Bought another 4gb of ram but having problems...

mindrot · 1 Aug 2008 at 18:51

I recently bought a new pre-assembled PC from OCUk with the following basic specs:

- Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 2.40GHz (1066FSB)
- Abit IP35 Pro Motherboard
- OCZ 4GB DDR2 PC2-6400 (2x2GB)
- Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT 512MB GDDR3....

I'm running XP x64.

I just bought another 4gigs of identical OCZ ram. The probelm is once I install the extra 4 gigs I can't get the pc to get past the post screen... it just kinda hangs there

Any helps would be great.

Thanks.

Nick1881 · 1 Aug 2008 at 20:01

Whats your NB volts? also you need to change something else, hold on I will dig up the thread where cob helped me.

Edit - see here http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17896561

Increase DDR Reference voltage to +2%

Cob · 1 Aug 2008 at 20:07

Yeah up the northbridge by 0.1v and the DDR2 Reference Voltage to +2%.

mindrot · 1 Aug 2008 at 20:33

Thanks for the response guys.

I've managed to find the reference Voltage for the Ram in the bios, but I'm not sure about the northbridge :confused:

Thanks again

Cob · 1 Aug 2008 at 20:38

May be labeled as NB or MCH (can't remember off the top of my head).

mindrot · 1 Aug 2008 at 21:25

I found:

- MCH 1.25V Voltage (which can be set to 1.24, 1.29, 1.33, 1.39 and so on...)
&
- ICH 1.05V Voltage

I managed to get it to work with 6gb, but it freezes at post with 8gb inserted. It does the memory check okay, but when it wants to display the CPU, etc afterwards it doesn't.

I also set the ref to +2% as suggested.

Nick1881 · 1 Aug 2008 at 22:14

Try just the new 4Gb on its own to check that works ok.

mindrot · 1 Aug 2008 at 22:42

Tried that. One works okay but the other is detected as a 512 and freezes :mad:

Now I'll have to return them

Cob · 2 Aug 2008 at 13:21

Have you set the correct voltage for that memory? Also try setting tRFC to 54.

And have you updated the BIOS to v14 (avoid 16 and 17).

mindrot · 2 Aug 2008 at 13:30

I set the Voltage to 2.1. I'll try the tRFC a bit later when I get a chance.

I updated to the latest BIOS last night. I think its 16. I found it on the Abit website. I did it using the Flashmenu thingy that gets in stalled with the uGuru.

Thanks again for all you help.

Cob · 2 Aug 2008 at 13:33

v16 is for the 45nm chips, so I would downgrade to v14.

mindrot · 2 Aug 2008 at 13:52

Aaah okay.... I'll give that a wiz....

It's really odd as one stick works just fine and the other seems to be really funky, but actually seemed to work once but then gets detected as 529920k of Ram and so on...

mindrot · 2 Aug 2008 at 14:17

I was wondering it the latency timings couldn't be a factor as I think they might be set to SPD, which is the default as I haven't entered anything in here myself. Though my orignal ram works fine as is so I don't see why identical Ram should be any different :confused:

Cob · 2 Aug 2008 at 14:25

mindrot said:
Tried that. One works okay but the other is detected as a 512 and freezes

Now I'll have to return them

So you're saying that one of the new sticks doesn't work when run with only its partner?

mindrot · 2 Aug 2008 at 14:37

The one works fine on it's own and with the original Ram. But one stick won't work either way it seems (on it's own or combined with any of the other Ram, new or old).

Cob · 2 Aug 2008 at 14:38

Duff stick then. RMA the kit.

mindrot · 2 Aug 2008 at 19:27

Yeah. Will do.

Thanks for your help Cob

mindrot · 2 Aug 2008 at 21:43

Out of cursiosity should I leave the latency timings set to SPD in the bios or manually change them to 5-5-5 18?

Thanks again.

Cob · 3 Aug 2008 at 00:00

Up to yourself. SPD probably sets them to 5-5-5-18 anyway.

mindrot · 3 Aug 2008 at 00:07

Thanks Cob