Returned the wrong thing?

KillinTime

KillinTime

KillinTime

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Joined
5 Apr 2004
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85
Location
Scotland, Edinburgh or Inverness
I returned a Geil value pack (1Gb) containing 2 memory DIMMs one that appeared faulty and another that appeared fine. The machine would boot with one inserted, but if the other was inserted alone or with the other, it would claim that no HDD was present, that the HDD had bad sectors, blue screen in a windows install or just crash after POST. So I sent the RAM back and ordered another pack to be going on with.

The RAM was subsequently returned to me. When inserted into my Asus A8N-VM CSM motherboard in addition to the 2 identical memory DIMMs I purchased a month ago, the machine hung after detecting IDE drives. Currently, the machine can only boot with one of the RAM DIMMS and does not run stably. In any other configuration it fails after detecting IDE drives.

The machine had been running fine for a month until the additional RAM was returned. The RAM has been tested on another machine and appears fine.

It would seem the problem is not with the RAM, but with another component, perhaps the motherboard. Should I return this?

AMD Athlon 64 3200+
2Gb Geil RAM 512mb DIMMs
Asus A8N-VM CSM
On board graphics.....booya!
Antec 450w Smart Power PSU ultra-loud PSU in ultraquiet Sonata II case
Many HDDs (all but windows HDD currently disconnected)
 
Asus mobos seem to be picky with some Ram. Most do not accept any ram sticks which contain 128MB chips on the Ram module. Check the Asus QVL on their website.
 
Good point! Does anyone have this RAM and know what size chips are on the module? Apparently CPUZ should be able to tell you.

Alternatively, I could be being a n00b and minsunderstanding what is meant by:
GeIL 5ns 32x8 Density DDR Chip (which comes out at 256....)

Thanks AWPC
 
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Ok.. I'm fairly sure the memory is compatible. 512mb dimm, with 16 chips on it means that each chip must be 256mbits.

Oddly this evening the machine boots, it started with 1 dimm of RAM consistently, so a second was added and it failed. I plugged in a second IDE HDD with only 1 dimm in and it failed(twice rendering the windows drive unrecognised in startup, just a mess of alphanumerics instead of the drive name) then after a few resets and no action had been taken proceeded to boot windows. Consistently. It accepted the other 2 dimms I had (another is elsewhere for testing) and booted normally.

It passes superPI and Prime95 torture tests and accepts 3Dimms of RAM ( though the 1M superPI score is 53s, opposed to 47 with only 1 Dimm of RAM)

However upon loading BF2 (more stress testing ;-)) the USB mouse and keyboard malfunction, intermittently.

It seems to be "working" but it does'nt feel fixed somehow.

When it was'nt "working" staggering the RAM had no effect.

The bios was updated recently, but I'll check for newer still versions.

Thanks for the advice.
 
Interesting, these boards seem a bit flaky at present, just got 3, one DOA, another would flop around with all sorts of errors even bios checksums as soon as i hit it with 2 stick of ram (dual channel) but run them single channel it'd run prime 3d05 superpi etc all day long.

Flashed with 0702 bios, just seemed to make matters worse so backed up to 0506 or there abouts, tried different ram (all geil though) 2 different PSU's and 3 different processors all to no avail, its now en-route to its supplier.

The board was a revision 1.01 btw. the 3rd one is working 100% in Dual Channel and thats a rev 1.10G and the same 2x256 Geil Value, have to say it's quite a nippy well featured Micro-atx board and the GFX arent too bad for onboard/nvidia :p
 
My nightmare board was a V1.01, and its on its way back to the motherstore. The GFX ain't too shabby but the beast only made 0.566fps on 3Dmark2006. Was'nt too bothered as it ran BF2 on minimum settings ok.

So I should cross my fingers for an updated 1.10G board then? When did you order yours?

The lack of OC features is a bugger, no voltage control, I wish I'd realised that before buying it. Maybe a bios will update this.
 
One was ordered 2 weeks ago and the other 2 early last week, i doubt the 0702 bios gives any further oc options tbh. Did you notice the cpu core volts in particular seemed high? although a few hours of prime and it still seemed quite cool so i guess its just reading rather high (1.48 ish)

Yes, crossing my fingers for 1.10G too, hope to have at least one back this week, and hope it's long term stable too as ones going to live in berwick.
 
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