GA-8PE800 fails to boot with 2 sticks of RAM

[graham]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.gigabyte (More info?)

I have a GA-8PE800 which I've been using with a single stick of 512MB DDR333
PC2700 RAM (double sided) for the last year or so. I've just decided to
upgrade the memory so I've bought another stick of 512MB DDR333 PC2700 RAM
but this one's single sided. According to the motherboard manual, I should
be able to include both sticks by putting the single sided one in slot 1 and
the double sided one in either slot 2 or 3.

When I do this, the machine fails to boot (no BIOS screen). If I reset the
CMOS, the machine boots but only recognises 512MB of RAM then next time I
try and boot, it fails again. I've upgraded to the latest motherboard BIOS
(version F8) today.

I've tried moving the RAM around to different slots and either the machine
fails to boot or only 512MB is recognised.

Each stick of RAM works fine when it's on it's own.

Any clues as to what's wrong?

GA-8PE800 Ultra
1.5GHz Pentium 4
Nothing else special!

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.gigabyte (More info?)

"Graham" <spam@spam.net> wrote in message news:<c6m947$d2uca$1@ID-109741.news.uni-berlin.de>...
> I have a GA-8PE800 which I've been using with a single stick of 512MB DDR333
> PC2700 RAM (double sided) for the last year or so. I've just decided to
> upgrade the memory so I've bought another stick of 512MB DDR333 PC2700 RAM
> but this one's single sided. According to the motherboard manual, I should
> be able to include both sticks by putting the single sided one in slot 1 and
> the double sided one in either slot 2 or 3.
>
> When I do this, the machine fails to boot (no BIOS screen). If I reset the
> CMOS, the machine boots but only recognises 512MB of RAM then next time I
> try and boot, it fails again. I've upgraded to the latest motherboard BIOS
> (version F8) today.
>
> I've tried moving the RAM around to different slots and either the machine
> fails to boot or only 512MB is recognised.
>
> Each stick of RAM works fine when it's on it's own.
>
> Any clues as to what's wrong?
>
> GA-8PE800 Ultra
> 1.5GHz Pentium 4
> Nothing else special!

Something tells me that you will have to email gigabyte about this and
wait patiently for a bios update when it comes out. Also there are
latency and memory timings which are different from stick to stick. If
this is the case
then your sticks are incompatible, may work on some mobos while on
others not.

However try this: while inside bios ctrl+f1 then go to advanced
chipset settings, and try to change the bank setting to 3 or 4. You
may need to change a setting from auto to manual to be able to change
the bank setting. Also force cas latency to 2.5 or 3.0(again you will
need to change a setting from auto to manual to allow yourself to
change the latency setting).

PS1 The memory bank setting may be found somewhere else in your bios,
maybe where other memory settings exist.

PS2 It maybe a power problem afterall. Each 512mb stick draws about
40watt in full operation. Try removing extra hard disks, or try
raising the ddr voltage from within bios(warning: this may cause boot
failure and need you to reset cmos).