4 Gig memory issue AV8 3rd eye

[Snakedoc]

I have 4* 1gb ram sticks of DDR400 double bank super talent memory and some assorted ddr 400 ram modules. When I use 2* 1gb I get dual channel and the board is stable. If I add a third 1 gb stick, auto downgrade to ddr333 and very unstable and slow. If I add thew other 1 gb stick, I get dual channel and ddr 333 but its even more unstable and even slower. I have tried several things:

Setting Dram timing to auto, no change. I have tried "loosening" the timings on the modules to no avail. The memory is Double bank, so I accept it will be 333, but I cant accept the slowness and instability on the system.

If I use 2*1gb sticks, a 512 "buffo" ddr400 and a 256 Kingston value ram stick, I get auto detected DDR400, rock solid and stable and good performance in games, not as good as it should be with the 4 gb. I am using a 64 bit OS so there should be no OS related memory issues.

Any advise on setting up Dram timings for four 1 gb dimms would be gratefully accepted, I think I have tired everything, but please post, you never know it may work for me and I would be very grateful!!!!!!

[ABIT Sean]

The AV8 will only run 4GB of memory at 333 because of the memory controller being on the CPU.

[Snakedoc]

Hi Sean, Thanks for your reply. That is not my issue. With the RAM runing at DDR333, which I was aware double bank will do this, my system is very very slow and unstable. Windows barely installed and was full of errors when it did. Many items simply did not function and drivers would not install amoung various other things. I set dram config to auto but it was still unstable and slow, slower than with single channel memory. I got digital artifacts in games and got about 3 frames a minute in STALKER. With 2*1gb ddr400 1*512 ddr400 and 1*256 ddr400, I got single channel, but it was rock solid stable and gave 30 ish FPS (checked with FRAPS).

My issue is with dual channel ddr400 4*1 gb ram sticks, I cant get the board stable. It seems to not be able to address any memory over 2.75 gb. As soon as I put in 3 gb (3*1gb) the system is unstable, more so with 4 sticks. Can you recomend some dram timings which may help this? the memory is Super talent D32PB1GJ, which when I checked the site before purchase, specified this ram was tested with the board and works well, see:

http://www.supertalent.com/products/...hp?PN=D32PB1GJ

Please help! I have been tearing my hair out over the weekend with this!

[ABIT Sean]

What voltage is the memory running at in uguru.

[Snakedoc]

HI,

I have tried "stock" voltage, 2.7 and 2.8. This did not help at all. I have been trying all evening and have given up for now and stuck in my "odd" assortment of ram which is stable. But I have £120 worth of RAM stick useless on my desk!

[ABIT Sean]

It might be a good idea to contact the memory manafacturer, as they would have done the compatibilty tests.

[Snakedoc]

Hi Sean,

Thank you for your reply. I have done so, they seem little or no help. They have suggested I try setting the ram to be read as single channel, but I dont think this is possible if you are adding matching pairs. Can you suggest a way of doing this is BIOS as I cant the the option and think its done automatically by BIOS.

You may need to disable dual channel memory because you did not buy them as a pair set for dual channel. Check your BIOS settings to see if there is any option for this. Your MOBO is capable of running 4 sticks with our quality memory modules that pass memtest86.





Best Regards,

Technical Support - Super?Talent Technology

MSN Messenger/ Email ?

Hmmm, I think they dont really know what they are saying as the memory is all matching! I have a feeling they are going to pass the buck to you and I will be left feeling out of pocket and no further with my issue. Can you confirm if it is possible to use 4*1 gb ram sticks in this board? Have you actually seen this board working with 4gb of matching pairs? This is a "new" AV8 board and should not be an issue, as is the ram, all new.

thanks

[ABIT Sean]

The board is design to run 4X 1gb at 333. There shouldn't be any issues. The motherboard will automattically run in dual channel mode and there is no way of changing that in the bios.

[gilgamesh]

Hi Sean,

Thank you for your reply. I have done so, they seem little or no help. They have suggested I try setting the ram to be read as single channel, but I dont think this is possible if you are adding matching pairs. Can you suggest a way of doing this is BIOS as I cant the the option and think its done automatically by BIOS.

You may need to disable dual channel memory because you did not buy them as a pair set for dual channel. Check your BIOS settings to see if there is any option for this. Your MOBO is capable of running 4 sticks with our quality memory modules that pass memtest86.





Best Regards,

Technical Support - Super?Talent Technology

MSN Messenger/ Email ?

Hmmm, I think they dont really know what they are saying as the memory is all matching! I have a feeling they are going to pass the buck to you and I will be left feeling out of pocket and no further with my issue. Can you confirm if it is possible to use 4*1 gb ram sticks in this board? Have you actually seen this board working with 4gb of matching pairs? This is a "new" AV8 board and should not be an issue, as is the ram, all new.

thanks

Sounds like they really are passing the buck, I have never Heard of a BIOS setting to enable single channel mode. The only WAy you can enable single channel mode is by inserting two DIMMSinto the same BANK rather than 1 bank 0
theother in bank 1..weird

gilgamesh

[Snakedoc]

I can "sort of" get it into single channel, only by taking out 1 of the 1 gb sticks thereby giving 3*1 gb, no dual channel, but it is still unstable as anything!

[gilgamesh]

I can "sort of" get it into single channel, only by taking out 1 of the 1 gb sticks thereby giving 3*1 gb, no dual channel, but it is still unstable as anything!

yes that is how you get it into single channel mode alright. Excus me im not much of an AMD man more of a conroe bloke but have you tried A bios update?

So basically YOU have ddr400 ram and sean has said it slows down to ddr 333 when all banks are filled? THat honestly would say to me that the memory isnt compatibile with the board (when all banks are used)if you havent tried a bios update that is

gilgamesh

[Snakedoc]

yes that is how you get it into single channel mode alright. Excus me im not much of an AMD man more of a conroe bloke but have you tried A bios update?

So basically YOU have ddr400 ram and sean has said it slows down to ddr 333 when all banks are filled? THat honestly would say to me that the memory isnt compatibile with the board (when all banks are used)if you havent tried a bios update that is

gilgamesh

Thanks for your post.

I dont think you have it quite right, double bank memory will always be downgraded to ddr 333 when all four slots are populated, this is normal. What is not normal is the performance and instability of my PC. No matter what voltages I tweek slightly (CPU+.5v and DRAM to 2.7 or 2.8v) I cant get it stable or preforming well. Its a nightmare!

Way of topic here, but:

(How is Enkido? Had any good scraps with monsters in the last 5000 years or so? Ah the cradle of the civilization, Uruk. Have you read the story of Gilgamesh? Its the oldest writen story ever found, on tablets in cuniform, the first written language. Fasinating stuff!)

[Lucio]

Have you tried the obvious and tried running the system with the "extra" 2GB in instead of the original 2GB?

[Snakedoc]

Have you tried the obvious and tried running the system with the "extra" 2GB in instead of the original 2GB?

Indeed

I dont like saying this but I could never get this board to correctly work with any RAM config which exceeds 2.75 gb which I find very odd. I have used so many different makes, sizes etc of DDR 400 but have never got it over that limit. Perhaps this issue is caused by the VIA chipset, or something else I dont know.

Its a good job that it performs reasonably well with 2.75, I get a little disk caching here and there, but I can only see this getting worse as time goes on and apps and games get larger. I have 64 bit Vista, which is a memory eater so I do need the boost.

[ABIT Sean]

The only thing I can suggest is that you send the board and memory to me for complete testing.

[Snakedoc]

Hi Sean, Thanks for your message. My stability issues seem to be more related to the way the memory is being read, very slowly. I ran the latest version of Memtest 86 for 8 hours last night and it did not find any errors with the memory in 4* 1gb with auto DRAM timings selected (cl2.5 ,3,3,3). As soon as I booted into VIsta 64 bit, the issues were still present. Slow boot times, Desktop side bar incorrectly loading, games crawling along, opening IE or an application is much slower and jerks around the screen, Stalker was unplayable with about 3 frames a minute! The startup music in Vista stalled and the logging in screen took ages to render

I am going to try a trail version I have of XP 64 bit and also XP home (although it cant adress the full 4 gb) and see how this goes, although I understand that Vista uses memory in a different way to XP and addresses some areas of memory which XP would not, but saying this, I would have thought Memtest would have revealed errors should this be the case. I dont think we can blame the OS here as it runs perfectly in my 2.75 gb config and should be running even better in dual channel with 4gb. The 64 bit OS should be able to address I think 8 or 10 gb of ram effectively.

I would be happy to send you my mobo and memory, but I think you should try installing an Vista OS on it rather than run memtest, but I will see how it goes with the oher OS' over the weekend. I would be happy to send a hard drive with this preinstalled on, although, the thought of being without my pc for another couple of weeks is not pleasant!

Thanks for all your help, you (and Mickey) are a credit to Abit.