AB9 Pro and graphic card desperation !

[RAYK47]

Try AVS, it is based on Kasperskys AV but is branded AOL. It is free from www.activevirusshield.com. It is a very good AV that does not hog resources like Norton.

[gilgamesh]

I tend to take the Patricians view of things about Virus checker companies

to paraphrase it, when Ankh Morpohk was undergoing a rat infestation and a bounty was put out on rat tails, thousands upon thousands were handed in but the rat problem didnt go away.

The Patrician's answer

Tax the rat farms

LMAO good one mate, good to see a fellow terry pratchett fan!

gilga

[lfoggy]

I only installed the Norton after the problem started to see if there might be a virus so its not Norton. I agree though, Norton is a complete pain in the posterior.....

Another thought occurred to me - could it be the JMicron RAID drivers ? Has anyone got any experience with these on the AB9 Pro. A few threads on the American abit forum mention problems. I may post a question on that forum (no offense to the kind people who have suggested things here of course!)

I have re-installed Windows with no change in the problem but am tempted to try an installation without RAID. Any thoughts?

[ABIT Sean]

I only installed the Norton after the problem started to see if there might be a virus so its not Norton. I agree though, Norton is a complete pain in the posterior.....

Another thought occurred to me - could it be the JMicron RAID drivers ? Has anyone got any experience with these on the AB9 Pro. A few threads on the American abit forum mention problems. I may post a question on that forum (no offense to the kind people who have suggested things here of course!)

I have re-installed Windows with no change in the problem but am tempted to try an installation without RAID. Any thoughts?

Are you running the RAID on the jMicron controller? SATA ports 8&9?

[lfoggy]

Are you running the RAID on the jMicron controller? SATA ports 8&9?

Hi,

I am running RAID on SATA ports 1 and 2 using, presumably, the Intel RAID controller. When I look at device manager it looks like I have got the JMicron RAID controller and the Silicon Image 3132 SATA driver installed as well but there is nothing attached to any of the other SATA ports (I must have installed them in a fit of enthusiasm when I installed the chipset driver and the Intel Matrix storage technology driver from the ABIT CD). Do I need these ? Should I uninstall them do you think ?

[ABIT Sean]

Hi,

I am running RAID on SATA ports 1 and 2 using, presumably, the Intel RAID controller. When I look at device manager it looks like I have got the JMicron RAID controller and the Silicon Image 3132 SATA driver installed as well but there is nothing attached to any of the other SATA ports (I must have installed them in a fit of enthusiasm when I installed the chipset driver and the Intel Matrix storage technology driver from the ABIT CD). Do I need these ? Should I uninstall them do you think ?

If you are not using the external SATA you can uninstall the driver and disable the controller in the bios. The jmircron raid drivers are not needed either but you can't disable the controller if you are using the IDE port.

[lfoggy]

Hi,
Various contributors have suggested it's a RAM problem so I've been looking at this.
I am using GeIL 1x2 Gb PC6400 800MHz ultra low latency DDR2

BIOS tells me that
mem voltage is 2.0V and
'estimated new DRAM clock' is 408MHz

I have just run MemTest with both memory modules fitted in matching memory slots. Within a few seconds it comes up with

'Memory error detected
Copying between 8a6ef6 & 8a6cab did not result in an accurate copy. MemTest has detected that you computer cannot accurately store data in RAM.
You need to fix this.'

Is this my RAM modules at fault?
I am a bit puzzled because the manual says you can use a single RAM module which I have tried with the same problem. I've also tried all combinations of memory slots with no difference. Could both RAM modules be faulty (unlikely surely) or maybe it's the mobo ?
I confess to being a little out of my depth here....but I think I'm making progress!
How should I proceed ? (thanks again in advance)

[Highland3r]

Hi,
Various contributors have suggested it's a RAM problem so I've been looking at this.
I am using GeIL 1x2 Gb PC6400 800MHz ultra low latency DDR2

BIOS tells me that
mem voltage is 2.0V and
'estimated new DRAM clock' is 408MHz

I have just run MemTest with both memory modules fitted in matching memory slots. Within a few seconds it comes up with

'Memory error detected
Copying between 8a6ef6 & 8a6cab did not result in an accurate copy. MemTest has detected that you computer cannot accurately store data in RAM.
You need to fix this.'

Is this my RAM modules at fault?
I am a bit puzzled because the manual says you can use a single RAM module which I have tried with the same problem. I've also tried all combinations of memory slots with no difference. Could both RAM modules be faulty (unlikely surely) or maybe it's the mobo ?
I confess to being a little out of my depth here....but I think I'm making progress!
How should I proceed ? (thanks again in advance)

Set vDimm to 2.1v and see if that helps.
If not, try running the ram at a lower speed. Cant remeber the exact bios option at the moment, but set the ram speed to 533 or 667 if you can (266 or 333 FSB) and see if that corrects the issue

[Richh]

That's interesting. Firstly, an aside: Did you really mean you've got 1 x 2GiB stick of RAM, or do you have 2 x 1GiB sticks?

Anyway, Memtest. As a general point this application can sometimes flag up errors that do not, in normal use, result in instability. However as you are suffering oddness, this report is certainly something to follow up.

I'd suggest working through the following and checking back with the results:

Firstly, check Geil's website, or the instructions enclosed with your RAM, and determine their recommended operating voltage and memory timings.

Secondly, bump the vDIMM up to 2.1 volts in the uGuru part of the BIOS, then run Memtest again. Do you see the same errors?

If you do, dip back into the BIOS, and leaving vDIMM at 2.1, go into the Advanced Setup section and change the memory timings from "by SPD" (assuming that is what is currently set) to whatever Geil recommends.

Run Memtest again.

If you still see errors, go back into the BIOS and relax the memory timings - increase each timing parameter by one point.

Run Memtest again.

If you are still getting errors, back into the Softmenu and drop the memory bus speed from DDR800 (or by SPD, whichever one it currently is) to DDR667, leaving all the other settings as they are.

Run Memtest again.

Let us know what happens to the error count at each step and we should have a pretty good idea what is going on, with your memory subsystem at least!
and run Memtest again. Do you see the same errors?

[Papa Lazarou]

Just to add to that I would say set the Command Rate (in the memory timings in Advanced Setup menu) to 2T. 1T I have found to be mostly unstable. Auto *should* put it in 2T mode but you never know...

[lfoggy]

I configured the memory properly in BIOS according to the GeIL website (turns out I had it running too slowly) and rebooted. The result was a highly corrupted display and some other very weird features. Anyway, I ran MemTest again and it found several hundred thousand errors in the memory! I went back to the shop where I bought it and they tested it as well and confirmed it was completely demented (to use a medical memory analogy). They pulled another pair of modlues from stock and tested them to confirm they were OK and I've just installed them.
So far so good....everything looks OK, mouse pointer behaving and no unexpected crashes.

Strangely, my son's favorite game, Lego Star Wars, is still a bit dodgy (intermittent slowdowns) but his other games seem to run fine so maybe it is a peculiarity of that program. Curious thing is the game runs fine on my 2 year old Dell which has a much lower spec.
I guess time will tell.

Anyway, thanks very much for all the help and suggestions, I am very grateful for people taking the time to read my posts and reply.

[Richh]

Excellent, glad to hear it was such an easy fix!

As to Lego Star Wars, have you loaded whatever drivers and patches it currently needs?

[Dareos]

see, my bad experience with memory modules (and 2 weeks to work it out) has given me a wealth of experience in making semi educated guesses and getting them right =)

we live and learn )