An idiot and his RAM

DEL 707

DEL 707

DEL 707

Soldato
Joined
20 Mar 2004
Posts
4,654
I had a long term problem with my machine, and it looks like it was all down to the RAM voltage, I'm used to leaving the motherboard on auto settings, which is something my NF4 SLI-DR EXPERT motherboard seems to be lacking.

The RAM i'm using is G.Skill 2GB DDR HZ PC4000, I tried lowering the RAM voltage slowly, it's gotten more stable the lower I've gone, I've currently got it down to 2.35v and so far I havn't had any further crashes.

I'm not sure whether it's me looking for problems, but I think i'm noticing a slow down in games, could lowering the voltage cause this?

I have no idea what settings I should be using for this RAM, but I got a strong feeling it's under performing.
 
when you say its gotten more stable, what do you mean by that?

stability has 2 forms, its wither stable or its not. you don't have any middle ground.

i suggest you run through passes of memtest and also use goldmemory to do proper memory testing. this is basic stuff you know.

if you boot into windows with dodgey ram you risk corrupting all the files you have in memory and unless you like loosing data or having to reinstall everything then carry on as you are doing.
 
I'll give a little background.

Since I built this machine, it was crashing in games, made a funny noise and failed to do anything, sometimes the machine would restart.
On another thread someone suggested I up the RAM voltage, which didn't work, so I tried lowering it, the lower I've gone, the more stable the system has become. The machine has been working without incident for 2 weeks with the RAM set to 2.35v.

The RAM has passed memtest at least 20 times.

I'm trying to find the right settings for the RAM, according to CPU-Z, it's set to 157.9 MHZ.
 
TBH m8, I think if you have to do that at that speed then that its not working right.

mem speed should be 200 in every single configuration. (Inc 4Gb.)

HZ = 250 3-3-3-6

So 2.5V, 200Mhz, 2.5-3-3-6 should hit it on the nail.

As for stabilty. Its stable or its not. There is no middle ground (cyber-mav is correct for once :p ).

CR.
 
Sorry been a bit busy lately, but been playing around with it today.

Got it to 200Mhz ratio 1:1, 3-3-3-6, machine booted up but crashed within seconds on entering windows. Restarted and ran memtest, but it got to 34% and halted, no error messages, little icon was blinking, but the wall time comepletly stopped, I left it like that for 20 minutes before I restarted it.

I tried setting everything to auto but it halted at the exact same spot, can't seem to get it to run at 200Mhz.
 
I just tried 2.5-3-3-6, it went further with the memtest but through up about 3000 errors then halted at about 80%.

Not sure if my memories dodgy or whether it's just the settings I'm using.
 
Gskill you say? :D

Try this...

Put the ram in the yellow slots.....

Use voltage of about 2.7 mem volts

TCL 3
TRC 7
TRFC 14
TRCD 3
TRRD 3
TRAS 8
TRP 2
TWR 2
TWTR 2
TREF 3072
TWCL 1
READ QUEUE BYPASS 16
BYPASS MAX 7
MAX LATENCY 8
PRE 5.5-6
IDLE CYCLE LIMIT 64+
DRIVE STRENGTH AUTO

P.S this is a little looser than my gskill HV ram which is of higher grade than yours, BUT these may work to your advantage!

If that doesnt work it really depends how hard you are pushing your memory
(mhz)

Try TCL 3 / TRC 7 / TRFC 14 / TRCD 4 / TRRD 3-4 / TRAS 8

Or something like 3 4 4 8...
 
Last edited:
DEL 707 said:
Does that tweaker program allow u to change ** settings in windows?
Click to expand...

Yes but i did that once and well , BSOD - Your windows boot file is corrupt :D

Ill stick to just looking at my settings and changing them in bios :)


look on google for A64 Tweaker
 
Thanks for the settings Neil, unfortunatly they didn't work, machine booted up but it failed to go into windows.

Only setting I couldn't find was TWC.
 
Another quick question, I didn't notice the yellow slots thing before, I just tried my RAM in there with the default settings and it kept resetting windows, how are the yellow/orange slots different :confused:
Fraid i've mislaid my motherboard manual
 
DEL 707 said:
Another quick question, I didn't notice the yellow slots thing before, I just tried my RAM in there with the default settings and it kept resetting windows, how are the yellow/orange slots different :confused:
Fraid i've mislaid my motherboard manual
Click to expand...

Dont believe any bs that people give you about it not running in dual channel with the yellow slots , basically each slot suits different ram types better than others.
 
Never knew the different colour RAM slots meant anything, I always just had them in slots 1 & 2, 1 yellow, 1 orange...

Tried them in 2 orange slots, set it to 200Mhz and just left everything on auto. It passed it's memtest and is working in windows.

Here's a pic of the settings
http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~del707/ramsettings.JPG
Before it always said single, not dual.

Played WoW for a bit, which ran fine, may be my imagination, but it seemed to run better in high populated areas.
Are these settings fine, or could they use a little tweakage?
 
It should be running at 250mhz 3-4-4-8 1T. I had the same stuff, bought brand new, put it in my pc and no matter what i tried it would not go past 151mhz. I returned it, got my money back and went back to some trusty PC3200. My old 1GB kit of Crucial value pc3200 hit 260mhz and so does this kit of PNY pc3200. If it does'nt hit what it's supposed to hit and it's obviously getting memtest errors then return it.
 
I'm getting hugly confused again.

I have both sticks of RAM in the orange slots, I tried putting the DRAM frequency up to 250 DRAM/FSB : 05/04, with 3-4-4-8, but it when it gets into memtest it says it's running at 130Mhz.
 
Model Name : F1-4000USU2-2GBHZ (1GB x 2)

Overview : PC4000(DDR500) 3-4-4-8 Dual Channel

Specification
Capacity 2GB (1GB x 2)
Speed 500MHz DDR (PC4000)
CAS Latency CL 3-4-4-8
Test Voltage 2.6~2.8 Volts
PCB 6 Layers PCB
Registered/Unbuffered Unbuffered
Error Checking Non-ECC

hzt2-b.jpg



Andy
 
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