Continued memory problems, incorrect bios settings.

[Christiney]

Hello again. After exhausting a huge amount of options and possible fixes to get all 8gb of memory recognised and working, I have taken print screens of my bios to see if anyone can spot a rogue setting that is causing some of the issues.

A copy of my forum post on the g.skill support forums:

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Right, while attempting to find working settings (again ) I made some print screens of basically every setting my Bios has which seemed like they may be relevant. Some of the options SOUND like they could be causing the problem and if anyone would like me to check the tooltip for some of them I can do that no problem.

The settings I changed before taking the screens were essentially just "method 1" on the homepage of this thread, with the cpu multiplier reduced to keep it at 3 ghz.

Weirdly enough, I can't seem to manage the settings (1333 8-8-8-24) I used to get all 8 gig recognised and working (with occasional blue screens) anymore.

If anyone can spot ANY settings that MAY contribute to the problem or possibly resolve this feel free to suggest changes.


Also worth mentioning is that the CPU/NB freq and HTT freq default to 2000.

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A link to the support thread, all options on original post have been tried.: http://www.gskill.us/forum/showthread.php?t=7688&page=34

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And a copy of my original post with my hardware and problem specifics mentioned:

Hello, I recently purchased components to build a new pc. It works flawlessly (when it's working!) but has some strange Ram/power issues that I hoped I could gain some insight on. I have an Asus M5A97Pro motherboard, 2x4GB 1600 f-3 12800 gskill ram, AMD Phenom II x4 960T 3.0ghz CPU. My PSU is also 500 watts. I'm including a lot of info from other forum replies so hopefully you don't drown in the wall of text.

The OS is windows 7 64 bit. All of these components SHOULD be compatible according to manufacturer specs, however, when all 8 gigs of ram is installed in the reccommended (or any other DIMM slot) windows and the Bios only utilise half of it. In windows and the bios it acknowleges there is 8 gigs inserted and the brand etc, but insists only 4 gig is working. I have tested both sticks seperately and the Ram works fine by itself.

When I insert the ram into some other combinations the PC will not even reach the Bios while booting, and after putting back to a working configuration I get the message "overclock unsuccessful, press f1 to enter setup" before defaulting everything on the Bios again. I have the most up to date bios on the memory board and have already checked the CPU for bent pins/reinstalled it to rule that out.

Even with the "working" memory configuration (1 stick only) the pc can occasionally refuse to reach the bios upon booting. General opinion is that I need to change some "auto" settings in my bios to match the manufacturer spec of my ram, but I dont know how to do this.

I have tried in several configurations to rule out any bad slots or something. Either stick by itself in a blue slot works. Both sticks in blue slots work (half recognised) both sticks in black caused boot issues, and 1xblue 1xblack caused boot issues. It SEEMS as though the "auto settings" for the Ram in the Bios has the slots all configured differently and is trying to clock my ram as standard making it unstable or not work. It's the only thing I havnt been able to fully check myself as I dont know what I'm looking for to check ram timings, voltages etc.

When it fails to boot I have a red LED near the ram lit constantly. Successful boots have it blink only momentarily. Should a 500 watt PSU be able to handle all of my equipment properly? Have a sata 360 gig HDD 7800rpm, 1x PCIE Radeon HD5770 and the above hardware.

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http://www.mediafire.com/?aau652ulaf2ciyy

Apologies for the huge post, here is a link to my bios screenshots and if anyone can spot a single thing that looks out of place please let me know. Also, please refer to the g.skill support post I pasted at the top to explain some of the manually adjusted settings and mixtures I have already tried.

Thanks for any replies,

Chris.

 

[redduc900]

Try manually adjusting NB Voltage to 1.15-1.20V, this w/ CPU/NB Voltage set to 1.20V. And assuming this is your RAM...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314

... manually adjust the timings to 9-9-9-24-2T and 1.55V at DDR3-1600 (200MHz HT Ref clock x 8 DRAM mult.), this w/ the 2 x modules installed in a dual-channel config.

 

[Christiney]

I have tried countless combinations of voltage and memory timings to get the bios to recognise both sticks. "NB Voltage" isn't one I have played around with too much though so I will try to bump it up a little. Any other suggestions from people?

 

[Christiney]

an interesting breakthrough possibly:

When I used my working 1 stick 1600 timings with 2 sticks, the PC boots"normally" but the bios overview and windows refuse to acknowledge the second stick, yet the north bridge section of the bios shows both sticks correctly labelled.

i wrote down the auto settings with 2 sticks in before returning my pc to 1 stick and without any adjustments the following settings changes occurred WHEN GOING BACK TO 1 STICK: write to read delay increased from 4 to 6. dct1 cke drive strength, cs/odt drive strength and addr/cmd drive strength reduced from 1.5 to 1. memclk drive strength reduced from 1.5 to 0.75, data drive str and dqs drive str reduced from 1 to 0.75. the processor odt increased from 60 +/-20% to 240 +/-20%. pretty significant differences. if t helps, these auto settings for 1 stick run smoothly with only cold boot failures which seem to happen no matter what my memory config is. any thoughts?

 

[Christiney]

Right, setting the write to read from 4 to 6 with both sticks and expected settings elsewhere has not helped, still says 4gb in the bios overview and 8gb on northbridge details. I havnt changed any of the 1.5x 1x 0.75 ohms etc settings as I do not know what they mean/if it is abnormal at all.