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4x512 too much?


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I'm having a great time trying to get 4x512 GeiL Ultra-X NF4 edition dimms to run @ DDR 400. The advertised timings are 2-2-2-5/1T. I'm trying to run 4 of them at 2T. The only way I get even make it to memtest with those settings is to have the Dram Drive Strngth at level 9. Funning thing is, they will pass memtest for 8+ hours with no issues. But XP install dies at various points or call out a BSOD with "Memory Controller " as the exit reason 0x0000001A. The vdimm has been raised to the recommended 2.8v, I have also relaxed the timings to 2-3-3-6. Not sure where else to go.

 

My questions are:

1). Is there a way to identify which chips GeiL used? Is it possible that 1 dual channel set is TCCD and the other is BH-5? Would be funny.

2). Does the latest BIOS for the Expert fully support revision E6?

3). How much of a performance hit do I take by running 2GB @ 333 vs 1GB at 400?

 

Thanks

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You are loosening those timings up right? Just because it's advertised at those tight of timings, doesn't mean it will be clocked as tight regardless of how far you loosen them...especially with the processors memory controller. Give the latencies of 2.5-3-3-8 a shot, and see where it gets you. Also, just pump 2.9v into them and see if it helps - but throw in some extra cooling over them...

 

IC can usually be identified by www.techpowerup.com which has a memory database. you might find it in there.

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i think if you want to identify what chips are on the sticks you should test the pairs as they were oridinally packaged. if you have a tccd pair they should reach 290-300 easily at 3-4-4-8 with 2.9v or less while bh5 won't go much over 260 no matter how much juice you give em.

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On my infinity board, the manual says that it will run DDR333 with four sticks if all the sticks are double sided. I found the same thing you are that memtest and windows treat them very differently. If I run 4x512 a little over DDR333 my windows programs start crashing. At DDR333 everything is happy. Let me know if you have better luck.

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Yeah, my manual says the same thing. I don't think that it covers the Venice core of the A64s. Venice (rev E) has an improved memory controller and is supposed to handle 4 double sided dimms at 400DDR without any issues. Here's an Xbitlabs about it. This makes me think that maybe the 12/07/05 bios does not fully support rev E. cpus? Anyone have an official answer to that?

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Wow, that's pretty intersting reading - bummer. All I know is that my current tests with 3D marks 05 run stable near DDR333 and crash when I ran at DDR357.

 

I'll play with it some more when I get some real free time.

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Yeh, I hope the taiphoon app can reveal the GeiL chip mystery. At least it will give me a rough idea of how to run this ram. Is GeiL ram looked down on? I don't see many people using it with DFI boards....

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Is GeiL ram looked down on?

 

No geil has a pretty good reputation most noted is probably the Geil One Series. Geil USA I'm currently doing an rma on my G-skill & am running an old pair of Geil Ultra PC3500 Golden Dragon Running 2x256mb 262x11 @ 9:10 2-4-4-8

1T 2.97v better which isn't that much slower than i run with my g-skill.

 

luck :)

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Geil has been such and up and down type of thing for enthusiast that most just steered clear and left the pricing lure alone mostly. They killed us all with dragons failures and then would come late to the party with just a few of some good stuff and then fade so it is hard to chronicle what will or will not do well.

 

Geil had the "GS" series they came to after all the others found what was needed and then the good "GS" is gone before the sun arose good. So for real in the US if you don't speak a foreign language, you will not know much about Geil, is my guess.

 

RGone...

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not looked down on at all...at least by me anyway...i have been a fan of geil mem for more that 5 years,,,jsut these days, most of us have made the switch to 2gbs of ram, 2 sticks of 1024, is a much better way to go, than 4 sticks of 512.

geil made a 2 gb set of value ram, that most people here didnt go with because of the "value" label, but i have read that the ic's used on em were very good, but i never did check em out.

with your setup, just sell your ram, and get on the 2gb bandwagon...my hz's are running 270 :nod:

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