Dodgy Memory or wrong BIOS settings?

[-shiva-]

Right, I suppose I should start with my spec.

PIII 667Mhz
Asus P3V4X Mobo
Radeon 64MB
256MB PC133

A little while back, I had 128MB of PC100 memory. I decided I needed an upgrade and as memory is so cheap at the moment, I thought 256 PC133 was the way to go.

However, when I installed the memory my system became very unstable. I got iexplore crashes everywhere. After much testing I isolated 1 stick as definitly being faulty (used PC Check) and the other whilst testing ok caused blue screens.

So I sent it back. A replacement arrived today. I have installed it but I am concerned I am suffering from the same problem. I have had a few crashes and my system is usually rock solid (apart from when playing Giants :) ).

I was worried that I might have fried the first batch by accident, so I obtained an ESD for the second lot (and yeah I know i shouldha first time, but I did earth myself etc..).

I find it hard to beleive that I have recieved 2 lots of faulty memory. I was thinking maybe I was missing something in my BIOS, that I need to change it. I cannot, however, find anything I understand :wink: i.e. a PC100 to PC133 switch. At the moment it is selecting by SPD?? or something similar. I am loath to fiddle with things which appear to autodetect without knowing the consequences. There are also CAS, RAS etc. settings but these are greyed out by default.

Thats about it. Faulty memory or forgotten BIOS setting?

Thats for you to decide....



[Edited by -shiva- on 15-01-2001 at 08:24 PM]

[werewolf_bite]

check the timing settings etc.
I have a KA7 and 128mb of Crucial PC133 CAS2 ram and it never ran stable (in any of the slots, at any settings) until i had flashed to a newer bios, even now it's not 100% stable.

[-shiva-]

Could you please elaborate on "timing stting". I assume you mean the CAS etc. I don't know what they should be. atm there are three settings, the first is on 2, the others on 3. I will check what the setting are.

[werewolf_bite]

hi you should have CAS, try setting that to 3 on all the memory (it's slightly slower, but can improve stability).

Also you might find settings for the ram such as, Normal, Turbo. Try setting that to normal.

I'm not sure what the other settings would be on your board :(

[-shiva-]

ta will try that....as soon as i can drag myself away from Giants...oh well it'll crash soon so I can do it then :wink:

[NumbNutz]

Shiva,

I've been digging on the ASUS web site and have found this (http://www.asus.com.tw/Products/Techref/Memory/Pc100/pc100.html) about PC100 RAM. Basically, it's a compatibility list of PC100 RAM for BX style boards.

Part of the page has this:Question :
What does SPD do for the PC100 SDRAM module?

Answer :
PC100 modules can also have a serial EEPROM (called SPD; Serial Presence Detect) containing a number of critical timing parameters and information about the chip modules supplier. These guarantee that the 440BX AGPset will properly recognize the module by reading all the important timing parameters stored in the EEPROM over the serial presence detect interface.So, that's the SPD question answered. :{

I've been trying to find your motherboard manual to have a skeggles at that - but can I get the flippin thing downloaded ? Grrrr. I have just found this link (http://www.btinternet.com/~p3v4x/) on the OcUK site that may help - but there doesn't seem to be anything specific about your RAM troubles.

As usual, Werewolf is on the ball, and dropping the RAM settings (if possible) should help give stabillity to the system. I'll try and D/L the mobo manual tomorrow and have a look then.

[NumbNutz]

Shiva,

Finally managed to download the manual :mad:

I can see from this that the board has dip switches but can also be run in 'Jumper Free' mode. Which mode are you running in ? JF would be better (IMO) as it's easier to change the settings in the BIOS than having to fiddle with the motherboard anytime you want to make a change. I'm going to assume that you are in JF mode and that all of your dip switches are off - they'd have to be for you to be in JF mode anyway ;)

The RAM you've installed is PC133. The 'SPD' setting should try and read the details from the DIMM's EEPROM - now that's fine if the DIMM has one of these! See my previous post - it say they can have a serial EEPROM. It's possible that your RAM doesn't have one of these :{ However, whether it does or doesn't, there are some things to try on the Chip Configuration menu in the BIOS.

Try changing the SDRAM Configuration from SPD to USER DEFINE and choose the [8ns (125mhz)] option.

Doing this should 'un-grey' the choices beneath, these being:

SDRAM CAS Latency--------------------3
SDRAM RAS Precharge Time-------------3
SDRAM RAS to CAS delay---------------3
SDRAM Active to Precharge Time-------6

The above settings are from the the manual. I'd go with these for a start, especially the CAS Latency of 3 as this should be the most stable.

Once you have saved these options in the BIOS, restart the system and see what you get.

There is another option in the Advanced Menu that looks at the System/PCI Frequency to change the bus speed. I think that this may need manually setting to 133 - trouble is that this can only be done if you manually set the speed of the CPU. This shouldn't be too difficult though as you'd just set the CPU Speed variable to Manual / 650.

Finally, for now anyway, you should probably make single changes to the BIOS. Note the change you've made. Save. Reboot. Check. If there is something wrong, reverse the last change(s). You will get into trouble if you make multiple changes to the BIOS and don't note down what you've done :(. Your 'Get out of Jail' card is in the Exit Menu as this has a Load Setup Defaults option to revert the BIOS to it's factory settings.

Just a thought - is the system stable with just one stick of the new RAM ? Have you tried moving the RAM to different slots ? Another thing - make sure that the sticky label that they attach to the RAM is not covering the gold connectors. I had one stick that refuesed to work and it was down to a flippin' sticker touching the gold. Grrrr.

I dunno what else to suggest after this but I'd be interested to hear how you get on. Hope the above information is of some use.

Regards

PS - This is one of those occasions where I'd love to be able to get my hands on the PC and have a play. Computers are easy, it's people (esp women!) that are difficult.

[JGJones]

Originally posted by numbnutz

PS - This is one of those occasions where I'd love to be able to get my hands on the PC and have a play. Computers are easy, it's people (esp women!) that are difficult.

:laugh: tell me about it :)

Also one other idea...might have been mentioned already in the too long post above that I can't be arsed to read (sorry Numbnutz :E)

I've got two PC133 128Mb in my motherboard...once it was 128Mb...stable for ages...and then I got a 2nd 128Mb...BSODing everywhere, a very freaky thing for me cos I've never seen it happen on Windows 2000 :) Anyway after doing what you did and then I swapped the memory around...guess what...no problem...first 128Mb into DIMM1 and 2nd 128Mb into DIMM0 and there's no problem...

Strange...but it works :) On a 2nd PC similar thing happened and its solution was to put one 128Mb in DIMM0 bank and the other in DIMM2 bank (leaving the middle bank empty) - that works too...

[NumbNutz]

Originally posted by numbnutz
Just a thought - is the system stable with just one stick of the new RAM ? Have you tried moving the RAM to different slots ? Another thing - make sure that the sticky label that they attach to the RAM is not covering the gold connectors. I had one stick that refuesed to work and it was down to a flippin' sticker touching the gold. Grrrr. Couldn't be bothered to read it JGJ ? :angry:

I demand you read it ALL now! :laugh:

Your solution to the memory woes by moving it is a good 'un and if you had been bothered :hmph: to read me post you would have seen it.

Bah, Only kidding m8y! Glad to know that I'm not daft in suggesting moving the memory in the slots - 'cos if I am it makes two of us! :laugh:

[-shiva-]

@ work atm, so cant fiddle now. With the previous lot of memory I did try all the slots. It is in jumper free mode so I shgould be able to change it all this evening...I will post back my results.

Funny thing is, after posting my problem, the machine got a lot more stable and didn't crash all evening. PCs eh? I will fiddle and see what I find.

Thanks for the info.

I was not able to get onto the asus site4 at all over the last week or so.

[cem]

ok while u guys are on the 'ram' subject.. can i ask yis?.. if i have PC100mhz stuff yeah? then buy 133stuff.. swap em over.. do i have to change anything in my AbitKT7 BIOS settings to make it run at 133? ie: 100-->133 or visa versa

thanks

cem

[NumbNutz]

Cem,

Oh yes. There are a lot of settings that can/need(?) to be changed. I'm at work as well at the moment and need to get some stuff done. However, if you click on the 'Bible' link in my siggeh below :stare: you will get the best answers for ABIT KT7 queries.

[werewolf_bite]

Hi

you would need to go to the Softmenu III part of the bios (press "del" on booting, then top left submenu), and change the DRAM (or memory setting) to either "host + PCI" or Host + 33" (can't remember which one it is listed as)