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drewmister

drewmister

Member
​
Joined
Jan 7, 2004
Location
Cheyenne, Wyoming
Ok so i got my expert yesterday and i was setting up windows on it but i kept getting corrupt or missing files on two authentic xp pro and xp 64 cds.. instability because the file would always change and blah blah.... so then i go try switching my 2 gskill pc4400 le tccd chips from the two orange the the 2 yellow... this time it was even worse... it wouldn't even start to boot up into the windows disk... i know both of these sticks are good... i switched them back to the orange slots (this is right for tccd???, cause i know they ran better in my sli-dr that way) just in opposite slots and it is going now and is on the installation so hopefully it goes well... if this doesn't work i will have to try with 1 stick... or really lax timings or something just to get windows to install... any reason it would not work at stock one way but switched around do fine?
 
This is especially scary because this instabillity could be related to this article

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=427493

which is really weird cause both my processor and memory checked out in my friends epox... only thing that remains the same that hasn't been checked is my graphics card cause i only have 1 pci-e mobo and 1 pci-e graphics card... but again i can't see a correlation between a graphics card that is malfunction and instability while installing windows...
 
Well it is getting much farther much faster on the install so i am beginning to feel relieved... when i get her up i will post from my new xp64 setup
 
Yeah, I've heard lots of people had problems with the DFI Expert board, over on XS, there's been rumors of people losing expensive cores to this board.
 
Memory Drive Strength settings have a LOT to do with the way ram behaves, I had it on Auto and I couldn't even boot wintows at stock settings, I switched it to 08 and looky here, 266 x 10 cpu, 266mhz 3-4-4-8 memory and that is 2x1gb sticks
 
Ok well it seems to be one of my gskills... when i put in one gskill it runs fine.... then if i switch out and use the other gskill its a no go... Is it most likely dead or do i need to tweak the bios for this stick to play nice?

I guess wanting both to work is bogus haha...

I guess i should eloborate on NO GO, by this i mean the system boots up and seems to like the ram, but by the time it gets to trying to make windows work, it just freezes... where is a set of good timings i should try to get both to work?
 
I did i did, and now this one stick which won't boot by itself is running memtest by itself great... but no matter where i put it, by itself or with the other one i just seem to have problems... with the other stick i pass memtest boot and all that other normal stuff...
 
darksparkz said:
Yeah, I've heard lots of people had problems with the DFI Expert board, over on XS, there's been rumors of people losing expensive cores to this board.
Click to expand...
Rumors they are. Only one guy had a hole melted in the center of his processor and that was attributed to a faulty NB-SLI chip on an engineering sample board.

Link us some specific cases if you know of any. I still like the Asus A8N32 SLI-Deluxe better right now and not for it's true dual 16x PCIe SLI slots, but it's 8 phase VRM. I'll give Asus a few more months to get the loose ends on this tied up in the BIOS. DFI definately has a more mature BIOS updating system.
 
Last edited:
Ok while testing my processor and ram a while back i think i screwd up my dfi sli-dr...

as explained in this thread : http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=427493

both sticks of my ram seemed to work fine in my friends epox... and this stick passes memtest fine it just gets anywhere near actually working and it is terrible

from problems to of installation and stability causing corrupt or missing files.... to unable to boot in my new windows.... It almost seems similar to the instability of my sli-dr which was prolly not broke till i personally fried it. This gskill may have been my problem the entire time, but why would it work in my friends epox and pass memtest but not do anything else

ps. did try all different drive and data strengths to no avail... set up my old ram settings no go... i don't know what to think of this case... but at least i have a computer running so i can troubleshoot and complain of course.
 
Well i tried testing and troubleshooting this one stick of ram for quite some time... I have tried all drive strengths 3-12 and on each of those all 4 data strengths and each time with a 1:1 ratio it doesn't work (although some seem to get closer especially for me drive strength 7 and data strength 4 or 3... but even then i don't get into windows i just get closer)....

Sounds like others are experiencing stuff like this too... especially since this stick passes memtest and now that it is running on a divider 9/10 at 180... works fine...

where do i look for more info?
 
drewmister said:
Well i tried testing and troubleshooting this one stick of ram for quite some time... I have tried all drive strengths 3-12 and on each of those all 4 data strengths and each time with a 1:1 ratio it doesn't work (although some seem to get closer especially for me drive strength 7 and data strength 4 or 3... but even then i don't get into windows i just get closer)....

Sounds like others are experiencing stuff like this too... especially since this stick passes memtest and now that it is running on a divider 9/10 at 180... works fine...

where do i look for more info?
Click to expand...

What BIOS do you have? You might want to try this one:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=83032

I know it's not specific to your problem but it may help.
 
Flashed bios to the 11/25 beta bios... didn't really change anything... 1 stick that runs great everywhere including aboive 300 ht and one stick that can work if only dropped to below 200 ht... at 180 (9/10 divider) the other stick finally gets into windows...

Edit: even tried the 12/07 beta....
 
Last edited:
So I don't know what to think i might let the other stick do some more memtesting which it was passing before... let it go longer and see if i see new results...

I just don't see how it could be ok on memtest but not even boot windows... maybe be unstable under heavy load or something, but memtest has to stress the memory just as much as loading windows doesn't it?
 
Last edited:
check my sig for my bios settings. It took me ages to get it all stable, plus alot of ram studying but since then its been rock stable.

One thing I found common to all nvidia 4 chipset mobos is they do not like IDE HDDs fullstop. I tried maxtor, hitachi and western IDE drives and never got it to work on the sli-dr nad a8n deluxe...when I went all sata its been fine.

Hope that helps?
 
Yea, i am using a WD raptor 74g Sata.
Your ram timings look awful?! 3-4-4-10? this ram is supposed to do 275 2.5-3-3-7
I have played with drive and data strength as posted before, it seems to have an effect, but not enough to get windows to run.
 
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