all for the help!

Click to expand...

NP, with the mb trying to give you the best settings in auto mode it wasn't able to tell what the memory would do when stressed a bit by loading windows or testing. Once the timing was set the mem was able to work. I also believe that the voltage was to low on the RAM and this may have been causing it to fail also. Once the system is loaded and stable you may be able to go in and drop the voltage some and still have it run stable, but you will have to work your way down slowly until its not stable then go up one notch. Just don't exceed 1.65 volts.

Huh. What a strange issue I've run into. With all 3 sticks inserted, BIOS and Windows report only 4 GB of memory. If I take out one of the sticks, the BIOS sees 4 GB but Windows crashes out before I can even log in. Any ideas?

Start at post below this one first.

Oops re-read your post about bios only showing 4 gig. Run Memtest find the bad stick. You will have to send it all back to OCZ once you show a memtest fail then they will send you another pack of it. Trying to get to Asus'es site and see the bios for your board but their site does NOT want to let me get to info on that board.

Also what bios version are you running they have two bios versions the second one has better memory compatibility and system stablility. http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

What slots do you have the memory in? Do you have them installed one in each of the red slots?

hafa said:

Can't hurt; I don't see higher latency causing instability. The important bit is to isolate variables, hence, one stick at a time, perhaps both as auto and with the suggested modified settings. (great avatar, BTW, CgS)

Click to expand...

CgS Drone said:

What slots do you have the memory in? Do you have them installed one in each of the red slots or one in each of the black slots?

Click to expand...

Hafa, CGS,

Hafa, isn't it best to set timings and voltage manually to factory defaults when initially testing for problems? The BIOS doesn't know what RAMs are being used or what their defaults are. In this way manually setting them forces the correct defaults?

This was shown in Danja's BIOS default settings: The BIOS set auto timings a little too fast for his RAMs?

RollingThunder said:

Hafa, CGS,

Hafa, isn't it best to set timings and voltage manually to factory defaults when initially testing for problems? The BIOS doesn't know what RAMs are being used or what their defaults are. In this way manually setting them forces the correct defaults?

This was shown in Danja's BIOS default settings: The BIOS set auto timings a little too fast for his RAMs?

Click to expand...

While the timing may have been an issue the freq. was set down to 1066 according to him so it may have run fine with that timing and freq. combination. I still believe the main problem was his voltage was set to low for the RAM to do anything without erroring. With the newer intel cpu's they warn not to run over 1.65 volts on the RAM but his RAM is spec'd to run at 1.65 volts so you have to make sure not to run over that voltage. My wifes mb wont even allow it to run higher voltage than 1.65 without me physically changing a jumper to do it.

As far as the issue he is having now, I am curious to know if he installed all the ram in the proper slots. If the RAM was installed in the Red/Black/Red slots then this could cause the problem that he is getting. It would need to be set in all the red slots (channel A1/B1/C1). Or there is a chance he does have a defective RAM module, in that case Memtest would show which one it is.

DIMMs are installed in each of the red slots. Running MemTest as we speak.

Edit: Got the following from Memtest after 7.7%:

Memory error detected! Copying between 17f6a76 and 17f69f9 did not result in accurate copy.

Does this tell me which DIMM is broken?

Actually at this point Danja it wont matter what module is defective, you will need to contact OCZ and let them know. They are going to have you return all of it since it is triple channel RAM.

Thanks for the info. I actually sent them a support ticket last night. They say they try to reply in 24 hrs, so hopefully they will get back to me soon. I just got the memory from Newegg; do you think it would be better/faster to RMA it to them or to the warranty dept. at OCZ?