quick help with k8v!!

[kaelaria2]

I have some issues with my new combo.

I moved from an a7n8x ans 3200 to the k8v and a a64 3400+.

My system is watercooled, everything was fine on the old system, everything oc'd just fine.

My ram is corsair xms 3500, and I had no issues on the old system.

On this one however, most of the time with the corsair, it won't even post. It takes a reseating of the stick to get video back, and then it freezes just into xp setup.

Switching to some cheap kingston ram fairs better, getting me past the raid driver disk screen, right to Setup is Starting Windows - then it hangs. Using a few various other cheap sticks gets results in between, with hangs at the CDROM boot screen, or just into setup.

I cannot locate any screen for usin the Promise controller, also. In the bios under 1001 which it shipped with, under avdanvedm onboard, it had enable promise and enable promise boot - that's it. I updated to 1003, and now there is only enable promise, that's it. Nothing about ide mode, and I have no where to get into fastrack.

help!

Do I need different ram? If so I purchase through www.mwave.com and www.newegg.com - and need 1GB total - which sticks are the most reliable for best performance with this board?

What's up with the Promise controller screens?


All bios settings are default/auto.

 

[mechBgon]

Ooops, bonus post courtesy of JRun

 

[mechBgon]

First of all, set your memory voltage to 2.7 volts. You'll find that setting in the BIOS > Advanced > JumperFree Configuration > DDR Voltage.

Now for that pesky Promise controller. You found the place to enable/disable it. If you want to run it in the "plain ATA" mode, then I think you will need to switch boards, because I don't think the 20376 has that capability, unlike the 20378 on the K8V SE Deluxe.

At any rate, if the Promise controller is enabled in Advanced > Onboard Devices, then it should display a little drive-detection screen during startup, like the one shown on page 3-14 of your K8V manual. At that point, you press the CTRL F key combo to enter its BIOS and you can define each drive as its own array if that suits your purposes, or make a RAID0 or RAID1 array out of two drives.

Hope that's some help

By the way, you have a good-quality ~350W+ power supply running the show in there, right? If it helps any, I was running a couple of Corsair XMS 3200C2's on my K8V Deluxe and that was working fine at 2.6-2.7 volts.

 

[kaelaria2]

Tried 2.7, tried all the different timings I could, nothing made a diff. The 3500 is significantly different than the 3200's, I know that. The manual states I can use the Promise in either mode, the options just aren't there. The first POST screen flashes by in an instant - maybe there is the CNTR-F option there I just can't see it.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

What brand and wattage PSU, and how old is it? Other than that and given how many sticks of ram you have tried, I'd say the board or CPU is flakey.

 

[mechBgon]

Where does the manual say you can use both modes... what page?

 

[kaelaria2]

Looks like the Promise is raid only - but still, it doesn't show any screens for it or show the promise bios.

I tried one of the cheap sticks at ddr200, timings to the max, and it got the farthest it ever did into setup. I also had to bump voltage to 2.8v.

Still nothing with the corsair even at 2.8. It makes it part way in and freezes.

I don't think it's board problem considering how each stick is reacting differntly to each setting. I think I just need the correct ram for the board. I'm reading that nushkin 2-2-2 is working, but don't need to pay nearly $400 for it. I see corsair 3200C2 is decently priced, but can't find a definative answer as to how it hold sup with this board.

 

[mechBgon]

I was using two Corsair XMS 3200C2's on my K8V Deluxe at 2.6 to 2.7 volts and that was working fine, if that helps at all. Slightly different board, of course.

 

[kaelaria2]

OK, I think I found the problem.

I ordered the MB/CPU combo through mwave, and they shipped it with a coolermaster HS/fan that I don't believe is adaqaute. I throttled the cpu from 2200 to 1000 and windows is just abount done installing now. I'm going to let it finish and throw some monitoring sw on to check cpu temp, and thottle it up to see where it stands - then try my 3500 ram. It's on the cheap kingston now.

I'm still waiting on the new waterblock to arrive monday, and this is the first time I've tried this fan unit.

 

[kaelaria2]

Little more info. Under load, MBM is reporting 45 C with the ram set at ddr200, cpu at 2.2GHz, 1.5v. I found that the system was defaulting to 1.4v, preventing it from even booting at full cpu speed. I'm slowly tweaking things and testing to see where the bottleneck is. I really miss the days of pluggin in hardware and it works like it's supposed to This shiiit is rediculous.