Memory Problem gigabyte EP45 UD-3P board

Hello all, I built my own system a year ago. My mobo is a gigabyte EP45 UD-3P board. I originally put in OCZ PC2 6400 800 Mhz 5-5-5-18 @ 1.8Volts. 2 sticks of 2 gb each on one channel. I'm a newbie as you will tell. I do know that each channel is colored one is orange and one is red. So I used one channel the OCZ worked for about 6 months. after about 6 months, the computer kept freezing up, telling me to reboot. Power down by holding in the button, etc. I narrowed it down to memory problem. So I first sent the board back they tested it and told me the board is fine, they especially tested the memory. So I finally got OCZ to swap me new sticks. This was taking for ever. So in the mean time I bought Gskill 5-5-5-15 @ 1.8 volts, but 2 sticks of 1 GB each. I cant get the OCZ to run on my computer by itself or with the Gskill. The Gskill runs like a charm only problem I need more than 2 GB of memory.

I tried on the motherboard slowing down the cas to 5-5-5-18 for the OCZ and the gskill to get along, that wouldnt work.

Is there a quirk were the board will not run dual channel kits that are of different sizes, ie. 4 gb and 2 gb at the same time? Meaning there are 2 dual channels both will be filled 1 with 4 gb, and 1 with 2 gb of differing brands and cas latency timings, although not by much.

I don't know that much about tweaking the intellegence tweaker more than I did. I just tweaked it to make sure that the memory was running on the same cas latency the slower 5-5-5-18. I even tried the 2 OCZ sticks without the gskill in there and the same problems arose so I cant even do any testing on the sticks. Do you think I should try to get OCZ to send me new sticks? I wouldnt even try to sell these on ebay I wouldnt want to sell anyone bad chips!

Unless there is something I should be doing on the mobo intellegent tweaker, I'm at a loss here. And memory is expensive now 2 -1 gb chips of the same gskill are 40 bucks.

any help or suggestions greatly apreciated, here are my full system specs:
Q8400 CPU
CPU bus clock 8X, CPU freq. 2.66 ghz 333X8
I wrote down 2 pages full of readings from the MIT, if you need any or all of the info I will be glad to type it out for you, but I will include the health status readings that may be of help or not to you:
V Core: 1.300V
DDR 1.8V: 1.952V
+3.3: 3.408V
+12 V: 12.492V
System Temp: 36 C
CPU Temp: 30 C
Fan Speed: 1336 RPM
Power fan Speed: 1875RPM
System Fan 1: 1178 RPM

I never had this board but I can say that you have to use 1GB sticks in 1/3 memory slot and 2GB in 2/4 to make it run with all 4 slots.
Next thing, you probably have different chips in both memory kits so you have to set most ( if not all ) memory timings manually. Use cpu-tweaker, aida64/everest or other soft to check and compare subtimings.
Possible that you will have to raise MCH/Northbridge voltage a bit ( mainly for memory controller ).
Try memory voltage up to 2.0V or lower memory speed to 667.
That's for now as I'm at work and I have no other ideas

Woomack said:

I never had this board but I can say that you have to use 1GB sticks in 1/3 memory slot and 2GB in 2/4 to make it run with all 4 slots.
Next thing, you probably have different chips in both memory kits so you have to set most ( if not all ) memory timings manually. Use cpu-tweaker, aida64/everest or other soft to check and compare subtimings.
Possible that you will have to raise MCH/Northbridge voltage a bit ( mainly for memory controller ).
Try memory voltage up to 2.0V or lower memory speed to 667.
That's for now as I'm at work and I have no other ideas

Click to expand...

First off, I really appreciate you answering me from work. I can wait though, I've been using just 2 gb dual channel for about 4 months now what's another day or so?
Now as for what you said, I already found my first mistake, I had the 1 gb chips in the 2 & 4 slots, not the 1 & 3 slots. So that is something I will correct. Now when you say to set the timings manually, the OCZ has 5-5-5-18, and the Gskill has 5-5-5-15 is that what you mean by timings. And when I set them should I just put them all to the 5-5-5-18, including the gskill rated for 5-5-5-15, or should I be mixing the timings. And if I have to how would i go about lowering the memory speed to 667, instead of the 800? Meaning what settings should I be in , in the MIT?

Thank You again for your patience.

to OCForums!

I've owned a couple EP45-UD3P boards. I never had memory issues though. Here's a couple of things I would try:

• You can test the OCZ by making a CD with and booting from the MemTest .iso, so you don't have to be in the OS to test the RAM. That's the first thing I would do to see if you have bad OCZ RAM. If that turns up fine then try the following:
• Since the G.Skill is working fine. Have you tried just one stick of G.Skill in a DIMM, then testing with MemTest? Do that for each DIMM individually to make sure each DIMM works?

If you want to try to mix RAM, then you need to set the loosest rated timings of the two sets and use the highest rated voltage of the two sets since you can't set different timings/voltage for each set. I wouldn't do this until you are for sure that both sets work.

MattNo5ss said:

to OCForums!

I've owned a couple EP45-UD3P boards. I never had memory issues though. Here's a couple of things I would try:

• You can test the OCZ by making a CD with and booting from the MemTest .iso, so you don't have to be in the OS to test the RAM. That's the first thing I would do to see if you have bad OCZ RAM. If that turns up fine then try the following:
• Since the G.Skill is working fine. Have you tried just one stick of G.Skill in a DIMM, then testing with MemTest? Do that for each DIMM individually to make sure each DIMM works?

If you want to try to mix RAM, then you need to set the loosest rated timings of the two sets and use the highest rated voltage of the two sets since you can't set different timings/voltage for each set. I wouldn't do this until you are for sure that both sets work.

Click to expand...

I downloaded the memtest.iso. I'm gonna burn a cd. When you say to mix ram you need to use the highest rated voltage since they are both rated for 1.8 that should be good right? Now what is the loosest rated timing 5-5-5-15 (Gskill) or 5-5-5-18 OCZ? BTW- The GSkill is working fine in bays 1 & 3 as reccomended by Woomack.

Yeah, 1.8v will work if they're both rated for that. 5-5-5-18 is looser. Higher numbers = looser (worse), and lower numbers = tighter (better).

The DIMM slots used shouldn't matter, the G.Skill should work in any of the DIMM slots. I've never heard of having to run 1GB sticks in certain DIMM slots.

Anyways, just test your OCZ set with Memtest in a 1/3 config and a 2/4 config, then test the G.Skill set in a 1/3 config and a 2/4 config.

MattNo5ss said:

Yeah, 1.8v will work if they're both rated for that. 5-5-5-18 is looser. Higher numbers = looser (worse), and lower numbers = tighter (better).

The DIMM slots used shouldn't matter, the G.Skill should work in any of the DIMM slots. I've never heard of having to run 1GB sticks in certain DIMM slots.

Anyways, just test your OCZ set with Memtest in a 1/3 config and a 2/4 config, then test the G.Skill set in a 1/3 config and a 2/4 config.

Click to expand...

The Gskill chips do work in all of the slots, what Woomack said was that you have to put in the 1 GB sticks in the 1/3 slot and the 2 GB sticks in the 2/4 slots for it to work.

MattNo5ss said:

Yeah, 1.8v will work if they're both rated for that. 5-5-5-18 is looser. Higher numbers = looser (worse), and lower numbers = tighter (better).

The DIMM slots used shouldn't matter, the G.Skill should work in any of the DIMM slots. I've never heard of having to run 1GB sticks in certain DIMM slots.

Anyways, just test your OCZ set with Memtest in a 1/3 config. and a 2/4 config., then test the G.Skill set in a 1/3 config. and a 2/4 config.

Click to expand...

Matt, So far (fingers crossed) I have the Gskil rated at 5-5-5-15 @1.8V in slots 1 & 3, and I have the OCZ rated for 5-5-5-18 @1.8V in slots2 & 4 I manually inserted the timings to be 5-5-5-18, and I manually set it to run at 1.8 volts, (not auto). And I have never been able to get this far without it crashing. my 4 cores are working flawlessly my temps look fine. I tried this the other way last night to no avail. ie; I had the 1 gb chips in slots 2 & 4. So I am guessing that both you and Woomack gave me valuable information. If this failed I was advised to try lowering the speed to 667 MHz. I was hoping I didn't have to do that.
I can't begin to tell you and Woomack how grateful I am that this is working ... so far.
I have 2 questions for you, being that I downloaded and burnt the memtest to a DVD, should I still run the test? It is probably a long test, one done best at night when I'm not using the computer right? Or should I leave well enough alone that everything is working. and quest 2- what is the difference between Higher numbers = looser (worse), and lower numbers = tighter (better).? AM I hurting any components running this way?

Believe me when I tell you that all the things I tried before I couldn't even get a web browser open without the computer crashing, so I am guessing it was a setting issue not a bad ram issue.

BTW ~ Someone recommended this website to me that even though I am not over clocking .... yet. I will get sound advice and help here.
Thank you all for your patience and help!

Personally, I would still run Memtest. It will tell you if you have bad sticks or not. Who knows, you may just be getting lucky right now with it working, and you may get crashes later. Memtest loops continuously until you stop it. So, just let it run until you get at least 1 "Pass" which will be less than an hour, iirc. Also, since OCZ is getting out of the memory business, if you do have bad sticks, then you want to RMA sooner rather than later.

I guess I should have used "slower" and "faster" instead of "worse" and "better". Looser timings are just slower than tighter timings, it won't hurt anything.

MattNo5ss said:

Personally, I would still run Memtest. It will tell you if you have bad sticks or not. Who knows, you may just be getting lucky right now with it working, and you may get crashes later. Memtest loops continuously until you stop it. So, just let it run until you get at least 1 "Pass" which will be less than an hour, iirc. Also, since OCZ is getting out of the memory business, if you do have bad sticks, then you want to RMA sooner rather than later.

I guess I should have used "slower" and "faster" instead of "worse" and "better". Looser timings are just slower than tighter timings, it won't hurt anything.

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OK Gotcha, with the looser and tighter. : ) I'm gonna take your advice and do the test tonight. OCZ should go out of Business their customer service sucks! : ) For me personally I would never buy another OCZ product anyway. I guess one bad apple don't make the whole bushel bad; but for me.....