Another ASUS A8N Premium SLI Memory Problem

[jpongin]

ERrrrrr,

I had to start a new thread because I didn't want to get lost in the pool of other ASUS Premium memory problem threads.

Let's start off with what I have:
Mobo: Asus A8N Premium SLI | BIOS 1009
CPU: AMD X2 4800+ @ 240x10 2.4Ghz @ 1.4Vcore
RAM: 2GB Kit Crucial Ballistix DDR500 3-4-4-8 @ 2.8V
GPU: BFG 7800GTXOC @ 460/1300 SLI
PSU: Enermax Noisetaker SLI 600W
Cooling: Water -- Swiftech | Dangerden Components
HD: 4 of them all WD SATAs (one Raptor)
OS: WinXP Pro SP2 32bit, latest nForce drivers


This is my second RMA'd Premium board, and now, my DDR500 Ballistix sticks won't work in dual channel mode! My previous board was able to POST with both sticks! I get the dreaded System failed memory test message. But in single channel, both sticks POST and boot! And the intersesting this is that during POST, it says I'm in Single Channel mode, but then in the BIOS, it detects it as 1024x2! Does that mean it thinks I'm running my one stick in Dual Channel??? How is that posssible? Which leads me to my next problem...

Even though it boots, it's not boot stable. The box can Prime95 for 14 hours, but some times it just hangs and won't POST. All of my other components seem to be good via Prime95 and 3Dmark05 -- PSU, GPU, Processor. I have my BIOS memory set to auto and JumperFree Settings to manual. Even with my first Premium board, I only got it to be stable at 240 x 10 CPU | 240 Mem, but at least it worked with both sticks in dual channel. Any other setting would cause it not to be POST stable. Which leads me to yet my next problem....

In the BIOS, I'm running version 1009. Now, every time I set both the DRAM Configurations and CPU Jumper Free Settings BOTH to manual, one of them gets reset back to Automatic! WTF! It will not allow me to set both RAM and CPU settings to Manual... only one or the other. I feel that I'm doing something wrong. Please help.

Is it my RAM? Should I RMA it? I memteste86'd both sticks on my previous system, a P4C800-E Dlx, and both sticks were good at 250.

Is it the board? Let me say this, I REALLY don't want to RMA the board again. The turn-around time is killing me. I've read that if I fiddle with the memory settings and timings, with the one stick, then I can possibly try to add the other stick and boot. I've tried this but of to no avail. And, yes, I'm correctly using the DIMM slots.

I'm very close to purchasing the 2GB Corsair 3500LL if I don't get this resolved.

How's my Vcore? Is 1.4Vcore enough for 240x10?

Capt Caveman, I know you're out there somewhere, send me a nice helpful reply. Others too with this board.. please help!

 

[wanderer27]

First a stupid question - are your sticks in slots 1 & 3 or 2 & 4 ? These are the two combos for Dual Channel.

You may want to run Memtest on each stick in each slot to see if you have a Memory or slot problem.

How old is you X2 ? It seems like a lot of Memory problems have an X2 involved lately.

 

[jpongin]

I first tried 1 & 3. And again, with the same processor and the previous Premium board, dual channel worked. With this new RMA's board, dual channel wasn't working anymore. Strange. I then tried 2 & 4... same error message. I then tried the following:

1 stick @ Slot 1: System failed memory test error
1 stick @ Slot 2: System failed memory test error
1 stick @ Slot 3: No Errors, Boots fine.
1 stick @ Slot 4: System failed memory test error

Now, in the manual, it says that if you're using one DIMM, you can only use Slot3. Is this true? Is that why the other slots are failing?

 

[wanderer27]

Hmm, I never noticed the slot 3 and one stick before as I haven't done just one stick, but my manual says that also so I'd go with it.

I'd run the OC test on each stick to find what stable speed they work well at. Then I'd run Memtest on them to see if you may have a bad stick.

Your VCore should be good, and your Mem at 2.8 should also be okay.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Originally posted by: jpongin
I first tried 1 & 3. And again, with the same processor and the previous Premium board, dual channel worked. With this new RMA's board, dual channel wasn't working anymore. Strange. I then tried 2 & 4... same error message. I then tried the following:

1 stick @ Slot 1: System failed memory test error
1 stick @ Slot 2: System failed memory test error
1 stick @ Slot 3: No Errors, Boots fine.
1 stick @ Slot 4: System failed memory test error

Now, in the manual, it says that if you're using one DIMM, you can only use Slot3. Is this true? Is that why the other slots are failing?

Have you tried using your other stick of ram to do the above test? I've run one stick in Slot 1 w/out any problems. Have you tried clearing your CMOS?

Can you borrow any other dual channel kit of ram to see if it's the Ballistix or the mobo? I have had to rma my Ballistix after it ran fine for a few months.

One other thing might be to boost your vdimm to 2.9v b/c it's possible that the mobo isn't giving the ram enough juice. You can also lower the vdimm to 2.7v to see if it makes a difference.

 

[jpongin]

Have you tried using your other stick of ram to do the above test? I've run one stick in Slot 1 w/out any problems. Have you tried clearing your CMOS?

No I haven't yet, and I think I'll try that next. None of the sticks would run on Slot 1, 2 or 4.. only 3.

Can you borrow any other dual channel kit of ram to see if it's the Ballistix or the mobo? I have had to rma my Ballistix after it ran fine for a few months.

No I don't =(.. I'm the only hardware enthusiast at my work. I'm going to try clearing the CMOS, and see if that helps. I hope I don't have to RMA my Ballistix.. If I do, then I'll do them one stick at a time so I'll have something to run off of.

I'll also try cranking up the RAM Voltage as well... wish me luck.

 

[jpongin]

Update:
I cleared the CMOS, and apparently Slot4 has always worked. So here are my results:
Slot 1: No Detection
Slot 2: No Detection
Slot 3: Detects my memory and POSTs
Slot 4: Detects my memory and POSTs

I fear this may be a board issue becuase both of my sticks work on Slots 3 and 4 (one at a time of course). I'm going to try to play aroudn in the BIOS to see if I can't get it detecting my memory.

Update:
Errrrrr, after fiddling around with timings and cpu settings, I can't seem to get slots 1 and 2 to detect my Ballistix DDR500. EERRRRrrr.. Anyway, that's one of my two problems.

My other problem has to deal with my memory settings for the one stick I can actually use. I got the stick to run at 240 x 10 HHTx4 and 400Mhz divider. It doesn't POST if I try running it at 250 x 9 HHTx3 and timings are 3-4-4-8

 

[jpongin]

Okay, here's an update....

I totally gave up on the Crucial Ballistix DDR500 2GB Kit now. I accepted the fact that I'm in troubleshooting mode, and I'm in the middle of eliminating bad components from my PC. Here's the order at which I'm going:

At stock settings with clean install of WinXP, latest drivers, and BIOS 1009 for each iteration:

1. Replace Memory...
   If it's still BSOD'ing, then RMA board again...
   If its still BSOD'ing, RMA the chip...
   If it's still BSOD'ing, RMA the PSU...
   If it's still BSOD'ing, give up and move into a cave.

I'm in the middle of the first item. I was one of the very few who were able to order the Twinx2048-3500LLPRO from Newegg today. Man those things sold FAST. Wish me luck. What do you think my intial timings should be when I get them on Monday?

 

[wanderer27]

Do you have any PCI boards installed (particularly a Sound Card) ?

Also, I seem to recall seeing a possible issue with Memory running in the 245 MHz area. Somewhere above that a it can start working properly again (to a limit).

 

[jpongin]

I have an Audigy2Z, but I don't have it installed on the motherboard. I did read somewhere in the threads where there were problems with the onboard sound conflicting with the Sound card. I'll be sure to disable the onboard sound when I get the memory on Monday.

 

[wanderer27]

So you have no Memory now I take it ?

 

[Capt Caveman]

fyi - I had to RMA my Premium do to a faulty nf4 ship. Well, I got a new board from them yesterday. Similar issue as OP, my ram will post if in dimms B1 and B2 but not in A1 or A2, thus I can't run my ram in dual-channel. To add insult to injury, one of my fan headers blew and started a little fire. WTF

Anyways, I will be contacting Asus RMA on monday and see if they'll allow me to swap this board for an A8N32-SLI(I'll be willing to pay the difference). If not, I'll wait til I can get an A8N32-SLI then RMA it then sell it.

 

[jpongin]

fyi - I had to RMA my Premium do to a faulty nf4 ship. Well, I got a new board from them yesterday. Similar issue as OP, my ram will post if in dimms B1 and B2 but not in A1 or A2, thus I can't run my ram in dual-channel. To add insult to injury, one of my fan headers blew and started a little fire. WTF

Duuuude, welcome aboard! Did you call ASUS tech about this? I haven't spoken with them yet. If so, what did they say? Did they say it had something to do with the board? My next question is how in the world did you know that you had a faulty NForce4 Chip???? What symptoms would you exiibit? I may have to RMA my board as well -- AGAIN!!!! Damnit! Finally, with your Ballisitix memory... were you having problems where it wouldn't POST after manually restarting a couple of times??

I just ordered the Twinx2048-3500LLPRO, and they should be arriving on Moday. Maybe this board will behave better with this memory. What do you think Captn?

I'll give you my update when I try out the new memory. Let me know what they say aobut swapping to the ASUS A8N32 and paying the difference.

 

[lopri]

Originally posted by: jpongin
The box can Prime95 for 14 hours, but some times it just hangs and won't POST.

Do you have any PSU lying around? If so, try it. It's OK even if it has only 20-pin main cable.

P.S. Your system is exactly (OK, *almost* exactly) same as mine before GTX 512s sans watercooling. Yes, I had the exact same PSU (701AX?) which was replaced by PC P&C 510 (fixed the problem), which was then replaced by Seasonic S12 (due to PC P&C's noise). Is your EZ-Plug connected? Is there any difference in stability between EZ-Plug-IN and EZ-Plug-OUT?

 

[DrZoidberg]

When u flashed your asus mobo to 1009 BIOS did u select
'load setup defaults' and reset machine, before doing any changes/overclocking?

Cause i have a asus a8n-sli vanilla board, i bios flashed it fine, i could run stable at non overclocked speeds with 2x 512mb ram sticks in dual channel. But overclocking it pass 220FSB was unstable/crash. I realised after a week (and finally using ntune) that setting HT to 3x or 4x doesnt work if u dont load setup defaults, it will always run at 5x.

 

[lopri]

Also, what's so great about Twinx2048-3500LLPRO?
My only guess is it does 215MHz @2-3-2-5? I thought most 1G DIMMs could do that..?

 

[jpongin]

Do you have any PSU lying around? If so, try it. It's OK even if it has only 20-pin main cable.

P.S. Your system is exactly (OK, *almost* exactly) same as mine before GTX 512s sans watercooling. Yes, I had the exact same PSU (701AX?) which was replaced by PC P&C 510 (fixed the problem), which was then replaced by Seasonic S12 (due to PC P&C's noise). Is your EZ-Plug connected? Is there any difference in stability between EZ-Plug-IN and EZ-Plug-OUT?

I'm using the Enermax 600W NoiseTaker.... most likely the same one that you had. And yes, I am using the EZ Plug because I'm using SLI. -- And yes again... there is a HUGE difference between having the EZ plug in vs. out with SLI configuration. The system is very unstable without the EZ Plug in.

 

[jpongin]

Originally posted by: lopri
Also, what's so great about Twinx2048-3500LLPRO?
My only guess is it does 215MHz @2-3-2-5? I thought most 1G DIMMs could do that..?

They are the ONLY memory I can find that was actually tested on the ASUS A8N Premium SLI board right before packaging. They are also the 2GB kit with the lowest latency timings. They are garaunteed to go 218 @ 2-3-2-5. My guess is that it can go higher by loosening timings and maybe increasing VDimm.

So you think it might be my PSU???? It was running dual Prime95 for 14 hours... .wouldn't a faulty PSU cause it to BSOD under those conditions? Wouldn't memory sometimes cause the board not to POST?

 

[jpongin]

When u flashed your asus mobo to 1009 BIOS did u select
'load setup defaults' and reset machine, before doing any changes/overclocking?

Cause i have a asus a8n-sli vanilla board, i bios flashed it fine, i could run stable at non overclocked speeds with 2x 512mb ram sticks in dual channel. But overclocking it pass 220FSB was unstable/crash. I realised after a week (and finally using ntune) that setting HT to 3x or 4x doesnt work if u dont load setup defaults, it will always run at 5x.

Actually, I cleared my CMOS before I flashed to 1009. So what you're saying is that you have to reset to default before overclocking after you flash your BIOS? I can try that too. I'm going to contact ASUS to see if I can swap my Premium board for the A8N32 board.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Originally posted by: jpongin

fyi - I had to RMA my Premium do to a faulty nf4 ship. Well, I got a new board from them yesterday. Similar issue as OP, my ram will post if in dimms B1 and B2 but not in A1 or A2, thus I can't run my ram in dual-channel. To add insult to injury, one of my fan headers blew and started a little fire. WTF

Duuuude, welcome aboard! Did you call ASUS tech about this? I haven't spoken with them yet. If so, what did they say? Did they say it had something to do with the board? My next question is how in the world did you know that you had a faulty NForce4 Chip???? What symptoms would you exiibit? I may have to RMA my board as well -- AGAIN!!!! Damnit! Finally, with your Ballisitix memory... were you having problems where it wouldn't POST after manually restarting a couple of times??

I just ordered the Twinx2048-3500LLPRO, and they should be arriving on Moday. Maybe this board will behave better with this memory. What do you think Captn?

I'll give you my update when I try out the new memory. Let me know what they say aobut swapping to the ASUS A8N32 and paying the difference.

Thx and what a great club it is to be part of. No, I haven't contacted ASUS tech. I plan on contacting Asus RMA to bitch them out about sending me a bad board. It has to be the board b/c everything ran great prior to using this board and my old board going bad.

In regards to the nf4 chipset going bad, at first when posting my nvidia raids weren't being detected consistently. Then, all of my hdds started crawling.

I've had no problems with my Ballistix. Personally, I don't think getting the new ram will make a difference for you. But you have nothing to lose.

I'll let you know what happens when I contact Asus tomorrow, you vice-versa.

 

[jpongin]

Hey Captn,

Here's a nice update:

I just contacted ASUS Tech, and they said that if this is the second time you're RMA'ing the same board, it should be much faster. They also said that they would easily SWAP for the A8N32-SLI! But since the RMA department is closed during the weekends, I'm going to RMA this one tomorrow on Monday. Hopefully I can convince them to do 2Day FedEx Express so I can ge the board as soon as possible. We'll see what they do. This should be great match with my 2GB TwinX3500 -- *knocks on wood*

 

[Capt Caveman]

Good News! Thanks for the update.

 

[jpongin]

Okay... I need to know something about the layout of the ASUS A8N32. With the board orientated such that the CPU at the top and the SATA connections are at the bottom, is the vertical position of the Northbridge chip in relation with the PCI-ex16 exactly the same as the A8N Premium-SLI?

The reason I'm asking is because I may have to reshape my Northbridge waterblock for the two VCards to fit.

 

[Tip Top]

jpongin:

Hi,
I am tired now and need to go to sleep.
So this is gonna be brief.

It is hard to get 1GB sticks to work with any socket 939 board.
If you want to know 2 sticks of 1GB that will work rock solid in that exact board
in dual channel at PC3200 1T and can prime all the time, and never blue screen then PM me.

And if you think I don't know what I am talking about, just look up all my posts.
I found the answer.

And if you want some pc3200 that you can OC then I also have a suggestion that I did not personally test, but comes from talking to some of these companies, then I will look through my notes, but that may take a week.

 

[Tip Top]

These issues just makes me so mad