Memory Size incorrect on cold boot

[Chanfron]

Hi

At the start of last month I build myself a new PC using the following components all purchased via Scan

Core i7 950
Asus P6X58D-E
Corsair 6Gb Triple channel kit TR3X6G1600C9
Akasa Nero S Premier Cooler
GF250Gts From existing machine
Corsair HX 850W PSU
1TB WD Hdd
X-Fi Titanium Fatality

All stock settings and no overclocking.

I have been having issues regarding amount of memory detected at cold boot and restarts, i.e it only showing 4Gb instead of 6Gb, please see the following post for all the trouble shooting and tests I have already done http://forums.hexus.net/pc-memory/19...ory-issue.html.

I would like this problem resolved and was wondering if you could help me.

If the issue is the memory timing settings in the bios then could you please supply me with the correct settings to rectify this problem, I note that your own 3XS systems can be supplied with the exact same CPU/motherboard/Memory configuration.

If changing the memory will solve the issue then I will gladly change it to the required set to resolve this.
Note the machine is not overclocked in any way other that the automatic Intel Turboboost function and as of yesterday evening the latest bios has been installed, version 0405 released 09/11/2010.
This has given 6Gb on cold boot this morning but as soon as machine was restarted it gave 4Gb, shutdown and powered on it then gave 6Gb again, restart, 4Gb shows, shutdown, power on 6Gb shows.

Bios settings currently used are as follows

Ai Overclock Tuner............ = [X.M.P]
DRAM Frequency............... = [1600 Mhz]
UCLK Frequency................ = [3200 Mhz]
QPI/DRAM Core Voltage….. =[1.350]
DRAM Bus Voltage............. = [1.65]

All other settings are auto or to what ever the XMP profile sets them too.
I have already tried manually setting the correct figures for the memory kit but it is still the same.

Thanks.

[MikeP]

http://forums.hexus.net/scan-3xs-sys...ram-fault.html

Theres a problem with that board and some memory, Asus is working on it.

[Chanfron]

Thanks for that link.

[PeteG@Scan]

Hi,

If you P.M. me back your email address I have the latest Beta from ASUS to cure this issue. It's got a 90% fix rate so far in here so far, so I think it's worth a go.

Pete.

[Chanfron]

Hi

I will PM you my email address so you can send me the bios but before I consider installing it I would like ask a couple of questions first if you can answer them.

1, Is this issue just related to Asus boards and Corsair memory or all brands of memory. I.e could I fix this problem by returning the Corsair memory and getting some Crucial/Kingston/OCZ instead.

2, Is this issue just related to Asus boards and certain memory modules (Corsair or otherwise). I.e are there certain kits which give more problems than others.

3, Is there any 6Gb Corsair Kits within the PC3-12800 range which do not have this issue I.e
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/6gb-%...connector-165v, I have read on several other forums that people have changed to Dominator memory and the problem has been fixed.

Thanks

[PeteG@Scan]

Hi,

I've sent the Bios through and I'll answer the questions here.

1, It's related to all boards and all brands of memory but it isn't the fault of either. It's acturly a problem with the memory controller which is on the CPU making a proper connection with the memory IC on the ram. The only way to fix it is via bios tweaking by the board makers through which would be fine but everytime a new revision of IC comes out we get a few weeks worth of problems on a small number of boards.

2, You can google up pretty much any combination of board and memory not just Asus and Corsair and see this issue. We're working with Asus and Corsair testing solutions and developing bioses and if you read the last few pages of that cyclone thread, you'll see Thomas from Asus UK on there. He was with us for a week troubleshooting and developing bios revisions on site.

3, Luck of the draw in their cases. It's down to the IC on the memory and not the revision itself. Gigabyte has manage to roll out a batch of Bios updates that will resolve this issue across the board. In doing so they've gotten significantly harder to overclock as the voltages are now a lot more sensitive. Asus from what I understand are trying to hit the best balance between compatability and performance currently and are getting closer.

It's annoying because we keep thinking we have this nailed down and the's been a number of times after new bios roll outs where we think it's been nailed and a newer revision of memory has turned it all on it's head. The Bios I just sent you was rolled out to us late last Friday and has proved fairly sucessful so far.

[Chanfron]

Hi

Thanks for answering my questions, I guessed but would be all memory not just corsair but only asked due to the vast majority of trouble shooting posts I have read on various forums have always been corsair memory, prob due to it popularity.

Do all of SCANS 3XS systems based on X58 have this trouble, that must be fun to deal with .


Just to note one think which has ticked me off is that I checked up that this memory and board were certified to be used together, Corsair's web site and Asus's web site both list this memory and board combination as Certified and Guaranteed comparable.
Now I understand that it is a combination of the CPU, Memory and Motherboard which causes this problem but there was no warning supplied with them to indicate there maybe a problem.

Surely the memory and motherboard suppliers should be including warning notes in the packaging to warn people of this issue, I am sure this would have saved me and many many others a lot of wasted time pulling machines apart, running memtests, tweeking every setting under the sun in the bios and lots of heartache.

With my investigations it seems that this kind of issue has been around for well over a year and probably since the X58 was first released, you would think the problem would be sorted by now.

I will try the bios and see what happens, but in my case it seems very random, I can go from having a consistent pattern which then changes without altering anything.

Fingers crossed

[Chanfron]

I installed the new bios, after ez-flash rebooted I went into the bios, 6Gb detected and note of the settings were altered, powered off and cleared the cmos, powered on and loaded bios, resetup all settings and set memory to the following.

AI Tweaker
---------------
Ai Overclock Tuner........... = [Manual]
CPU Ratio Setting............ = [AUTO]
Xtreme Phase Full Power Mode. = [Enabled]
BCLK Frequency............... = [133]
PCIE Frequency............... = [100]
DRAM Frequency............... = [1600 Mhz]
UCLK Frequency............... = [3200 Mhz]
QPI Link Data Rate........... = [Auto]
CPU Voltage Control ………= [AUTO]
CPU Voltage……………………..= [AUTO]
CPU PLL Voltage ………………= [AUTO]
QPI/DRAM Core Voltage……=[1.400]
IOH Voltage…………………...=[AUTO]
IOH PCIE Voltage…………….=[AUTO]
ICH Voltage……………………=[AUTO]
ICH PCIE Voltage…………….=[AUTO]
DRAM Bus Voltage............. = [1.65]
All other on Auto
Speedstep and Turboboost both enabled


DRAM Timing Control
----------------------------
1st Information:
DRAM CAS# Latency........... . = [9]
DRAM RAS# to CAS# Delay...... = [9]
DRAM RAS# PRE Time........... = [9]
DRAM RAS# ACT Time........... = [24]
DRAM RAS# to RAS# Delay...... = [AUTO]
DRAM REF Cycle Time.......... = [AUTO]
DRAM WRITE Recovery Time..... = [AUTO]
DRAM READ to PRE Time........ = [AUTO]
DRAM FOUR ACT WIN Time....... = [AUTO]
DRAM Back-To-Back CAS# Delay. = [AUTO]

2nd Information:
DRAM Timing Mode............. = [2N]
DRAM Round Trip Latency on CHA = [AUTO]
DRAM Round Trip Latency on CHB = [AUTO]
DRAM Round Trip Latency on CHC = [AUTO]

3rd Information:
All set to AUTO

Loaded windows ok, restart shows 6Gb, restarted two more times and shows 6Gb each time, played Star Trek online for two hrs, left idling for two hrs, restarted and shows 6Gb, turn off overnight.
Cold boot @ 8:30am today, shows 6Gb, restart twice from windows 6Gb on both restarts.
So far looking good but will monitor what happens, have left machine off so will have another cold boot when I get home from work.

[Chanfron]

This new bios seems to have fixed the issue for me, I have had 6Gb on cold boots, 6Gb on warm boots and 6Gb on restarts every time, by cold boot I mean machine off overnight or more than 4 hrs, warm boot I mean off for less than 30 min, restarts I mean just restarting from windows.

Did have my first blue screen yesterday, error was Memory Management, happened while I was playing Star Trek Online, restated and carried on playing and no other faults happened so may have just been game glitch.

I assume this bios will turn up on Asus's website soon or a newer version.

[Yellowbeard]

What is the BIOS version you used?

[Chanfron]

Bios is version 0503

[Chanfron]

Well I have had to go back to the latest official bios as testing during the last week has show this bios does fix the memory detection issue but I have found it to cause more problems.

post on this thread from the 29th was done from work.
Epic wall of text
Mon 29th - machine was off all day and turned on at about 6pm, saw 6gb detected and went to get dinner/read paper etc. Came back to machine about 6:30pm, machine was stuck on windows start-up repair screen, could not cancel, after about 10 min it said could not repair the problem and rebooted.
Loaded windows, Kaspersky AV corrupted, Zonealarm corrupted, sound drivers not functioning other start-up items not running.
Rebooted and blue screened memory management error, loaded windows again, KAV still corrupt other items working, bluescreen trying to update KAV.
Booted from memtest CD, memory errors after about 25%, rebooted ran memtest again, errors after about 25%, shut machine off for 1 min, powered back on ran memtest, two full runs no errors.
Loaded windows ok, repair install of kaspersky ok, left on for a hour and then ran games for hour and a half ok, shut down.

Tue 30th - powered on at 8:30am, 6gb ok, no errors with windows, left machine on all day, used from 6:30pm till 9:00pm no problem, idle till 11:20pm then shutdown.

Wed 1st - powered on at 8:30am, 6gb ok, no errors with windows, left machine on all day, used from 6:30pm till 9:40pm no problem, idle till 11:40pm then shutdown.

Thur 2nd - powered on at 1:20pm, 6gb ok, loaded windows ok, idle for about 1 hr, came back to machine clock is correct but machine unusable, mouse pointer moves but no response from any clicks or key-presses. Shutdown from power switch, booted from memtest, one full scan, no errors, loaded windows ok, used machine on/off rest of day no problem till shutdown.

Fri 3rd - powered on at 8:30am, 6gb ok, no errors with windows, left machine on all day, used from 6:30pm till 9:45pm no problem, idle till 11:20pm then shutdown.

Sat 4th - powered on at 8:30am, 6gb ok, no errors with windows, left machine on all day, 6:30pm ish clock is correct but machine unusable, mouse pointer moves but no response from any clicks or key-presses. Pressed restart, booted from memtest, errors at about 30%, shutdown for 1 min, rebooted ran memtest, 1 full scan no errors.
Used machine or left idle rest of day no problem, powered off 11:40pm

Sun 5th - powered on about 11:40am loaded windows ok, left idle till 3pm, came back machine was stuck on windows start-up repair screen, could not cancel, after about 5 min it said could not repair the problem and rebooted.
Loaded windows, Kaspersky AV corrupted, Zonealarm says file missing, sound drivers not functioning other start-up items not running.
Booted from memtest, lots of errors at about 40%. shutdown for 1 min
Rebooted and blue screened memory management error, loaded windows again blue screen,loaded windows again KAV still corrupt other items working, bluescreen trying to repair KAV.
Loaded bios and set all memory related items to auto, loaded windows again, repaired kav ok, used machine rest of day no issue.

Mon 6th - Mon 29th - machine was off all day and turned on at about 6pm, saw 6gb detected and went to get dinner/read paper etc. Came back to machine about 6:30pm, machine was stuck on windows start-up repair screen, could not cancel, after about 20 still checking so turned off machine.
Loaded windows auto checked Hdd integrity no errors found , Kaspersky AV corrupted, Zonealarm corrupted, sound drivers not functioning other start-up items not running.
Rebooted and blue screened memory management error, loaded windows again, KAV still corrupt other items working, bluescreen trying to repair KAV.
Booted from memtest CD, memory errors after about 6%, rebooted ran memtest again, errors after about 25%, shut machine off for 1 min, powered back on ran memtest, one full run no errors.
Loaded windows ok, repair install of kaspersky ok, no further errors for 30min, idle for 1hr.
Rebooted machine, loaded previous bios, reset cmos, loaded settings setting memory to XMP profile, used machine for rest of night ok.

Up until this new beta bios I had no problems with the machine other than the incorrect memory sizes, no blue screens, no corrupted programs, no stuck on startup repair and no memtest errors.
I notice a trend, the longer the machine is off the more problems it has, no idea why this would make a difference.

[Thomas_Asus]

Hi Chanfron,

My name is Thomas, I work for Asus UK in the technical support department. Can I please ask what revision your RAM modules are? It will look like "2.1a" or something close to that.

Also when you install the new 0506 BIOS please make sure you allow 1 full POST and clear the CMOS before entering windows, this is just to make 100% it can work as intended.

[Chanfron]

Hi

Ram modules are 2.1a, will try the new bios and see if any of the problems come back.

[Chanfron]

0506 bios installed, booted up to F8 select boot device menu, powered off, cleared cmos, powered on and setup bios, loaded windows ok, 6Gb detected, will leave machine off all day tomorrow and see if any problems occur when powered on in the evening(same as would be on Mondays from previous post).

[Chanfron]

0506 bios is still causing me problems, less problems than before but still problems, see as follows.
Decide to follow normal routine as previous week.

Fri 10th - powered on at 8:30am, 6gb ok, no errors with windows, left machine on all day, used from 6:30pm till 9:45pm no problem, idle till 11:20pm then shutdown.

Sat 11th - powered on at 8:30am, 6gb ok, no errors with windows, left machine on all day, 6:30pm came back to machine and it had error message stating windows has recovered from unexpected shutdown related to bluescreen, could not do anything as any program ran hung or crashed.
Turned off machine and got bluescreen error memory management, turned off for 1 min and restarted.
Used machine or left idle rest of day no problem, powered off 11:40pm.

Sun 12th - powered on about 11:40am loaded windows but came up with error stating print spooler has stopped working, zonealarm says file missing, other start-up items not loaded but KAV ok. Left machine as is till 3:30pm, machine now has windows recovered from unexpected shutdown error related to bluescreen, shutdown for 1 min, reloaded ok and used machine till 11:20pm no issues.

Mon 13th - machine was off all day and turned on at about 6pm, 6gb detected, windows loaded get error saying recovered from unexpected shutdown even though had been off all day and previous shutdown was normal, zonealarm says file missing(different to previous day), all start-up items ok except KAV not running, left machine as is.
Came back about 6:40pm, Hdd grinding away like crazy, error message windows recovered from unexpected shutdown error related to bluescreen, zonealarm, KAV and other start-up items not running, could not do anything, machine hung while trying to shutdown, forced to power off from switch.
Powered back on after 1 min, machine loaded fine except KAV says it did not load properly last time, restarted machine, all ok, used rest of day / left idle no problems.

Tue 14th - powered up at 8:30am, no problems so far.



So this bios 0506 has improved sightly, no longer get corrupt KAV / zonealarm and no mention of sound driver not be loaded, still have bluescreen errors with memory management, and again it seems the longer the machine is off the worse the errors become.
Going to put the last official bios back on.