[StickyMick]

Hi Guys.

Here's a good one to chew over. (I've worn my teeth out on it).

It's a very old system (7 years to be precise).

ASUS A8V Deluxe Motherboard.
AMD 64/X2 3800 (socket 939)
Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro/512 AGP
Creative Audigy 4 Gold
1.5GB (for now) PC2700 DDR400 RAM.
Windows XP/SP3.

Built the machine 5 years ago and been upgrading it as and when. The current config will run Skyrim at 1280x1024 with very few problems (apart from the known bugs).
For some obscure reason I find the system will not run with more than 1.5GB of RAM installed, the board is supposed to take 4GB. So far I've tried 2GB in various configurations.
4x512Mb sticks and 2x1GB sticks, but I get the same outcome from both.
When playing Skyrim or Fallout NV the games will hang after about 2 minutes of play then a CTD will follow or I'll have to restart via the power button. When playing IL2-1946 things are a bit scarier. That game will hang and I'll end up looking at a BSOD with an error message pointing the finger at the Radeon X1950 Pro (?)
Once I revert back to 1.5GB (3x512Mb sticks) Everything is then fine and the machine will run all 3 games without any further problems.

Any ideas to xolve this welcomed.
Thankees in advance.

[coastie65]

Hi, First I would recommend running this: http://www.crucial.com/systemscanner/ This will tell you what is compatible with your system. With XP, you can run up to 4 Gb , but will only use 3 to 3.5 Gb ( 32 bit OS ). You could also be having an issue with the Graphics card as well. With the GPU ram at 512 Mb, that isn't much for the games these days. If I had to guess, the Graphics card is using 512 Mb of the system ram and it is not onboard the card.

[Rommel]

StickyMick, on 27 February 2013 - 02:28 PM, said:

ASUS A8V Deluxe Motherboard.
AMD 64/X2 3800 (socket 939)

My first build. That exact mobo and cpu.

Ran a 6800 GT OC
4 GBs of matched pairs, pc3200.

Fortunitly for me, I had no issues.

I can't say why at this point but it sounds like it doesn't want to run in dual channel.
Are your memory modules dual channel matched pairs?

[StickyMick]

Thanks for the replies guys.

The Crucial Scanner actually only reports that I've got 1GB installed in 2x512 modules populating the first bank, whereas on start-up the BIOS POST reports 1.5GB as well as Windows reporting 1.5GB.
Must correct myself at this point: It's actually PC3200, not 2700 as I said in my original post. At the moment I've got the 2 blue slots and first black slot populated.
The RAM I'm using at the mo is 1.5GB of GeIL RAM as this is the first and only RAM that I have used in this board. Originally started with 1GB = 2x512Mb modules but when I tried to upgrade to 2GB last year, by buying 2 more 512s that's when the problems started. I've tried the 2 newer 512s in another machine and there were no errors when running memtest.
I then got to thinking one of the second channel slots on my board was faulty, until I tried the 2x1GB modules I bought this weekend in just the first channel slots.
All matched pairs as far as I can see.
Any BIOS settings I should be looking out for?

[Rommel]

StickyMick, on 28 February 2013 - 07:49 AM, said:

Any BIOS settings I should be looking out for?

Look for memory hole and enable it.
I'm not an expert here but I do remember that setting.
It's debatable if it will help but I remember looking into my bios settings when I went to 4 gigs installed.
It was yrs ago, sorry I don't remember all the details.
Do you still have your motherboard manual?
It is very detailed about bios settings.

Is your memory on the vendors list?
Perhaps this ram you added doesn't want to play nice?

[StickyMick]

Still mooching around the web to get as much info as possible.
The manual isn't a great lot of use.....tells you what the settings are but doesn't give any clues as to what they do and why you would want to enable/disable anything.
I'll give that memory hole setting a go though.

My supplier and I contacted ASUS Support about the memory and their reply was the list is not exhaustive and said if 1GB in 2x512Mb modules works then it's a pretty safe bet that it's OK.
Can't get on the ASUS forums now, they won't let me reset my password. Sheesh.

[waldojim]

Have you tried lowering the clock speed on the ram? IE: If it is 400Mhz ram, try running it at 333Mhz or 200Mhz. For the sake of testing, it can't hurt to try.

This really sounds like a bad memory controller, though it is hard to say for certain. I seem to remember the socket 939 being the year AMD switched to on-die controllers as well, so the only way to test would be with a new CPU. If you had a problem with the motherboard, it would show up with 3 sticks just as quickly as your two stick pair.

The best test right now, is to try mix-and-matching high-density ram and low-density ram. Meaning insert a 1GB stick in slot one, and a 512MB in slot 2. Then run memtest. After that swap to 512MB slot one and 1GB slot 2. Keep testing with the high density stick in various slots until it fails memtest.

[StickyMick]

Thanks for all the suggestions so far guys, I've got a few tricks to try now.
I'm now back on the ASUS forum and there's some good info on there too.
I'll let you know what works eventually.

Thankees.

[StickyMick]

So far I've enabled memory hole and limited the the speed to 333MHZ.
I'm going to run with the 1.5GB for a couple days, see how she behaves. Then I'll start trying different configs - Try with the 4x512 modules first, if everything stays stable I may stick with that and sell the 2x1GB modules, or I may try the 2x1GBs and see how it runs and keep 2 slots free for future upgrading.

[Rommel]

StickyMick, on 03 March 2013 - 11:40 AM, said:

So far I've enabled memory hole and limited the the speed to 333MHZ.
I'm going to run with the 1.5GB for a couple days, see how she behaves. Then I'll start trying different configs - Try with the 4x512 modules first, if everything stays stable I may stick with that and sell the 2x1GB modules, or I may try the 2x1GBs and see how it runs and keep 2 slots free for future upgrading.

I know it's time consuming but you are better to make 1 change at a time to pin point what works and what doesn't.
If the PC runs properly with the two changes you made, bring the speed back up to stock and see what happens.

[StickyMick]

Well guys, looks like we fixed it.

I installed the other 512MB module a few days ago and all seemed stable. Skyrim did crash a couple of times, but everything else ran perfectly, so I'm putting the Skyrim crashes down to the buggieness of the game.
I've now got the 2x1GB modules in and have been running with that for the last day and a half and still no issues.

I might even push it to 3 or 4GB some time, see how it goes.

Thanks for all the suggestions and ideas.
E-Beers all round