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PostPosted: Sat Dec 03, 2011 4:55 pm 
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Location: Virginia, USA
I tested each stick individually, and as I suspected... all of them check fine. It would have been great to have gotten an actual culprit here, but noooooo.

I then put in 3 of the 4 sticks, and that tested fine too. So maybe it's something about having 8GB of RAM.

I'll try it like this for a while. Thanks again for all the help.


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PostPosted: Sun Dec 04, 2011 3:12 am 
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Location: London, UK
Hi ceenvee,

I had a random lock-up problem with my main rig for some time, it was related to the fact I had 4 sticks of ram in the board. I was seeing random lock-ups - the pc would e fine for hours when doing simple things word processing and net (though sometimes not with lock-ups after ten mins, or failures to boot cleanly) but every time with more demanding nature of 3d games.

I have seen one or two others report a similar problem,( though I think it may have been related to 775 based hardware.) I'm running a Q6600 with 8GB 1066 ram in an Abit IXQuadGT mobo running Ubuntu and Vista 64 (dual boot) and if it were not for photoshop, it'd be linux all the way.

Anyhow, the solution that worked for me was to up the northbridge volts very slightly in the BIOS. I'm afraid I forget exactly which setting I had to up it's either MCH or ICH, but by bumping the volts by one notch to give me a completely stable pc and overclock of 3.4 Ghz for years now.

Despite my ramblings, I hope that's helpful.

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Intel C2D 7400, Nvidia 5600 via HDMI to Samsung B37B650TW (PAL), Asus P5QL-E mobo, 4Gb PC6400 DDR2 ram, Samsung Spinpoint 500 Gb & 1Tb drive, Nova-HD-S2 (x2)


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PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2011 12:33 am 
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Tophee is correct. Adjusting the Memory Controller Hub (MCH) voltage might help the memory. But before you go that route could I have you check a few things first. What is the vendor and part number on your memory? The DDR3 typically comes with four voltage types. The 1.35 volt memory is for a low voltage setup. You would probably know if you had this. The other 3 types are 1.5 volt, 1.6 volt and 1.65 volt. These are just typical voltage settings and there are some derivatives of these. The mother board comes standard at 1.5 volts for the memory. If the memory you put in requires 1.6 or 1.65 volts then that is probably your issue. You should be able to adjust this in your bios under "Performance>Memory Overrides" and change the "Memory Performance Profiles" to manual. The bios may not have detected the correct voltage for your memory. Set the voltage to what the memory requires. Please report back.


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PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2011 4:03 am 
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Posts: 1637
Location: Virginia, USA
They're Kingston: part # is KHX1600C9D3P1K2/8G

Kingston describes them as: "Standard 512M X 64 Non-ECC 1600MHz 240-pin Unbuffered DIMM DDR3, 1.5V, CL9, FBGA, Gold"

Here's a link:
http://www.valueram.com/datasheets/KHX1 ... 1K2_8G.pdf


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PostPosted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 1:25 am 
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That really is good memory. Since it works with 3 sticks but not 4, i still think it's a memory voltage issue. I would still try bumping the memory voltage up 0.1 volts to 1.6 volts and try that. I wouldn't go any higher. Some of the memory voltages display as the actual voltage and other bios display as the voltage above or below their standard. So you will need to change the bios voltage to 1.6 volts or +0.1 depending on how the bios displays the change. This should be in the bios under "Performance>Memory Override". Leave the "Command Rate" and "Memory Multiplier" to auto for now. If the voltage trick doesn't get it, I will give you a long list of settings to try. Also which CPU are you using? Under "Performance>Memory Override" there is a line "Uncore Voltage Override". Would you just report what it displays? Please don't change it. I believe it should show something around 1.1 volts.


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PostPosted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 6:24 pm 
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Location: Virginia, USA
OK, here's what's happened now:

* Added the fourth stick of RAM. In order to do so, and in case I have to add and remove it repeatedly, I removed the Nvidia video card and am now running off of motherboard video (so an unfortunate second change in setup, but in order to get at that fourth RAM slot I have to have the CPU cooler fan removed, and in order to add/remove any RAM at all, the video card has to be removed)

* Here is what the default BIOS settings were:

Image

I changed Voltage Overrides: Memory to 1.6

* Ran StressLinux and ran mprime. It crashed almost immediately with garbage characters all over the screen

* Went back to the default 1.5 voltage, restarted StressLinux, am currently running mprime. And of course now it's running Test 3 and not crashing. Will keep running it for a while to see if it freezes.

Oh, it's an Intel i5 processor, i5-2500K 3.3GHz


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PostPosted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 8:14 pm 
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Location: Virginia, USA
Well, good news kinda--it did end up crashing (garbage across the screen again). Trying again with 3 sticks only and on board video to see if that works as I hope it does, for consistency.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Dec 19, 2011 12:20 pm 
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Posts: 21
Sorry it took so long to post back. Life is busy. It's good you put the voltage back to 1.5 volts. I need some more information from you and something new to try.

First I need the memory settings. I need the tCL, tRCD, tRP, tRAS, tRFC, tRRD, tWR, tWTR, tRTP, tRC, tFAW, and the Command Rate. The tCL, tRCD, and tRP should all be at 9. The tRAS should be at 33 or 34. The tRFC should be at 160. The tRC should be at 48 or 49. And the Command Rate should be at 2 or auto. Would you please post back with what the settings are now?

With all four sticks of memory installed would you try just changing the memory multiplier. Would you try it at 1333 instead of 1600 and then post back?


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 03, 2012 8:20 pm 
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Location: Virginia, USA
Well, now it was my turn to be busy, mainly with the holidays.

Here's the memory settings... hopefully they are complete:

tCL = 9
tRCD = 9
tRP = 9
tRASmin 27
tRFC = 128
tRRD = 5
tWR = 15
tWTR = 6
tRTP = 6
tRC = 15
tFAW = 24
Command rate = Auto

Some definite differences in what my defaults are and what you're stating.

I haven't tried changing multiplier.


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PostPosted: Wed Jan 04, 2012 1:37 am 
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Posts: 21
Those are some interesting settings. The tRASmin should be at 27 or 28 for a loose setting. tRASmin = tCL + tRCD + tRP. I'm not sure where I got 33 or 34. It must have been the Christmas bill shock. Anyway the 27 looks good but you might want to try the 28 setting to be safe. tRFC at 128 is actually a good safe setting and should be good there. tRRD, tWTR, and tRTP are all at good safe settings. tWR is at the correct setting however 16 would be a little safer of a setting. tRC is usually tCL + tRAS + 2. I have seen some very high performance memory as low as 18 but I think the 15 is way to low. Try tRC at 38 or 39 and see if it works better. Also try backing the tFAW off to about 38. The Command Rate should work at a 1 however for testing, try it at a 2.

So please try it with the Memory Multiplier at 1333 first and see how it works.

Then try it back at 1600 with the following settings:
tCL = 9
tRCD = 9
tRP = 9
tRASmin = 28
tRFC = 128
tRRD = 5
tWR = 16
tWTR = 6
tRTP = 6
tRC = 38
tFAW = 38
Command Rate = 2

These are very conservative settings but should work. Please post back and let me know the results. Thanks.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat Jan 07, 2012 5:30 pm 
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Location: Virginia, USA
Works great at 1333 with all 4 sticks.

Just tried your settings at 1600 (all 4 sticks) and mprime froze after about 10 minutes.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 12:23 pm 
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Posts: 21
Well that is some good news. The motherboard is actually rated at 1066 and 1333. However, your memory is on their list as working at 1600. I wonder how well they really tested it.

http://www.intel.com/support/motherboar ... 032375.htm

Since it works with 2 sticks installed, it should work with 4 sticks. I still think one of the memory settings is just a little to tight. Which one is to tight is the trick. Let's try a little looser settings and see if that works.

tCL = 10
tRCD = 10
tRP = 10
tRASmin 31
tRFC = 128
tRRD = 5
tWR = 15
tWTR = 6
tRTP = 6
tRC = 15
tFAW = 24
Command rate = Auto


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Jan 10, 2012 7:00 am 
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Joined: Fri Apr 02, 2004 10:08 am
Posts: 1637
Location: Virginia, USA
Firstly, thanks again for the detailed assistance. I've gotten way farther in troubleshooting this with you than with either Intel or other forums.

Secondly, I tried your new settings at 1600. mprime ran for about 30 minutes and locked up. (Those settings only appear to change the first four numbers from what my defaults were, right?)

I went back to my original settings and back to 1333. mprime ran for 1.5 hrs and did not lock up.

I'm happy to continue trying some options, but at this point I think I'm happy that it's stable with all 4 sticks at 1333. If you do have some more ideas I'd give them a shot, but I'm also fine with throwing in the towel.


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