RAM compatibility issue

mihaivdev

mihaivdev

mihaivdev

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Joined
31 Mar 2014
Posts
7
Location
United Kingdom
Hi all.

I just bought a pair of TeamGroup Vulcan Gold 8GB (2x4GB) 2133Mhz (these: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-036-TG ) as I needed more than my current 4GB to be able to not have Photoshop running out of memory.

Reading online I thought that I should be able to use them on my old MSI G41M-P25 mobo on which I have an Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 OC @3.7Ghz, even though I knew that they would run downclocked at 1333Mhz. I went for 2133Mhz as I want to upgrade the motherboard and cpu in the coming months and I wouldn't have to buy new RAM later this way.

The problem is that with the new RAM my PC doesn't boot, not even able to get into the BIOS. It makes 3 beeps (memory error as I've read) and that's all.

Looking in the BIOS with the old memory in (2x2GB Samsung @1066Mhz) my motherboard supports the required voltage of the Vulcan's (1.65v) and as for FSB it can go up to 333Mhz.

I tried upping the voltage with the old rams in (kinda risky but tried it nevertheless) to 1.65v and then swapped with new ones but that didn't work either. I've reset CMOS, tried all the values on the FSB switch but nothing works.

Does anyone have any idea why they wouldn't simply work at lower frequency (1333mhz) and have the motherboard auto-adjust the voltage to 1.65? On the Vulcan's page it even says (1.55v - 1.65v) so it shouldn't even need 1.65. Current RAM runs at ~1.53v, OC'ed to ~1293Mhz with 323Mhz FSB and has been incredibly stable for the past year.

Sorry for the long explanation.

Best regards,
Mihai
 
What may help is checking your BIOS revision and updating to the latest on the MSI website.
 
I had another look at the BIOS to see if there's anything to be done and I noticed that even though MSI Live Update was saying I don't need a BIOS update, I don't have the latest version.
Mine is v28.6B while the latest is v28.10

Now here comes a weird one. Since my motherboard came from a Viglen PC, they have added their custom stuff in, and apparently even changed the BIOS to a custom version, v28.6B doesn't exist on the MSI website.

Trying to update it with any BIOS files from the MSI website using the M-FLASH option in the BIOS doesn't work as it doesn't see the files.

I did however manage to boot the new BIOS directly from the USB drive. It sees them for booting but not for updating.

Any ideas?

Thanks.
 
Never mind the previous question.

I took the risk of renaming the BIOS file to one that matched the name convention that Viglen enforced. The MSI BIOS file was named A7592IMS.SA0 while Viglen made the BIOS require names with IV1 instead of IMS at the end, so renamed A7592IMS.SA0 to A7592IV1.SA0 and it worked! :D

Memory still doesn't work though :( , and funnily enough, the difference with this new update is that my CPU fan runs constantly at 2900rpm now. So loud...

Thanks for the BIOS suggestion RJC.
 
Update:
Just tested the rams in a new PC, AsRock motherboard (Z87 chipset if I remember right), i7 4770k and tested them at 1066Mhz and 1.5V which my motherboard supports, and they worked just fine, so I'm guessing my motherboard is simply incompatible with the RAM even though the RAM itself can run at lower frequency and voltage.

Am I guessing right that I have no way of using them unless I upgrade my motherboard?
 
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