Need Help: 4400+ on A8N-SLI Premium, can't get 4x512mb working

JonseyJonsey Microsoft Corporation
edited July 2005 in Hardware
I can't get my 4 sticks of Corsair ValueSelect running on my system (see title).

Three will run fine, and any three at that, all live through memtest for ~6 hours/triplet.

I've set the BIOS RAM settings manually to try and fix this (BIOS version 1005), and I've set it to use 2T addressing timing.... but no luck, the system won't even POST to the first screen of the BIOS, just one long repeated beep... : (

Advice/help?

Comments

  • MissilemanMissileman Orlando, Florida Icrontian
    edited July 2005
    Your board isn't producing enough voltage/current for that many memory chips. They double sided ? If so you neeed to change to single sided if you want to run 4.

    Bigger power supply may help, but most of the memory juice comes from the onboard power regulators so you may be up the creek.
  • JonseyJonsey Microsoft Corporation
    edited July 2005
    Have tried stepping the voltage up to 2.8 from 2.7 after Corsair's CSRs have suggested it.

    And, yes, they're double sided, which according to both Corsair & AMD will work just fine with a 4400+ (E revision chips can all address up to 4GB, which is neccisarly on dual sided DIMMs, they just have to run at 2T instead of 1T) (If you'd like the link to AMD's whitepapers on this, I'll try to dig them back up, but I didnt' make the purchase blindly)

    PSU is cranking 480W, in a system with only the CPU, mobo, one videocard, one HDD, one optical drive, and three low-rpm fans... *should not* be a PSU issue, but I'm willing to believe it could be.
  • JonseyJonsey Microsoft Corporation
    edited July 2005
    Going to flash up to beta BIOS 1007.002 tonight. Latest offical seems to be 1005.

    Note to self: ASUS NorthAmerica is horribly maintained... only use global from now on.
  • MissilemanMissileman Orlando, Florida Icrontian
    edited July 2005
    It's really not a Power supply issue. It's a current issue. Double sided draw a LOT of current. Current which does not come from the PSU but the regulators on the MB. The PSU supplies the raw power to the MB which then is processed for use by the CPU and RAM. If they cannot supply enough current to light up that many chips then you see what you are experiencing. It would require a motherboard change if this is the case and it sure looks like it.

    It is a common problem which is why everyone says to run single sided when running 4 modules. It lowers the current requirement from the motherboard power section.
  • JonseyJonsey Microsoft Corporation
    edited July 2005
    Actually, the board is really more than up to it, even specs itself out for it in the documentation... However, that's not the problem.

    While the system can boot with only one DIMM, and that DIMM in the "B2" / Outermost Bank, memtest shows *GOBS* of errors, and they're non-consistent with the same DIMMs memtest in other slots, or with it's own runs.

    I've got a bad DIMM bank on my motherboard, 2nd part in a row I'm going to have to RMA to NewEgg (my X800XL came with a "spare" capacitor in the static bag). At least their RMA policy is friendly, even if it means another week of downtime for me.

    : )
  • MissilemanMissileman Orlando, Florida Icrontian
    edited July 2005
    Glad you found it. I haven't seen an actual bad socket in a long time
  • JonseyJonsey Microsoft Corporation
    edited July 2005
    Surprised me too, but that's gotta be the thing, the errors on the RAM in that socket come at random intervals (not even offset by a certain amount), and they don't happen if it's in a different slot. :rolleyes: ah well, progress! :D
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