4BG Ram problem

goodlad

Hey guys,

I currently have vista 32-Bit on my system. Bought an extra 2GB of ram for it. Now i know that vista will only read and use i think 3.2GB of RAM. Just bought it now caus soon im upgrading to Vista 64-Bit.

But when i put in the 4GB to my machine the BIOS see's the RAM fine. The vista starting screen starts then i get a blue screen of death and the machine re-starts. I cant see and error code on the blue screen caus it flicks up for well under a second.

Just to test i tried to boot the machine up with just 1 stick of RAM in and alternated this untill i had tried all 4 sticks. And it works fine with all 4 individually so i dont have any faulty RAM.

I have enabled the /3 GB switch in vista, reboot and tried the extra RAM again and still had no luck.
I even tried to set the lage file as if i had 4GB in the machine. Then re-boot with the extra RAM in again and still have no luck.

I had thought a bios update for the board might be in order but as the bios see's the 4GB with no probs and the machine only blue screen's when vista starts to load in i kinda rules out the bios idea in my mind.

U guys any ideas?

Spear

With 4 DIMMs you'll probably need to up the voltage slightly.

Saruman

Can you get into vista in safe mode with the 4 dimms?

Did you use google at all? Try this.
http://www.overclock.net/intel-memory/253887-4gb-ram-bsod-vista-fix.html

goodlad

Doh! i really should of mentioned that. Yeah i can boot up no problems into safe mode with the 4 sticks in the machine.

If it helps at all the board i have is a Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6 and the RAM im using is OCZ 4GB (4x1GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Reaper HPC Edition

EDIT: Just looked at that link you post Saruman, i will check it out when i get home later and see if it does the trick.

astrofool

Check for a bios update. Alot of boards had problems with 4 dimm slots populated, though I'd expect an X38 to be ok.

What speed are you running the RAM at? Could you try and reduce it, and see if it boots? Also, try and setting the timings as relaxed as possible (usually higher numbers). That should eliminate whether it's a board/hardware problem, or a windows issue.

goodlad

Spear wrote: »

With 4 DIMMs you'll probably need to up the voltage slightly.

Worked like a charm dude! thanks! I just popped into the bios and changed the voltage control to "auto" and it sorted it out. Though i wonder why it wasnt at auto by default.

Cheers to the other peeps giving advice aswell :D

blackgold>>

You must of being fiddling with the bios settings as the ram has a chip called the spd eeprom that says what speed and voltage for it to run at.

goodlad

blackgold>> wrote: »

You must of being fiddling with the bios settings as the ram has a chip called the spd eeprom that says what speed and voltage for it to run at.

nah man, ive never overclocked this machine or messed with any bios settings at all. And since switching the bios voltage setting to auto is what made it work i believe that the problem was just the default bios settings.

blackgold>>

Fair enough but when you switched it to auto auto means it had to read the info from the eeprom spd on the ram modules.
Defasult bios is always set to read the spd so something must have changed it .

Funkiwi75

goodlad wrote: »

Now i know that vista will only read and use i think 3.2GB of RAM.

Just a quick note, I have just finished building a PC for someone with 8gb RAM dual boot (XP Pro x64 & Vista HP 32bit) the surprising thing is that the Vista showed 8GB. But i don't think it will use it.

Deliverance XXV

Funkiwi75 wrote: »

Just a quick note, I have just finished building a PC for someone with 8gb RAM dual boot (XP Pro x64 & Vista HP 32bit) the surprising thing is that the Vista showed 8GB. But i don't think it will use it.

Yeah, I got caught out with that one too. They released SP1 for Vista which allows Vista to see all the memory but it still cant utilise more than 3.25 etc.

blackgold>>

Ever learn the powers of 2 ?
2^32= 4 294 967 296

11111111111111111111111111111111 you have 32 bits the biggest number you can possibly make out of them bits is 4 294 967 296 bits bytes , bananas whatever .

goodlad

Im just gonna post an update on this in case anyone else is having the same type of problem.

Im currently running vista 64-Bit. And still trying to sort out using 4x1GB ram sticks.

I had givin up on this problem for the last few months but decided to go back to it again 2 days ago.

It ends up that the Bios on the GA-X38-DQ6 has a problem with running 4x1GB sticks at 1066Mhz.

The default ddr voltage on the board for the ddr slots is 1.8 Volts where as the RAM i have needs 2.3 Volts. Even when increasing the voltage up to 2.3 the machine doesnt boot at all.

It goes into a loop of recovering the bios until i remove 2GB.
From what im reading about this the only way i can run the 4GB is to lower the timings. I will need to run the 4GB at 800MHz instead of the 1066Mhz that the Ram can do.

Some people have managed to run the RAM at the full 1066 with the latest bios update where as other people have not. Im gonna be upgrading my bios tonight and giving it a shot running the 4gb at 1066 and see how i get on.

Worst case seems i gotta run my 4gb ram at 800mhz, which is still better than running 2gb at 1066mhz. Still kinda annoying though...

Anti

Yeah its a well known problem for alot of boards.

goodlad

Actually just a thought i had now.

The timings on my RAM are 5-5-5-15.
Thats the default timing of my RAM.

Anti, what should i be setting the timings to so the ram will run at 800mhz?
Something like 5-5-5-18?

Anti

You could probably go tighter since your infact underclocking the ram. Something like 4-4-4-12 should work, but to be safe id stick with the 5-5-5-15.

Only when your overclocking the ram you should make the timings looser. So say you were pushing for 1333mhz fsb or higher you would go say 5-6-6-19 or similar.

goodlad

Anti wrote: »

You could probably go tighter since your infact underclocking the ram. Something like 4-4-4-12 should work, but to be safe id stick with the 5-5-5-15.

Only when your overclocking the ram you should make the timings looser. So say you were pushing for 1333mhz fsb or higher you would go say 5-6-6-19 or similar.

Cheers, i think i had it kinda backwards in my head, hehe.

Although, the Ram i have is 1066 and the timings on it are already 5-5-5-15, which is running it at the 1066. But since i need to run it at about 800 should i not drop the timing to the 4-4-4-12?

goodlad

Right o, i just got home and tried some stuff with no success.
If anyone can help me out it would be much appreciated.

With the ram timing set to 5-5-5-15 the machine wont boot with 4gb.
With the timing set to auto the machine wont boot with 4gb.

I just set the timing to 4-4-4-12 with 4gb and the machine wont boot.

I have tried all those settings with the voltage on auto, the machine wont boot.
I also tried all settings with the voltage at +0.05 volts.

I just dont know what to do from here to be honest.
Im not all that informed on overclocking or in this case underclocking.

Spear

goodlad wrote: »

I also tried all settings with the voltage at +0.05 volts.

0.05V? Try in the region of +0.1 or 0.2V.

goodlad

Just tried more stuff.

I left timings set to 4-4-4-12.

I set the voltage to +0.1 volts.
Boot with 4gb in it and passed the post fine. But upon vista booting i got a blue screen.

I then increased the voltage to +0.2 volts and it went past the post fine.

But again it blue screen'd again.

Now the machine wont even turn on. If i hit the power button the power supply fan flicks on for literally half a second then turns off.
Its stuck in a loop now doing that :(

Spear

goodlad wrote: »

Just tried more stuff.

I left timings set to 4-4-4-12.

I set the voltage to +0.1 volts.
Boot with 4gb in it and passed the post fine. But upon vista booting i got a blue screen.

I then increased the voltage to +0.2 volts and it went past the post fine.

But again it blue screen'd again.

Now the machine wont even turn on. If i hit the power button the power supply fan flicks on for literally half a second then turns off.
Its stuck in a loop now doing that :(

There should be jumper on the board to reset the BIOS, try that to see if it boots.

What sticks are these anyway. There are plenty of sticks that recommend a voltage as high as 2.3V to make their tighter timings.

goodlad

OCZ 4GB (4x1GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Reaper HPC Edition

The mad thing is the voltage on the spec of that ram is 2.3 volts.
The default ddr slot board voltage is 1.8volts.

So the ram shouldnt have any problem with the additional 0.2 volts.

Yeah i had thought about the board jumper to reset. Though i cant find any of the little thingys to clip on the pins to reset it.

Any other way i can reset it? Could i use a screw driver with a rubber handle to touch both pins? and hold it there when i press the power button?

EDIT: the screw driver did the trick. its booting again

Spear

goodlad wrote: »

OCZ 4GB (4x1GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Reaper HPC Edition

The mad thing is the voltage on the spec of that ram is 2.3 volts.
The default ddr slot board voltage is 1.8volts.

So the ram shouldnt have any problem with the additional 0.2 volts.

Yeah i had thought about the board jumper to reset. Though i cant find any of the little thingys to clip on the pins to reset it.

Any other way i can reset it? Could i use a screw driver with a rubber handle to touch both pins? and hold it there when i press the power button?

EDIT: the screw driver did the trick. its booting again

Then set them to 2.3V, especially given there's fours sticks of them, and more voltage did seem to be improving things. You may also want to download Memtest86+ to boot from and check the memory stability.

goodlad

I had ran memtest before on the sticks. I ram it overnight on 2 sticks then the following night ran it on the other 2 sticks. They came up clean.

Later tonight i will give it a shot upping the voltage. It will mean increaseing it by 0.5 volts to bring it to 2.3 volts.

Im not expecting it to work though considering the bios needed to be reset when i only increased it by 0.2 but i will give it a shot.

Btw, cheers for all the speedy replys

PogMoThoin

goodlad wrote: »

Im not expecting it to work though considering the bios needed to be reset when i only increased it by 0.2 but i will give it a shot.

Your bios needed to be reset cos you got a failed overclock, ie not giving your ram enough voltage. This is very common with overclockers. Clear cmos by moving the jumper with the battery removed & load optimised defaults in the bios. Clearing cmos will reset your bios to stock settings, You may have to reset sata settings, boot order etc, all you set in bios before this. Give the sticks the voltage they need, in your case 2.3V. If the manufacturer recommends 2.3V then thats what they need.

About 2 years ago there were loads of similar issues of boards not even booting first time with new ram because of too little voltage, people had to insert generic ram (1.8V stuff), set voltage higher then change to the new ram just to get the boards to post.

The reason that the motherboard gives the sticks 1.8V is down to the SPD, this is where the manufacturer (OCZ) states what timings and voltage the chips use at certain frequencies. You can read this information in cpuz.