KG7 and RAM problem. A little help please.

MachineGunKelly

Bought two new 256 mb sticks of crucial 2100 to match the two sticks I already had to bring me up to a gig of ram. The only thing is that the two new sticks are single sided and the two older are double sided. Didn't realize the diff when purchased online.
They are the same model # and timing (2.5) just one's denser. When installed the comp beeps one beep about every three seconds and hangs on a black screen at boot. Reseated, changed slots with original two, no change.

Two old sticks are: CT3264Z265.16T CL2.5
Two new sticks: CT3264Z265.8LT3 CL2.5
Both kinds are Crucial brand name 266 mhz 2100 ddr modules.
The manual made no distinction between using single or double sided together on the Abit KG7. Right now I have the two new sticks in the rig I'm typing this on without any problems so far. I bought two new sticks to BOOST my memory, not replace it.
Any suggestions out there?

Thanks, MGK

muddocktor

MGK, are the 2 new sticks registered sticks of ddr? If not, you will have problems running 4 sticks of any brand ram if they all aren't registered ram. It's a limitation of the old AMD northbridge chip used on that board. To populate more than 4 banks (2 slots actually) you will need registered ram. You would probably be better off just sending the new ram back and eBaying the old ram and just buy you 1-1 gig stick of ram instead of trying to run 4 sticks. You can use Crucial's configurator to pick the correct sticks of ram for your machine.

MachineGunKelly

Hey Muddocktor, no they aren't. Didn't use my brain on that one did I? Thanks for the tip old friend....

MachineGunKelly

Well, I bought 4 sticks of 256 ECC registered ram on ebay, 2 crucial, 2 hynix, all with the same 'approved by IBM' fru number on them. Fired right up and then all I get is random reboots after about five minutes. Changed the bios to ECC, then error check, then check and correct, then correct and scrub, back to non-ecc with no discernable difference. Ran memtest up to about 85% of tests completed with no errors reported and was too tired to continue, kicked out the floppy and turned in.
Any comments on that fellas? I'm too stupid to figure it out.
MGK

profdlp

SM9 has the same board in it and I remember having a dickens of a time getting it stable. The good news is that it has run rock solid since I finally got it going, to the point that it had only rebooted once in the last six months - and that due to a power outage.

Unfortunately, I don't remember the exact steps I took to get it that way. If it's any help, my configuration looks like this:

Chipset Driving Control = All AUTO
Super Bypass Mode = Enabled
Super Bypass Wait State = 0 Cycle
SDRAM Timing = All AUTO

I'd let memtest run all the way through at least once; overnight would be even better.

Finally, random reboots might be a PSU problem. Do you have a good spare you could try?

MachineGunKelly

Hey Prof, do you mean the extra 2 sticks could be putting my psu over the limit for stable output?
No, I don't have a spare. Maybe I'll try rearranging the sticks in pairs and reseating firmly.
It's not actually bsod, my monitor just goes black and states 'computer will restart in ten seconds' or something like that. I've never seen that before.
Do you know how should I enable the bios settings to see the ECC registered ram sticks in addition to those you gave me?
THANKS, MGK

profdlp

There's an area in the BIOS under Advanced Chipset Configuration to enable ECC.

If you're getting a shutdown message then it's not the PSU.

Shuffling the sticks is a good idea.

One other quirk I remembered is that many of my problems went away when I enabled the onboard Highpoint Controller - even though there were no drives attached to it - and used the WinXP default driver for it.

MachineGunKelly

I'll let you know bro!
Thanks, MGK