Abit IP35 Pro - Temperamental with 4GB of memory installed

[jedipenguin]

Hi folks,

First time posting on here so forgive me if this has come up before (which it likely has but my search fu seems exceedingly weak)

I have an Abit IP35 Pro MB which has given me nearly 2 years of (fairly) loyal service, however, its starting to roast my chestnuts a bit with its total unwillingness to consistently run with 4GB of memory installed.

Running with just 2 sticks at 2GB seems to work fine, and if the 3rd and 4th stick are loaded one at a time (fourth bank first then second bank last) while the BIOS is on failsafe settings it posts fine and then lets me load the Optimized BIOS defaults and boots to windows.

However, usually after a day or two I'll go to switch it on or take it out of sleep mode and I get a C1 error from the BIOS forcing me to pop the sticks out and go through the whole process again.

I was willing to accept this inconvenience becuase its not a huge deal to have to reseat some memory, but after talking my total technophobe of a wife through the process on the phone this morning I'm looking for more permanent solutions

Memory in question is 2 sets of 'Corsair TWIN2X2048-8500C5D / 2GB PC2-8500 1066MHz / XMS2 Dominator DHX'both sets are brand new and seem to work fine when loaded seperatetly.

My OS is Vista Home Premium 32 bit (I know 32 bit is far from ideal for 4GB systems but I cant stand the thought of stumping for 64 bit Vista with Windows 7 around the corner)

Any advice people might have on the subject would be most appreciated.

Thanks in advance

JP

[malfunction]

What speed are you running them at? Wondering if the RAM itself or the MCH needs a little higher voltage. I'm running 8GB (4* 2GB) on my IP35 Pro without any issue but I'm only running PC6400 / 800MHz RAM (CL5, etc) which only needs 1.8V. I imagine your RAM needs 2.1V. I'd probably start by checking that the motherboard is using 2.1V for the memory and then increasing the MCH voltage a bit (no more than 0.05V at first) and seeing what happens. Best way to test stability is to run memtest86 for a few hours (overnight ideally) and prime95 or similar.

[jedipenguin]

I'll check the settings when I get home and let you know.

[jclafi]

Probably all you need is a little juice dude. Bump up the volts on your N.B and RAM a little. When i had stability issues with 4GB ram @ 1.80v, i just set the RAM to 2.0v and the system become rock solid. MCH volts may help too !

Good Luck !

[malfunction]

Probably all you need is a little juice dude. Bump up the volts on your N.B and RAM a little. When i had stability issues with 4GB ram @ 1.80v, i just set the VRAm to 2.0v and the system become rock solid. MCH volts may help too !

Good Luck !

FWIW in Intel speak MCH = North Bridge

[jedipenguin]

Bonzer, with the Voltage upped to 2.1 it booted with no problems with all 4 sticks for the first time.

Will monitor the situation for the next week or so to make sure.

Many thanks for the info guys (nice to know there is some places on the web where you can ask a noob question and not get mocked )

[jclafi]

You could test your memory with ORTHOS to be sure that is 100% OK !

Run 9 hours in Blend Mode, if your RIG pass this test, everything apears to be just fine !! Let the test running at night, i did that...

Good Luck Dude !

[jedipenguin]

Ramped the memory speed all the way up to 1066 after the system was up and running.

DoW2 ran sweetly but when I tried to run WoW I was getting BSOD every 10-20 mins.

Wound the memory speed bak to 866 (i think) and it seems to have stabilised it but I'm starting to think my RAM is perhaps not as faultless as its age would suggest

Will try running some of these memory test app to see it it thows up any bad sectors.

[malfunction]

You could try running CPU-Z:

http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

To check that both the voltages and timings the motherboard is using are correct. Also if your memory is spec'd at 2.1V that's probably only for 2 sticks not all 4 - you might need to bump the MCH and RAM voltage up a little to cope with all 4. Also are you only overclocking the memory to 1066 or are you overclocking the FSB (i.e. to overclock the CPU) as well? The instability could be coming from either the CPU or the RAM.

[jedipenguin]

The CPU clock is at the baseline 'Optimized Defaults' that the BIOS sets it to so I dont think its the CPU thats creating the stability issue.

Curiously last night I tried to bring the system up and it was posting a C1 again, once I got the memory out and into the BIOS I noticed it had reset itself back into its system managed defaults, not sure what caused this delightful little diversion but I set the Mem voltage back to 2.1 and the Memory speed back to 866 and all seemed well again.

I'll try upping the MCH voltage a bit and maybe take the Memory Voltage up to 2.3-2.4 ish and see how how it copes with 1066 again.

[jedipenguin]

Set the MCH up a bit from 1.25 to 1.29 and took the DDR2 Voltage up a notch to 2.3 and all has been sweet as a nut so far (even with the timings cranked all the way up to 1066)

I do belive you may have cracked it my good man.

[malfunction]

Without trying to sound awkward if there's a 2.2V option for the memory I'd probably try that and see if it's still stable - I'd be a bit nervous permanently running the RAM at 2.3V. As above I've never really bothered with overclocking RAM (not in years anyway) so someone else on here might have a better perspective on whether or not 2.3V is too high for your RAM / mobo.

[jedipenguin]

I'll throttle it back to 2.2 tonight then and see if all is still well.

[jedipenguin]

Turns out it was running at 2.2 the whole time.

Problem still persists, did not have any problems with it for the last week, but tried to bring it out of sleep and the warning light on the mobo was showing an E1 error.

Rebooted to no avail (c1 error this time), popped the DIMMS out and got it running with 1 set then checked the BIOS and everything seemed the same.

Rebooted and put the DIMMS back in and it seemed to be coming back but then something died half way.

Removed the second pair again and got back into the BIOS to find that it had reset the voltage/timings back to the standard settings?

Re-adjusted back to MCH=1.29 and DDR2 = 2.2 and let it boot all the way into windows with just the 2 sticks, then shut down re-added them and it booted fine.

Starting to suspect there is something slightly screwed with my BIOS (or worse the whole board)

[jclafi]

Make a full clear cmos if you messed a lot with the bios options. This usually helps.

Good Luck !