Mobo & RAM issues

[Cellado]

Evening all, i've run into a slight problem and as before i've come to seek your help, if this is in the wrong section please move my thread, still learning the ropes on this forum

Got myself a new desktop recently, GA-N650SLI-DS4 mobo and 4x1GB Corsair TwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 4-4-4-12, DHX RAM. I'm using vista 64 and i'm having problems getting it to run in harmony. Can load up vista no problem with 2 stick in, 3 sticks i can get to bios but then errors come up just after, 4 sticks and the screen stays blank.

I've tried mixing up the sticks, and using different combinations of slots and nothing seems to work, so safe to say i'm stumped and in need of some help

Any help would be much appreciated chaps.

Thanks
Lex

[Webby]

Personally I would repost this in the Corsair care section Yellowbeard (Corsair tech guy) will be better able to advice you, he may know of an incompatibility issue etc.

Since you can mix up the sticks it would suggest that its a motherboard problem rather than faulty RAM. It may just be that you need to set something in the BIOS and it will all be fine, who can say!

[staffsMike]

Are you giving the ram enough volts?

[Webby]

Mike - If they are like my XMS2 (not DHX, but thats just a funky heat spreader as far as I can tell ) then they will happily run at 1.8v at slower timings 5-5-5-18 in fact I had to manually set them to run at the advertised 4-4-4-12 and 2.1v.

Cellado - Could be worth checking what timings/voltage you have set, not sure what BIOS your board has if its like my Gigabyte board then in the BIOS go to the MIT (motherboard intelligent tweaker) section and check the timings there if you cant see them try Ctrl+F1 and they hopefully will appear! Or with 2 sticks use CPU-Z (latest version 1.41) and it should tell you. If they are set to 4-4-4-12 then change them to 5-5-5-18 and see if it will boot with 4 sticks then, or as Mike suggests up the voltage to 2.1v if they are currently set lower than that.

[staffsMike]

All PC6400 automatically sets itself to those settings not just corsair.

In the system i used the corsair it happily ran 2 sticks like that but refused to run 4 until they were given 2.1v

[Cellado]

Evening guys, thanks for the tips.

Tried feeding in some more voltage to no avail, changed the timing to the 4-4-4-12 from 5-5-5-18, no dice again.

Then i did a straight swap from 1 pair to another and i couldn't get into the bios or past it for that matter, it will only boot from 1 pair i have, something i don't think i tried before. So now thinking i have some dud ram on my hands. Who do i shout at to make it work

[Webby]

Post in the Corsair care forum here and Yellow beard will get back to you about it, but if one pair are duff then you will have to send them back to where ever you bought them from. Just be sure they are not working or else your going to be paying lots of postage back and forth!

Oh and i didnt mean for you to change them to 4-4-4-12. 5-5-5-18 would be easier for the motherboard to handle at lower voltages so set it back to these for now and test the potentially bad ram, you can also try 1 stick at a time as in only having 1GB total to see if its just 1 stick that faulty.