8Gb memory problems

fizzy · 3 Feb 2009 at 02:06

Hi,

Bought another 4GB (2 x 2GB) OCZ 8500 platinum DDR2 memory for my Asus P5Q deluxe. I'm having some issues though....

Firstly, when I installed the memory I had problems with XP64 crashing, pretty much just after loading up to desktop. Tried both sets on their own with it and they are fine. Its only when I use all four it gets unstable, and generally very quickly. Tried the various tweaks I've read about (bit more volts here and there, slacking the timing etc) and also updated the bios to the latest version.

Its improved a bit with the latest bios version - I've tried using all auto settings but that hasn't helped...

...now the odd thing is when I use XP32 (dual boot) I have no problems at all. Surely of the issue is timing for 4 dimms wouldn't it effect the os regardless of how much of that memory its using?

Going to leave memtest running overnight on the full 8GB and see it it detects anything at all. If it doesn't then it must be an issue within XP64 and 8GB? I'll try a 64 bit linux boot cd and see if thats stable...

...any ideas?

Cob · 3 Feb 2009 at 22:00

I had 8gb running in x64 XP without any issues in my P5Q Deluxe.

Does it still happen with your CPU at stock?

fizzy · 4 Feb 2009 at 02:26

Cob said:
I had 8gb running in x64 XP without any issues in my P5Q Deluxe.

Does it still happen with your CPU at stock?

I must confess I haven't tried it at stock. It's odd that it was working fine with 4GB, bit only starts being unstable with 8GB - from what I recall on the intel core duo setup the memory controller is in the chipset not the cpu (unlike later AMD chips and the i7), so no idea why it would effect cpu stability like this.

Ran a memtest86 run for several hours and it ran with no errors. I've even switched off memory remapping so the motherboard only gives 7.4GB memory now, but its still unstable.

As stated though used winXP with no problems with all 8GB installed (although obviously it only sees 3.25GB or so) so don't think its a memory voltage issue, timing etc as wouldn't that effect all memory access with all 4 Dimms installed regardless?

May try a reinstall of Xp64 to see if its some odd app or driver which is causing the issue. Using something like Ubuntu 64 bit would also help isolate the issue..

A fair bit of "tinkering" ahead I think.

fizzy · 5 Feb 2009 at 13:00

Well, this is getting more odd as it goes on.

Tried installing Ubuntu 8.10 64bit (as well as running the live CD) and it gets so far and sticks on a completely white screen.

Tried this with only 4GB installed and same thing. Searching reveals that this is a known issue - downloading Suse 64bit to give that a try.

On one of my numerous reboots, the motherboard reported that SMART was indicating a drive failure on the OS drive (which included my XP64 partition/install) and that I should save my data and replace the drive. Tested it using samsungs disk checker disk using another machine and it checked out fine, surface scan, SMART and all.... wierd.

Then loading XP I was getting crashes - first it couldn't find an nt file, then it crashed while loading the desktop. Went into the bios to find it had put the memory voltage back down to 1.8V - it was previously at a setting of 2.0V I had set before. Corrected and everythings running fine again.

So starting to suspect I may have some general issues with the motherboard. Will have to do yet more tests - the MemTest86 passed fine even after several runs.

Any suggestions?

Trunks9486 · 5 Feb 2009 at 13:58

Increase the Memory controller voltage a bit and it should be fine.

When all four sticks are used they usually require a bit more juice

fizzy · 5 Feb 2009 at 15:40

Trunks9486 said:
Increase the Memory controller voltage a bit and it should be fine.

When all four sticks are used they usually require a bit more juice

I did that - also I was using winxp32 with 8GB installed and all was fine (well, until the low memory voltage issue after several reboots as mentioned above) so can't see it being a voltage/chipset issue, especially as it passed several runs of memtest as well...

Searching the net reveals lots of people having the same issue with XP64, with the "disk.sys" task crashing with an 0x00000050 error. May try a fresh reinstall just in case but starting to think I may need to buy Vista 64 if I want to go windows 64 bit.

fizzy · 6 Feb 2009 at 12:06

Well, downloaded and installed Suse Linux 11.1 64bit and that is up and running fine (except I need to sort out soundmax sfx card drivers for it). It's seeing 7.8GB (?) memory too. Browsed the net, played some movies (rather quietly), a few games, installed latest updates etc etc... all ran fine.

Played WoW for a few hours on XP32 with 8GB installed on the motherboard and it ran without issues.

Seems its something with XP64 - possibly in combination with the chipset drivers or something. Ahh well. My main reason for using XP64 was to get into some serious VM'ing - if linux works I'll just use that instead, sticking with xp32 for games.