Alienware Aurora R1 - RAM Issue

[Crazydave1990]

Good Morning,

I've recently purchased (rather blindly on my part it seems) a set of GeIL Black Dragon 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-159-GL&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1516) from OCuK.

When I first installed both 8GB Ram Sticks, I got 4 beeps - which from what I've read is a "Memory RAM Read/Write Error"... However when I removed one of the 8GB sticks, the PC booted fine...

I then played with the settings and changed the frequency from 1333 down to 1064 (133 * 8). I then reinserted the second stick, and the PC now boots without producing 4 Beeps... my problem now however is, my BIOS is only displaying 8GB, not 16... I've done some research and I've found the following for my Mobo:

Connectors
Aurora/Aurora ALX six internally-accessible DDR3 DIMM sockets
Aurora-R2 four internally-accessible DDR3 DIMM sockets
Capacities 1 GB, 2 GB, and 4 GB
1066 MHz and I333 MHz
Minimum 3 GB
Maximum
Aurora/Aurora ALX 24 GB
Aurora-R2 16 GB

So it appears that my Aurora ALX has capacities for 1, 2 and 4GB and CAN support up 24GB of 1333Mhz Ram... could someone help me clarify this please?

 

[ExRayTed]

Welcome to the forums

The motherboard obviously supports up to 6 x 4Gb ram modules. As it has the X58 chipset the optimum memory configuration is tri-channel mode. This essentially means that to get the best performance you need to install ram in sets of 3.

But that's beside the point. In order to get the motherboard to recognise the larger capacity RAM you'll need to look for a BIOS update from the Dell website. This isn't guaranteed to fix the problem though, and may in fact make matters worse.

I'd say it's a lesson learned. If it were me I'd sell the 8Gb sticks on and buy 3 more 4gb sticks if I wanted more. And I'd vow never to buy a piece of over-priced junk again

 

[Crazydave1990]

Haha, fortunately, I purchased this unit second-hand from eBay for like, 500 quid, it works perfectly Kind of purchased it as I've always wanted an Alienware - but yeah, I think it's going to be a case of possibly selling the RAM on and getting 3 Tri-Channel then...

Thanks for confirming my suspicions!