Asus A8N SLI Premium Memory Problem

[jpongin]

This reply was moved posted here in a new thread:
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=29&threadid=1735823&enterthread=y

 

[The Blue Factor]

hi guys cant believe i found this thread. i have been busting my brain trying to figure what the hell is wrong with my comp.

so i have a a8n sli premium board running 2 sets of the 10243200c2pro (4x512) with a 3800 x2 oc 2.6ghz. right now im having all kinds of trouble with the mem. i didnt have the boot problem this thread started with but i found that this ram doesnt really work well (well i think it doesnt) with this board.

anyways as i started to OC my system i found that my ram was already set to a divider right of the back. instead of the divider being on 400 it was already on 333. why? so i take about a week to do all my test and crap for the OC but i found that when i OC my ram can only go into a 266 divider and will not post on a 333 divider. confused yet?

another thing i have found is that the USB 2.0 is giving me a hard time with flash drives. at first i thought it was the OC so i reset my BIOS to default and boot up and try the flash drives, still doesnt work. its crazy cause my mouse and my keyboard work just fine and they are in the usb ports. it seems like the USB ports only want to work when they want. is anyone having this problem too???

so today i flashed my BIOS to 1009 and only created more probelms. now the USB dont want to work even once in a while and the OC is just gone to poop. so im back at square one again with the same problems 6weeks later.

also about the dimm placement for 2 sticks tried the 1 and 3 slot. no post 2 and 4 slot no post. seems to only work in the 1 and 2 slot. also with only 2 sticks i coullnt even run 1t command rate? nore could i even run tight timings of 2-2-2-5 ever. couldnt really figure out why so i just put all 4 sticks back in.

i was thinking about just getting some new ram but i am currently deployed to Iraq right now and that would take me about 4-5 weeks just to get that. plus i would never find anyone to buy my 4 sticks of corsair anywhere here. so lots of help would be great.

SUPPORT THE TROOPS
29th Brigade Combat Team

 

[wanderer27]

You've got a double whammy going - 4 sticks and an X2. Both situations by themselves can cause problems.

First I would ask how did it run at stock with four sticks ? Generally alot of people will have it default to DDR333 and will have a difficult time getting it to DDR400 (there are exceptions of course).

I would start out by seeing what you can do at stock settings - turn off all OC options and see if you can get DDR400 to work. Don't forget to set the timing to 2T, as with four sticks this is required.

Your CPU VCore should be about 1.4v, and your RAM should be around 2.7-2.8v. You'll probably want to set them manually.

 

[The Blue Factor]

i can boot into windows running 2.0ghz and ram at ddr400 2-3-3-6 2t. never really primed or anything cause its just stock but i did play pf2 and fear with those settings. worked fine.

i also can boot at 2.4ghz and run mem OC to ddr480. passes prime but gets all jacked on games and stuff. plus i have to loosen the timings crazy to 3-4-4-10.

the things im really worried about and are trying to find out is why i cant use a 333 divider while OC. and also why the USB ports do not work for flash drives when the mouse and key board work fine.

please help

 

[wanderer27]

Okay that sounds good.

How are you setting your OC settings ? I'm suspecting you may be overdriving something and that's why you're having problems.

 

[The Blue Factor]

okay this is what i did and im doing

all overclocking i do is done in bios and not with software.

BIOS v1009
CPU Freq. 266
multi x10
ht x3
ram on divider 266, 2-3-3-7 2t (freq 173.8)

i have ran prime95 2 instance and fine. bf2 and fear highest setting run fine. but the usb still dont work with flash drives. anyone experencing this??

another thing that i have found is that eversince i flashed the BIOS with 1009 the system hangs on the windows logo, why? does anyone else find this problem. which is the best BIOS to use. also i found that the max vcore i can get is 1.45 now and before it was 1.55 max. still works fine on 1.45 though.

im not sure what chipset version im using cause i dont know where to find it but i d/l the 6.65 but dont know how to install it. its a rar file.

help me out please. thanks

 

[wanderer27]

I think I see your problem

If you're running your Bus at 266 MHz this is what's happening with the Memory Dividers:

DDR266 -> Memory @ 177.3 MHz (okay)

DDR333 -> Memory @ 221.6 MHz (not okay)

You have PC3200/DDR400 Memory. 200 MHz +/- a little is all you can really expect.

You're currently doing 2.66 GHz on your CPU with your Hypertransport at 798, which is okay, your Memory is just too high.

Try these settings, HTT = 240, HT = x4, Multiplier = x10, and DDR333, this will give you:

CPU @ 2.4 GHz, Hypertransport @ 960, and Memory at 200 MHz (DDR400). Put your timings back to normal.

From here, you can bump up your Bus speed a little at a time until you have problems, then back off 5% (rule of thumb).

You'll probably be able to get higher than 240 MHz this way on stock settings (with DDR333). If you want more you're going to have to loosen up your timings.

If you're really wanting to run at 2.6 GHz, then too me it looks like you're going to be stuck with the DDR266 Divider.

 

[jpongin]

Second, 1gb sticks are still way too flaky with these boards. I have Kingston HyperX DDR 533 (256mb) x 4 sticks, Corsair 3200C2LL (512mb) x 4 sticks, Crucial Balllistix DDR500 (1gb) x 2 sticks, and probably 5 other brands of memory including Corsair 1gb value series and Kingston ddr400 512mb value ram. My present machine is A8N-SLI Premium, 4400+ X2, 2x1gb Crucial DDR500, BFG 7800GTX OC x 2 (sli), PC Power & Cooling SLI supply, and a Lian Li case. Also Seagate 400gb x 3 SATA 2 (nearline) hd, Plextor 716AS Optical, and some other misc. stuff. My machine ran great for about 2 months, and then it would do a series of spontaneous crashes, followed by a series of beeps, beeeeeeep, beep beep, beeeeeeep, beep beep. I removed a video card, changed bios settings including memory settings, and still having instability.

I totally know what you're saying!!!! I ONLY have the Crucial 2GB DDR500 Ballistix kit, and I'm experiencing some major problems. Even at 1:1 (400mhz divider), loose timings (3-4-4-8 2T), and 210x11 HHTx4, my box won't POST after the first 10 minutes of manual restarts.. what the hell???

Is it the
1) the X2 4800+'s memory controller?
2) My memory? (I'm going to RMA this btw becuase I can't even POST at 250 with loose timings and low cpu and HHT multipliers)
3) My ASUS Premium Board?

AND!, my dual channels aren't working at all.

On single channel mode.... Slots1&2 don't detect the Ballistix RAM, but Slots 3&4 do! Remember, I'm testing single channel mode, so I'm testing one stick at a time per slot. This is so wacked out. I'm tempted to RMA all three: The CPU, the Mem, and the Board...

This will be the third time I RMA this board. What do you guys think I should do?

 

[The Blue Factor]

i can what your tring to say but tell me if this makes sense.

so today i was just im my usual tweeking mode cause i just want to get this thing stable already so i set my rig to 2.4 240 mem. runs fine. like a champ with 3-3-3-8 settings. so what i dont understand is when i run it at 2.66 how come i cant run the mem at 221.6 like you had said. very very confusing.

oh and to make things worse my computer does random shutdowns. like ill be doing things like burning 2 disks and listining to music and when the song changes. bam dead. so i thought it was the OC so i dropped everything back to default and did the same exact thing and bam did it again just died. tried to think of somethings that i have done lately and all i did was flash bios to 1009, update driver for video and sound. right now im thinking about CMOS my board and starting all over with a fresh OS. seems like once i get it stable 2 weeks later something bad happens and i have to start all over again. this will be my 6th time reloading my OS. pretty gay.

does anyone know what is up with my USB ports? why they dont work?

!?!?!?!SUPPORT THE TROOPS!?!?!?!
29TH BCT, IRAQ

 

[wanderer27]

Originally posted by: The Blue Factor
i can what your tring to say but tell me if this makes sense.

so today i was just im my usual tweeking mode cause i just want to get this thing stable already so i set my rig to 2.4 240 mem. runs fine. like a champ with 3-3-3-8 settings. so what i dont understand is when i run it at 2.66 how come i cant run the mem at 221.6 like you had said. very very confusing.

oh and to make things worse my computer does random shutdowns. like ill be doing things like burning 2 disks and listining to music and when the song changes. bam dead. so i thought it was the OC so i dropped everything back to default and did the same exact thing and bam did it again just died. tried to think of somethings that i have done lately and all i did was flash bios to 1009, update driver for video and sound. right now im thinking about CMOS my board and starting all over with a fresh OS. seems like once i get it stable 2 weeks later something bad happens and i have to start all over again. this will be my 6th time reloading my OS. pretty gay.

does anyone know what is up with my USB ports? why they dont work?

!?!?!?!SUPPORT THE TROOPS!?!?!?!
29TH BCT, IRAQ

You're running four sticks of Memory, that in itself is pretty a pretty fair load on your CPU's Memory Controller. On top of that, you're trying to run 200MHz RAM at 221.6 MHz, almost an 11% increase. I could see maybe 205-210 MHz being stable, but with DDR266 Divider your looking at having to run your Bus at over 300 MHz - not likely. With the DDR333 divider to get your Memory running at 205-210 MHz you'd be running your Bus at about 250 MHz - that may be possible but I might question the stability. You can test it out and see.

For your shutdown issue it really sounds like a power problem. You look to have a pretty good PSU so I'm wondering if there's a problem with it. Do you have a 20 or 24 Pin ATX power connector ? Have you plugged in the 4 Pin connector by the CPU ? How about the EZ-Power connector by the PCIex slot (just like a HD connector) ?

For you USB, have you plugged them into the correct places on your MB ? There a 1394 connector that you want to make sure you're not plugging them into. It could possibly be and IRQ issue as well. You may want to double check your BIOS for the USB stuff to make sure it looks right.

 

[The Blue Factor]

okay so well i guess ill just keep using the 266 divider cause it seems to be working fine. just wanted to get the ram up but i can live with it.

im not sure if its a power problem about the shut down, but i do have a 24 pin atx and i have the 4 pin on the mobo and 4 pin on the pic-e. ill just start from scratch and then work from there again.

about the USB... this is my biggest problem. i do have them pluged in on the right place. i know its not the 1394 cause im using the 1394. the ports on the back of the board dont even pick up my flash drives. i looked in the bios and everything says enabled so yeah. do you think i have a bad board. i mean it works only when it wants to. lol i know that sounds funny but it is totally true. also what is a IRQ issue. please help

 

[lennox]

Hi guys,

Just wanted to jump in here and say that I had this same bizarre problem..

Purchased 2 identical setups:

ASUS A8N-SLI Premium
AMD64 4000+
Corsair CMX-C2PT (XMS3200 512mb x 2)

The first setup was problem free. It booted the first time and even installed windows without needing to use the F6 SCSI drivers. Impressive.

So the second build is complete, and i'm staring at a black screen. No post messages, no beep errors, no voice errors. Just a black screen.

Google time.

Found this thread and this is what I did to fix the problem.

Remove the Corsair RAM.
Remove the Battery.
Reset CMOS jumper, replace battery.
Put in some old DDR266 RAM that I had laying around.
Booted up.

I actually got a POST this time. CMOS checksum failed as it should so I went to BIOS, saved settings and exited.

Shut down the computer, put the Corsair RAM back in and it booted perfectly.

I did not change ANY BOIS settings at all. There is no need to manually set timings, atleast not for me.

That is all, just wanted to share with anyone who might have googled this thread

PS: This place is impossible to find the damn register link, I guessed and typed join.aspx in the URL to signup.

 

[letstalkcisco]

I'm running an ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe, 3700+ and 2x512MB mushkin 2-2-2 pc3200. I also found that the BIOS does a very poor job of detecting the RAM. I've had to go in and manually set all of my timings to get it even remotely close to spec (2-3-2-6 or prime gets pissed). Auto-detected to 3-4-4-7 and 2T. Kind of annoying - other boards I've put this into didn't get that far off. Plus there are about 15 RAM timing settings, 10 of which I haven't heard of and therefore who knows what else is being incorrectly autodetected?

 

[gregtor]

I have an asus a8n-sli premium with Corsair (TWINX1024-3200C2PT) 1024MB (2 x 512MB memory with correct timings 2-3-3-6 but my system will not boot with this memory in dual channel I have latest bios 1009. Both sticks work in single channel together and appart but for some odd reason both dual channel slots don't work just get a single beep and a double beep.

 

[Dethedrus]

Oh ye gods I wish this had solved my problems!

I just had the misfortune to experience a brownout followed by a blackout which completely fried my venerable and lovable A7N8X Deluxe ;(

So since it had been an unbelievably long time since my last major upgrade (closing in on 3 years), I took the punge and got a A8N-SLI Premium couple with a A64 3000+. After getting everything put back together and starting the WinXP build process, I was horrified on the first reboot to see that HAL.DLL was corrupt or missing.

Assuing I had a bad stick of memory or two to show for the power issues, I whipped out my UltraX PhD tester card and tested both of my Corsair TwinX 3200C2-LL to no avail. Oddly enough the CAS settings are screwed up using auto config, which was the first reason I suspected a memory issue.

So I bump the DDR voltage to 2.75 after reading this thread, rebuild (delete partition and completely start from scratch). And what am I greetd with on the first reboot:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing
or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\hall.dll.
Please re-install a copy of the above file.

Any ideas?

 

[wanderer27]

First off, I'd make sure all the auto OC options are off/disabled in BIOS - there's about four or five of them.

I'd start off with manually setting your Memory Timings as well - go with loose timings until you get OS and Drivers installed.

IDE, SATA, or both ?

Maybe a few more System specs/components ?

 

[Dethedrus]

Originally posted by: wanderer27
First off, I'd make sure all the auto OC options are off/disabled in BIOS - there's about four or five of them.

They're all off.

I'd start off with manually setting your Memory Timings as well - go with loose timings until you get OS and Drivers installed.

Loose timings? The only change I've done so far is the DDR voltage boost, but obviously that was of no use.

IDE, SATA, or both ?

Maybe a few more System specs/components ?

No SATA and no IDE except the CDR (and that's temporary as I'm going to put it in an external enclosure if I ever get this installed).

Here goes the complete breakdown:

A8N-SLI Premium
Athlon64 3000+
Corsair TwinX1024-3200LL (both sticks)
GeForce 6600GT PCIe
Adaptec 29160 SCSI
- IBM 37gb 10k SCSI drive
3ware Escalade SATA RAID 5
- 5 x 180gb WD IDE drives using SATA converters
Pioneer A04 DVD-RW
Plextor 48x CDRW

I've found that if I disable Plug n' Play OS option, the build goes the same way, but on the reboot instead of giving me the HAL error it just hangs for about a minute then tells me boot drive not found, or something along those lines.

This setup was working just fine on my A7N8X Deluxe, and the only new component besidse the motherboard and CPU is the video card.

 

[wanderer27]

Hmm, looks like your setup is going to be a bit beyond my experience. I'm also a little confused by it.

You said you're not using a SATA or an IDE Drive, but you say you've got an offboard SATA controller and five SATA Drives ? Why not use the onboard controllers ?

I'm assuming you're Booting off the SCSI ? If that's the case, I'd remove/disable all the other Drives and install the OS & Drivers on the Boot Drive. Once that's up and running, hook up your other Drives and I would think you should be fine.

 

[Dethedrus]

Originally posted by: wanderer27
You said you're not using a SATA or an IDE Drive, but you say you've got an offboard SATA controller and five SATA Drives ? Why not use the onboard controllers ?

Because I'm using a hardware RAID5 card, not the anemic style found onboard

I'm assuming you're Booting off the SCSI ? If that's the case, I'd remove/disable all the other Drives and install the OS & Drivers on the Boot Drive. Once that's up and running, hook up your other Drives and I would think you should be fine.

I'm starting to think you may be onto something, especially in light of the fact that it seems to keep defaulting the RAID card as my "SCSI0" device and the actual SCSI card as "SCSI1".

 

[FirenzeL]

ok, I got this mobo for X-mas, and had a wee problem with a BIOS update, in which my BIOS deleted, then my PC promptly crashed... not good... anyway, it'll be back with me in a very short time, and i want to know, if i use my RAM, which i did have severe problems with too start, and then i think it was my RAM that caused my PC to crash during Flashing, and try and Flash with a modified bios to provide the power for it, will my computer still crash after flashing??

 

[wanderer27]

Originally posted by: FirenzeL
ok, I got this mobo for X-mas, and had a wee problem with a BIOS update, in which my BIOS deleted, then my PC promptly crashed... not good... anyway, it'll be back with me in a very short time, and i want to know, if i use my RAM, which i did have severe problems with too start, and then i think it was my RAM that caused my PC to crash during Flashing, and try and Flash with a modified bios to provide the power for it, will my computer still crash after flashing??

I'm not sure I follow what you're saying here . . . .

In any case, don't flash your BIOS until you can verify that your System is stable, otherwise you're just asking for problems.

When you get your MB back I'd make sure all the OC options are turned off/disabled as well - at least until you can verify if your RAM is any good or not.

 

[FirenzeL]

ok, sorry, i'll try again

For x-mas i got this mobo... I have the RAM stated in my sig. It is definately in the compatible RAM list for this mobo. yet i had issues at first as per the Voltage issue brought up earlier in this thread. If i modify the original BIOS on the board, to sort this issue, and then Flash the BIOS, will it remember my manual settings, and remain stable?

 

[wanderer27]

It's been a while since I've Flashed my BIOS, but I believe you'll have to reset everything after Flashing.

Your RAM looks pretty similar to mine, so I wouldn't expect you to have any issues on that front.

 

[FirenzeL]

well i had issues with my RAM and this mobo when i first had it, (as per the voltage issue earlier in this thread). I resolved this by placing an old stick of Kingston PC3200 type stuff in, and it worked, so i turned the pc off, replaced the kingston with one stick of my Corsair, flipped her back on again, and bingo, it worked. Off again, second stick in the dual channel slot, and i got 1GB of RAM... but when i came to flashing my bios, (trying to update to 1009 in windows tho... bad idea from the start really) and as soon as my old bios was deleted, pop, and my pc crashed, no BIOS on the board, and man did i feel stupid... but the RAM is compatible, as others have found it works great with a slight voltage tweak, and i slotted the RAM in my old PC and it worked a charm! so just kinda scared that my pc is gonna mess up every time i try and update my bios (which tbh isn't going to be all that often, but still), and leave me with a dead mobo...

 

[FirenzeL]

ok, so I've got all my bits an pieces now, and i need a wee bit o' help... I've got the parts in my Sig, and i know (thanks to people in this thread) that i need to play with my BIOS settings to make my RAM work... I've Read through this thread and there is talk about the settings to put it on, but i got confused very quickly when it got to the technical bits... could someone please like post up some screenies or something, or just write it out in the simplest way possible so i can just put in the right stuff for it please? Thanks,
Firenze!