What settings should i use?

Counterfe1t · Apr 28, 2005, 12:37 AM

I currently added two sticks of 2x256 geil golden dragon PC3500 to my existing twin sticks of 2x256 Geil ultra PC3500 but after adding the ram i keep getting random hard lockups at first i suspected it was my graphics card and decided to reinstall the drivers but each time i reinstall and it lockups i lose my smartgart tab in settings as well as other tabs. in my bios i have DRAM settings all set to auto but this has not solved the problem. my FSB is set at 200.

here are my system specs

AMD 64 3000+ S939
MSI NEO2 Plat. S939
Sapphire radeon 9600xt (omega 4.12 with FW off)
2x256 Geil golden dragon PC3500 433mhz
2x256 Geil Ultra PC3500
Soundblaster Live 5.1
WD 40gb
Maxtor 80gb

i have already tried to switching DIMM for each stick of ram as well as uninstalling one stick to see if it works alone. but nothing seems to be working at this rate i dont know if i should sell it and buy just one stick of 1gb

mkk · Apr 28, 2005, 05:29 AM

With four modules it's fairly common to have to use slightly slower timings or lower the operating frequency for the memory. It seems like maybe the auto configuration in the BIOS doesn't handle that well enough. One can usually get an identification of the active settings by using CPU-Z. http://www.cpuid.org/cpuz.php

Apart from using slower timings/frequencies you could also try raising the voltage for the RAM one notch if the motherboard has such a setting, just to see if it helps at all.

Counterfe1t · Apr 28, 2005, 09:58 AM

here are the timings for the memory

mkk · Apr 28, 2005, 02:33 PM

I'd first try setting the timings to 2-4-4-7 manually in the BIOS if the settings are easy to find. It seems to be running at 2-3-3-6 now wich might be pushing it with four modules. If that doesn't help (and it's not a big step) you could try 2.5-4-4-7. On top of that you could have a look in the motherboard manual and see if it doesn't recommend lowering the RAM clock to 166/333 when four modules are used. That would at least be something to try if the slower timings does not help.

Counterfe1t · Apr 28, 2005, 11:27 PM

thanks mkk it seems to be running stable now i havent had a crash lately. i tested it on Forgotten hope, one of the games that was being afected more by the random crashes.