2x Ram = 1/2 Ram speed?

ChipDeath

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May 16, 2002
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I have (as many will know) recently built an A64 system, but I only had 1x 512Mb stick of Ram. Yesterday I received another 512Mb stick, hoping to get Dual channel running.

Alas, DC will not work (can't get it to POST at all), but it does boot if I insert the sticks in single channel mode. The only problem with that is that CPU-Z now reports my memory speed as exactly 1/2 what it should be!

For example, If I set the HTT to 200Mhz (Stock), and set RAM to 200Mhz, with both sticks in CPU-Z claims the RAM is running at 100Mhz. WTF?

Another example which suggests the RAM is actually running at this speed (and it's not just CPU-Z misreporting) - HTT at 250, RAM set to 1:1, ram shows up as 125Mhz, whereas I could never get it to boot at 250Mhz when I only had the original stick in there - anything above 240 didn't work, and 240 required <i>much</i> slacker timings than it was happy with here (at '250')...

I've had a look on the 'net, and flipped through the manual, but can't find any mention of this anywhere....

I didn't have the time to do any benchmarking, and probably won't really until saturday, so I haven't been able to confirm that it's definitely running slow, but it seems to be.

Any thoughts?

Current settings: (IIRC)

A64 3200+ Winchester, 2580Mhz (258x10), HTT 1032Mhz
512Mb Corsair XMS4000, 512Mb Crucial Ballistix PC4000 single-channel, ~108Mhz :mad:

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Killed the sig for helping avoid confusion....<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by ChipDeath on 02/24/05 11:01 AM.</EM></FONT></P>
 

pat

Expert
Maybe that because you dont have matched memory stick, then the slight difference in timing between them can cause problems with DC.

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!
 

ChipDeath

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May 16, 2002
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I can accept that dual channel is unworkable, but what I'm concerned over is that in single-channel mode the board seems to halve the speed of the RAM.

Looks almost like some sort of BIOS bug if you ask me.

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A64 3200+ Winchester @ 258x10=2580Mhz, ~1.52 Vcore
1Gb RAM, running at various strange speeds... :lol:
Voltmodded Sapphire 9800Pro @ 450/350 w/ modded VGA silencer 3.
 

apesoccer

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I've heard of problems resulting from not having two sticks from the same batch, let alone different manufactures, with dc. How relaxed are the timings (out of dc)? Since they're different manufactures, it might be that either of the two can run individually at really nice timings, but together they run badly or not at all (i'm sure you've already thought of this =/ )...Bleh...Where's MemMan when u need him? =/ GL

The two machines i've set up, i just went out and bought 2x512 (1 set of hyperx and 1 of geil both 3200). I don't have any other ram i could throw in mine to set it up similarly to yours...I only have access to one of those machines. And really, i imagine, even if i could get mine to work with 1 hx and 1 geil, it still wouldn't be the same, since they aren't similar sticks to yours.

Current machines running F@H:
Athlons: [64 3500+][64 3000+][2500+][2000+][1.3x1][366]
Pentiums: [P4 1.4][X 3.0][P4 2.4x5]

It's not worth saying unless it takes a really long time to say!
 

ChipDeath

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Like I said, Dual channel would be nice, but I can live without it for the moment. Timings can happily be very tight when out of DC, because it's running the sticks at <i>half</i> the speed they should be.

I don't mind <i>that</i> much that I'm missing out on Dual channel. I <i>do</i> mind having 1Gb of Ram that's only running at ~PC1800 speeds. That sucks. :frown: It should be happily capable of at least around 210Mhz with pretty reasonable timings, yet I simply cannot get it to run at anywhere near that speed. It's not that I get crashes, reboots or errors, but that my mobo is halving whatever values I set in the BIOS... but it was ok with just the one stick.

Like I said though, I've not had a chance to bench it, so all I'm going on is what CPU-Z is telling me, and it could be misreporting the speed - but the fact it seems happy with tighter timings than before would suggest it is actually running slower.

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A64 3200+ Winchester @ 258x10=2580Mhz, ~1.52 Vcore
1Gb RAM, running at various strange speeds... :lol:
Voltmodded Sapphire 9800Pro @ 450/350 w/ modded VGA silencer 3.
 

sparky853

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Jun 25, 2003
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Definatly try a BIOS upgrade. When I first got my A64 3200+ and K8T Neo2, hte memory would only register as 256MB, even though it was a 512MB stick. A BIOS flash solved the problem. Sounds like a goofy BIOS to me.

AMD 64 3200+, MSI K8T Neo2, 1GB Dual-Channel DDR400, ATI R9800PRO 128MB, TT PurePower 420W, LG DVD+-R/RW
 

ChipDeath

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May 16, 2002
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I'll fiddle about with the sticks later and try different combinations of slots & see what the effects are, but I don't have much time until the weekend.

I think I'll just try it with the one stick again and see what that gets picked up as. I'll try just the crucial stick in case that's got stupid SPD settings or something, which is bringing it down. If it runs that fine, then I'll try a BIOS flash. If it <i>still</i> does weird stuff, then I'll e-bay some of my mountains of spare parts and buy another 512Mb stick of the crucial & try to get a working Dual Channel rig going :smile:

I would expect that even with my current RAM dual channel should be possible, but with lower speed (e.g. 200Mhz), very relaxed timings and perhaps more VDimm, but it never posts to let me manually set speed and latencies :frown: I just get the "BEEP......BEEP......BEEP" that usually means 'Failed overclock' (believe me, I've come to know that one quite well over the last week or so! :lol: )

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A64 3200+ Winchester @ 258x10=2580Mhz, ~1.52 Vcore
1Gb RAM, running at various strange speeds... :lol:
Voltmodded Sapphire 9800Pro @ 450/350 w/ modded VGA silencer 3.
 

endyen

Splendid
The odmc is very fussy. It takes a little time to burn in the different slots. Try running with just the one stick, but in the diferent slots, and see what happens.
 

ChipDeath

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May 16, 2002
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Downloaded a couple of BIOS updates but haven't gotten around to doing anything with them yet :redface:

Lots of work to do, and was too drunk and/or hungover last weekend :lol:

I e-mailed Epox just to see, and I got the textbook "Dual channel doesn't work because your memory modules are different" response. I went to great pains to say that I didn't mind the lack of DC.... ah well, at least someone replied, even if it was only in fairly broken english. :lol:

going to try to get around to it this weekend properly - but I have a HDD to fit into another friend's PC, and my brother is complaining about his being slow and crappy... (spyware is my guess, we'll see..) He only wants to play Postal 2 for fcuks sake. I keep telling him it's actually a crap game, but he seems obsessed [shrug] waste of a 9800Pro/Barton combination, IMO.

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A64 3200+ Winchester @ 258x10=2580Mhz, ~1.52 Vcore
1Gb RAM, running at various strange speeds... :lol:
Voltmodded Sapphire 9800Pro @ 450/350 w/ modded VGA silencer 3.
 

ChipDeath

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May 16, 2002
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It's now fine!

The latest BIOS fixed it.

Currently running @ 2.5Ghz with RAM @ 209Mhz.

WTF? I just noticed CPU-Z is reporting the Vcore as ~1.37V?

I was fiddling with it and had to reset CMOS a few times so I guess I might've forgotten the Vcore last time.

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A64 3200+ Winchester @ 258x10=2580Mhz, ~1.52 Vcore
1Gb RAM, running at various strange speeds... :lol:
Voltmodded Sapphire 9800Pro @ 450/350 w/ modded VGA silencer 3.
 

ChipDeath

Splendid
May 16, 2002
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Yup. Left Vcore at default in BIOS. :cool: .

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A64 3200+ Winchester @ 258x10=2580Mhz, ~1.52 Vcore
1Gb RAM, running at various strange speeds... :lol:
Voltmodded Sapphire 9800Pro @ 450/350 w/ modded VGA silencer 3.
 
Awesome - congrats on getting it up and running! Now get Folding! :lol:

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:tongue: <font color=red>Have you read the FAQ? Searched for other posts on this topic?</font color=red>
 

endyen

Splendid
YES we love it. Now I need more money.
None of the places I shop carry that board. I almost picked up the gigabyte board. I'm glad I didn't because it has no HTT multiplier control. What's your F@H benchmark, with dual channel?
 

ChipDeath

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May 16, 2002
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It's still in single channel, but still needs very relaxed timings. I'll need to replace that 512Mb Corsair with some more ballistix at some point I think, but for the moment, I'm happy it's actually running at the speed I tell it to.

Can't believe I was happily using it at this speed yesterday for a few hours, but at default Vcore... Although I've now given it a little bump anyway.
Got the XP-120 on there too... so nice and quiet, and 42C load (folding :smile: )

F@H benchie is actually quite low - 7568. I think a clean install would help a lot there, but I'm not really suffering enough problems to justify the pain of doing so :eek: ... Plus we know the benchie isn't really that reliable an indication of actual folding performance.

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A64 3200+ Winchester @ 250x10= ~2.5Ghz, ~1.41 Vcore
1Gb @ 209Mhz, 2T, 3-5-5-10
Voltmodded Sapphire 9800Pro @ 450/350 w/ modded VGA silencer 3.