P35-DQ6 Memory Performance Issue

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marachai

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Oct 27, 2007
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Hi All,

I recently upgraded my system with a new motherboard, cpu and memory, and after a clean install of XP I noticed how badly my system was running. After some investigation I think I have narrowed it down, but need some advice from people more knowledgeable than myself.

Basically my memory seems to be under performing. I installed 2 gig of pc2-6400 (800 Mhz, 4-4-4-4-12) memory in the dual slots on a gigabyte p35-DQ6 with a Intel Q6600 cpu.

After running Sisoftware Sandra bench test program, and comparing it with my friends similar system, I noticed that my Memory bandwidth score in sandra was only 2500 for both (Float and Int Memory bandwidth), when in his machine my own memory rated 6000+. I then tried his memory in my system, which scored a high 5000 on the test in his own system, but in mine it was back to 2500 for both results.

I am not sure this is relevant, but when i checked my system using cpu-z the only difference i could see between his system and mine was my FSB Dram was 2:3 , and his was 5:6. Though I am personally unsure which is the correct divider for the memory.

Any and all help is very much appreciated. My system is running real slow due to this and its quite frustrating after having upgraded.

Thanks all :)
 
Download and run CPU-Z and/or PC Wizard 2007 to find out what the FSB speed, memory bus speed, etc are on your system, and whether or not the memory controller is running in dual-channel mode.
 
Better yet, download CPU-Z and Analogx Capture. Set Capture to capture the active window and get a capture/screen shot of each tab. Then upload them to TinyPic . Then copy the address (entry #2) and post it so we can see exactly what CPU-Z is reporting.
 
I have P35-DQ6 with Crucial Ballistix 2GB DDR2 800. Q6600 @3G/1333 4:5 ram @ 800, with all other programs running, here are my scores:
Int Buff'd iSSE2 Memory Bandwidth
Assignment : 5959 MB/s
Scaling : 5964 MB/s
Addition : 6129 MB/s
Triad : 6118 MB/s

Float Buff'd iSSE2 Memory Bandwidth
Assignment : 5987 MB/s
Scaling : 5972 MB/s
Addition : 6169 MB/s
Triad : 6139 MB/s

You clearly have a settings problem.
 
1066 / 4 = 266.5 * 9 = 2398.5

That's your q6600's stock speed.

400 * 2 = 800

That's your ram stock speed.

In order to run your ram at or near stock speed, go to bios, press CTRL & F1, go to "Overclock Navigator Engine", change "System Memory Multiplier" to 3.0 which means:

266.5 * 3 = 799.5

It's near stock speed. Save & exit. Boot up windows & bench only ram in sandra (I don't like it cuz it takes ages; everest is faster). If it says 6x00 MB/s, then you're done. The PC2-XXXX denotes the max speed in megabyte per second.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC2-6400#Chips_and_modules
 
I still want to see screen shots, because if he is running that Q6600 @1066 he needs to get the "free" OC to 1333. If he just changes his RAM multiplier he will loose out on a free performance increase.
 
Hey Guys, thanks for helping out :) .. I'm fine when it comes to building pc's for myself, but when it goes into this area utterly confused, so i appreciate the help.

Here are the pictures you wanted.

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When i installed my system, i just left everything on auto assuming it would pick up the right settings.

Thanks again.
 
Zorg, not everyone wants to overclock. Some even vehemently don't want to.

marachai, that's correct. Your ram is at 800mhz. 400mhz is the real speed. times 2 = the advertised speed.
 
Hey guys :)

wanted to add this in. I went into my bios and set the system mutiplier to 3 today and then went into windows and ran Sisoftware's Sandra tests again. With the changes it actually dropped my two scores from 2500 to around 2300. So I guess that means my bios on auto was doing its job fine.

If thats the case i'm doubly stumped about my low test numbers in Sandra, and why my system is so lagged now. The only changes i made hardware wise were the MB, the cpu and the memory. I went from an Amd 3500 Xp to a Q6600 Intel. Both boards were gigabyte. The memory was from DDR 400 to my DDR2 pc-6400.

Its quite noticable on the desktop when swapping between apps and games and the likes. Its more noticable in games though. Before I upgraded I was half way through nwn2. After i upgraded I reinstalled and loaded up my saves. The game went from playing fine too lagging out when certain events happened on screen.

The general feel of the machine is just ... laggy. It feels like the memory to me.

I havent changed my graphics card or its driver. Only the cpu, memory and mb changed. The only thing sandra found when testing was the memory was under performing.

Any other idea's ? I'd appreciate any more help.
 
Your memory looks good. The timings are not very important to real application performance(vs. synthetic benchmarks). I think your problem is that you don't have enough of it to keep enough tasks in memory at the same time. Look at the performance monitor, and see how many hard page faults you are getting. With a single slower processor, a task will not switch for a relatively long time. With 4 fast cores, two or more can be very busy touching lots of pages, causing lots of demand paging in a memory restricted system.

I would suggest upgrading to 4gb. Get the exact same sticks. You will only see about 3.3gb, but that is 160% better than 2gb.
 
I have a GA-P35-DQ6 and my score is 7300mbs~. I have Ballistix Tracer ddr2 1066 memory in it running @ 1160~ and 5,4,4,4 @ 2.35v. My cpu is a e4400 running at 3.2~ghz 9x 355. You can tweak out the timings below the normal ones and that gets you alot of boost. I think mine are set to like 1,2,2,,,5 something like that. I was getting like 6500mbs then I tweaked those other non normal timings the ones after the cas and all that and wulah crankin now. There are still bugs in the bios though that they need to fix like the prd phase adjustment under the memory timings is all out of wack the mother board shows them as changing all the time and my scores on like 3dmark06 are not consistant I have noticed and not in a little way but, a more pointing towards issues kind of way. I was getting 7001 score consistant and then for like two days I was getting 6500~ then my score jumped back up again then down again,,,,.
 
Your settings are correct. What is the brand/part# of RAM? You might try going into MIT and increasing your ram voltage to +4 which will bring you to 2.2V. leave the timings where they are for now and run the bench again. Post your results.
 
Your kidding right? Are you scolding me? Don't you think that it is better to actually see the screen caps of CPU-Z to ensure that there is no confusion. Did the OP give you any indication that he didn't want to OC or more importantly that he was vehemently opposed to any OC? Because if you saw that anywhere please post the quote that I missed.
 
I did like the word vehemently you must have been really angry. I wasn't going to say this but anyone that doesn't want the "free" OC to 3G is just paranoid. I'm not saying bring it to 3.4G, just a mild 3.0. With a good HS and checking temps it is impossible to damage the CPU or mobo or anything else for that matter. It's a free, really easy additional 400Mhz. With a quad that's 400 x 4 or 1.6G OC. Yeah, I know you can't just multiply the cores like that. Completely safe and easy as pie, whatever that means. 😉
 
Hey Guys,

Thanks again for all the help. I appreciate it, since without it i'd be lost trying to figure out whats up.

I will try putting the voltage up in the MIT, though could anyone suggest the right setting to use. Gigabyte seem to have some weird numbers in there and I want to make sure i select the right one.

Just to help narrow down other factors, I installed a new faster hard drive in my system and did a clean install of XP Sp2 and a fresh up to date install of all my drivers. Just to make sure it wasnt anything related to that. Still seem to be getting the laggy feel on the desktop and with games though.

Will going up to 4 gig on the board help ? I have been tracking the fourms and it seems some people have been experiencing unstable machines when using 4 sticks on this motherboard. Anyone got any experience to know how likely that is, or should it be ok, assuming it would benefit me ?

Btw I am using 2 1 gig sticks of Crucial Ballistix pc2-6400 memory. I did make sure to have them in the dual slots on the board.

Thanks again guys.
 
I my earlier post I covered this. Set it to +.4v, so that will be 1.8v + .4v = 2.2v

I would like to see your temps. These instructions are from another post.

I want to be sure your temps are accurate. Download Core Temp and Prime95 25.5. Run Prime95 while monitoring your temps with CoreTemp. Preferably post a screen shot of CoreTemp or at least give us the temps.
Click to expand...
This will help you post a screen shot of Coretemp if you want. Download Analogx Capture. Set Capture to capture the active window and get a capture/screen shot of CoreTemp. Then upload it to TinyPic . Then copy the address (entry #2) and post it so we can see exactly what CoreTemp is reporting.
 
4gb will not help you I recently took out two of my crucial ballistix tracer ddr2 1066 sticks because of latency issues it slows the memory through put down a little not much actually like 400mbs maybe at most. I just thought 4gb would help but, I was wrong. I said above that if you have not tweaked the memory timings below the normal ones like cas ext. then, you will not see full potential of the memory/motherboard. I am actually seeing higher through put then the sites reviewing the board because they obviously have not tweaked the memory settings either. I will also add that I have done alot of testing and the higher the frequency of the memory the better performance you will get because the board will not alow you to step down to 1T even if you are running the memory at lower speeds like 800Mhz you need to put it at the 3.2 or 3.33 setting if possible on the latter because I have had issues setting mine to the 3.33 with my E4400 over clocked as high as it will go which is 3.2~Ghz with a 9 multi. I can do 3.3 with 10 but, higher performance with the 9x 355Mhz.
 
Hey All :)

I tried nudging up the voltage on the memory, and then tested it again using Sisoftwares Sandra, but the numbers didnt really move.

Just for a test, I took my memory out and tried it in 3 other machines. I installed my version of Sandra on each, and then tested both there memory and my own. All the memory was rated the same, it being pc2-6400 4-4-4-12 800. In all three machines my memory scored around 6000, and their own memory tested between 5500 to 6300. Two of these machines are using gigabtye boards almost exactly the same as mine, so pretty close over all.
Just for laughs I then tested two other peoples memory in my machine, again similar spec, and both times their memory rated like mine around 2500. I also tried running games etc and still was having the lag issues.

So I am not sure where to go now. The lag is really annoying. I have contacted gigabyte direct with the question, but they really are dragging their heels on this.

Not sure what to try next. I'd prefer not to over clock, I'd just like to get the memory scoring what it should, and does in other peoples machines.

Any way guys, thanks for all the help and advice. You've helped me understand things a ton more.
 
There is a new bios for the GA-P35-DQ6 and it is a hell of alot more easy to use. They put the speed of the processor depending on what settings you set and the memory timings are accessable now without cntrl+i. I'm telling you though man tweak the settings below the regular ones cas .... they are the sweet spot. Tweaking those settings is not over clocking the memory just so you know by the way.
 
At the main menu press <Ctrl>+<F1> and you can go into MIT and set the timings to 4-4-4-12 from 5-5-5-18 but I don't think it will make that big of a difference. Maybe you do have a bad board, although I find that hard to believe. Your settings look correct, except the looser timings. I still would like to see temps, but oh well.
 
Hey Zorg,

I grabbed the temps you wanted to see. Posting them up now. I ran the testing program for 11 minutes and all 4 cores were working at 100% or close enough. I use a 3rd party fan on my cpu, as I really dont like the ones that come with the intel box. I also use gigabytes I-cool program, which tends to only step up the fan as needed.

ae1hcw.jpg


This First is my system at rest. I-cool has the fan down to 30% for noise reduction.

357jzg3.jpg


This was the hottest things got during the test. Once the first core hit 66, I-cool stepped in quickly and powered the fan up to 100% and the temps calmed down to what you see in the last pic.

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I do have a quick question. During my initial setup of the system I was forced to use the Optimised defaults on the bios. By any chance could that have set something involving the memory off or low ?

Thanks all for the help :)
 



Don't listen to him, get the newer bios for it f7b and no more cntrl+f1 crap. I have said I don't know how many times now change the settings below the cas and ras and all the normal ones. The refresh time has been added and another option to I believe now with the f7b bios. I have the damn board I know what I am talking about here. I got so much of a boost with tweaking thos settings. I am getting solid 7250~ mbs now. I was getting like 5400~ mbs I believe.
 
Hey truehighroller :)

I truly appreciate the advice your giving me on tweaking my settings, and honest mate I will follow your advice just as soon as I figure out my base problem. I'd like to figure out why my scores are half anyone elses before I start tweaking.

I know tweaking like you have done will bring the numbers up, so in the end I may need to do that just to get the memory to perform the way it should normally.

I've contacted gigabyte direct and am trying to get some sort of answer out of them. I don't see how my memory can be scoring 6000+ on 3 other machines using the same testing software, and scores only 2500 on my own.

Just for future reference, Can you tell me exactly which things in the bios I will need to alter to tweak my settings like you are suggesting ? I looked at them yesterday and i could see the timing ones, which were 5-5-5-15 ... but there were a while bunch underneath it too, and had no idea if those should be touched when i do tweak :)

Thanks again bro.
 
Your temps are not the cause. Technically your system should run properly with optimized defaults. Except the RAM voltage, and your RAM claims to run at 1.8V, and you also set it to 2.2V. Unless you have something loaded on your HD that is really strange, I have to say bad mobo. I set the BIOS to optimized defaults to test it for you. The following is the test I ran for you, with screen shots to verify settings and BIOS revision. Before I sent the mobo back I would update the BIOS to F6 or the latest BIOS just for grins. Do not use the @BIOS use Q-Flash it's safer. Copy the BIOS file to a floppy or burn it to a CD, I think you can use a flash card as well. That's pretty much all I can think of. As you can see below, the RAM should give better results with opt. def., and you already tested the RAM. That leaves PSU and mobo. I don't know the PSU, but a really underpowered PSU would probably cause crashes, so that leaves the mobo.

BIOS set to optimized defaults with no changes of any kind, including voltage, using Crucial Ballistix 2GB DDR2 800

Benchmark Results
Int Buff'd iSSE2 Memory Bandwidth : 5356 MB/s
Float Buff'd iSSE2 Memory Bandwidth : 5370 MB/s

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