Memory Problem - Help

A

Ariel

n00b
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Jan 23, 2005
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I just built this system:

Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard
AMD Athlon64 FX-55 CPU
2 x MSI geForce 6800's
Sound Blaster Audigy ZS
Dell 2005FPW Wide Screen Monitor
4 x Kingston 512MB DDR400

Here is the problem ....

When I put two sticks of the memory in, the mobo detects it as DDR400. If I put all four sticks in, it boots in DDR333 .... any ideas why that would happen? I've booted the PC with each stick one at a time to see if any were bad, but it worked fine each time...

I have noticed that when I have all four sticks, I get three short beeps, a slight pause, then another short beep when I first turn the computer on... Other than the wrong memory speed, the PC seems to be working fine ....
 
most mobos wont accept a double sided stick in all dimms at the max speed. its got something to do with the last 2 slots sharing addresses or something of that nature. read about the memory slots in your mobo manual, it will usually have a chart that will show which slots can take what at ddr400 and ddr333.

my mobo can only take double sided ddr400 in the first and the second OR third, but not all 3. it can take double sided ddr333 in all three slots though.
 
baldrik said:
most mobos wont accept a double sided stick in all dimms at the max speed. its got something to do with the last 2 slots sharing addresses or something of that nature. read about the memory slots in your mobo manual, it will usually have a chart that will show which slots can take what at ddr400 and ddr333.

my mobo can only take double sided ddr400 in the first and the second OR third, but not all 3. it can take double sided ddr333 in all three slots though.
Click to expand...

Thanks, that would certainly explain it. In the manual for the motherboard, it indicates that the mobo supports this particular Kingston memory for all four slots, but who knows?

I guess the next question is - is my performance with 2GB at DDR333 better than taking out two of the sticks and running 1GB at DDR400 (i.e. does the increased memory offset the fact that the RAM is running lower than spec)? I guess eventually I'll just buy two 1GB chips to run at DDR400...
 
the difference between 1gb and 2gb is probably negligible, i would rather having tighter timings than more ram. With more ram there is always the possibility of more ram errors, bad sticks of memory, and the horrible, which stick is bad so i can fix the problem error. while more ram is better in server areas, on desktop computers 1gb should suffice. ~Q
 
Qwertyman said:
the difference between 1gb and 2gb is probably negligible, i would rather having tighter timings than more ram. With more ram there is always the possibility of more ram errors, bad sticks of memory, and the horrible, which stick is bad so i can fix the problem error. while more ram is better in server areas, on desktop computers 1gb should suffice. ~Q
Click to expand...

What kind of a performance difference are we talking about between DDR333 and DDR400? 1% ? 10% ? 60 % ?
 
i don't know a % but figure it this way if a rams default speed is say ddr400 and your running it at ddr333, the read and write times will be slower than what it should be. Its better to run it at spec than to lessen it down. As far as real world performance you might not notice it but its better to have it up to ddr400 rather than down.
 
What about trying to "force" it to run at DDR400 in the BIOS? The thing that gets me is that in the manual for the motherboard, it is listed as compatible for 4 slots... It's odd that it downclocks itself automatically when all four are in though.
 
i know the dfi lanparty nf3 board says for you to do that, so you can try it, i will not be held responsible though. :p

edit: i forget to mention that with 2 slots not 4, which is kind off important to note
 
im sure the manual means you can run the stick in any slot, but not with all slots full(im looking up the manual to check =P).

as far as running your ddr400 @333, your lookings at anywhere from 10-20% less bandwidth, which can be a huge difference. if your gaming or benchmarking, youll lose more performance running 2 gbs @ 333 than 1gb @ 400.

as far as forcing it...i dont know that the memory controller can handle that. not till venice at least.
 
ok, found the manual, it says you should be able to run all 4 of those sticks at once @ ddr400, so i dunno what else to tell ya!
 
hmm.. I'm using the 1003 BIOS that Asus pulled from their web site... maybe I should flash back to 1002 and see if it helps.
 
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