[RESOLVED]FLASH BIOS 02/01/05>> nf4 Ultra-D - Windows install er

[PGBK]

My initial problem also same but with my xlpt...

I ensure i memtest pass #5 n #8 before any install

I increase my vdimm from 2.7 up to 3.1 just to get my tccd out of any errors.

 

Everything was back to normal after flash to 0201 bios...

[spdiscus]

I don't like increasing the voltage (3.0 w/ RGone's settings was stressful enough), but since flipping it off doesn't seem to help, I guess I'm willing to go up to 3.1. Is there a definite stopping point for RAM voltage? The Ballistix don't give any information in the packaging, and I'll be able to do minimal searching at work, today.

[RGone]

spdiscus, just a little background about memory and stuff as it is not all that it seems at times. Got two brands of memory that do 270 or more on my NF3 and one of them the patriot XBL was in no computer at time NF4 arrived.

 

Put patriot in the NF4 and it acting strange as hale won't boot with even one stick in the orange slot close to edge of board. Got out my old get up starter stick and booted it in the orange slot using bios 1/25 that shipped on my board and loaded optimized and saved and exited. Put the XBL in and it would not run CAS2.5 at all. Set Cas2.5 and get ready to clear the cmos. Ticked me off and I removed it and put some mushkie V2 in and it acted alright but would not motor up but would run CAS2.5. And those both were run with 3.0 volts to memory or more to get them to boot at all. 2.9Volts might not be enough!

 

Ok so I pulled the crucial ballistix out of my UT250gb and install to my NF4 and I pointed you to my results. I said I had 2.9 volts on it but thinking back I could have had 3.1 volts on them it is hard to remember from the notes as I said.

 

So NF4 was up and running on crucial ballistix and I take the two strange acting brands of four sticks and put them in my NF3 UT250gb and run memtest. I know that rig inside and out. Guess what the outcome of that memtesting was??? Score two bad sticks of patriot that will NOT do Cas2.5 no matter what and the rating for that memory is 3, 4, 4, 8 at DDR 533> so two sticks bad there. Ok throw Mushkie in and low and behold one stick will not do default 200FSB and not give thousands of errors in test #5 on my UT250 gb. So much for that stick. However the other stick of mushkie will do 260X10 at 2.5, 3, 6, 3 at 3.2 Volts which is a lot. But some batches of TCCD had a real craving for voltage. So depending on how you look at it I have either 4 for 4 bad or with a lot of voltage only 3 of 4 are bad.

 

Point being every stick I stuck in the NF4 when double checked in my UT250gb > well it was bad and gave me fits trying to chase it down to get my NF4 running. And it made no difference what bios as I had a starter stick that I can get almost any board up with and flashed bioses until I was blueish tinted. It was bad dang memory that I presumed was ok but had not double checked what with put it in here and take it out and move it to here and so forth.

 

If at 200FSB and defaults on the NF4 you are getting memory test errors at all with 2.9 volts on the Ballistix you can up the volts to 3.1 as the other user has said an run memtest again. If you get any errors at all with default timings or the one's I showed you>>>then you have likely found your problem with bad memory. Memory that I assumed was good as it seemed so when I last used it had by now migrated to a bad state and my assuming it still fine was what threw me off on NF4 and then to find that memory runs "strong" on ONLY Cas2 but would not run Cas25 at all > well it took some sorting and a spare computer and about 7 hours of my time to diagnose the whole thing and most of the time I wasted setting up NF4 was caused by poor memory> I presumed was good.

 

Now I take all this time to type this as you say you are just starting out. Well take nothing as new for granted or that worked in some other setup. It needs checking at the point you currently intend to use it. It cost me because I was in a hurry and had done so many and assumed way too much. Should have checked the memory before I cussed my NF4. Hehehehehehe. Oh well I learned a lesson again until I forget about 4 months from now.

 

No errors in memtest at default. If you have them you have a problem with the memory at almost every turn in the road.

 

 

RGone...

[Smoken Joe]

You could try running your memory at 100 speed that worked for me as a temp solution. Not that I would want to run that way all the time though the computer did run farly soon untill I found a good fix.

[spdiscus]

I went through and ran memtest with each DIMM, separately. With interleaving disabled, and everything else auto/default --> 2.9, 3.0, 3.1, 3.2V --> all started logging thousands of errors at exactly 99% of memtest #5. That's eight tests with the exact same results on two different sticks. Is this my motherboard?

Should I just RMA it and the RAM (since Ballistix obviously have problems with this board)? I have no idea what the board's done to the RAM. It's not like I've been trying to push it to the limits; I just want something to work.

Tomorrow morning will be the mass-return day if no one has better suggestions. I have no way of testing my RAM and motherboard separately, and I'm afraid that one will end up screwing up the other if I keep putting them through obviously stressful tests (for me and the components). Has anyone else seen similar problems (matched errors in memtest)?

I'm running memtest86+, if anyone thinks that matters. It seemed more recent than memtest86.

 

Thanks, everyone, for all the help.

 

EDIT: I see that there's a problem with memtest on nF4 boards (other post). Regardless, I still can't get to/through a full install. I think both sticks and the board will soon be back in shipping. I'm open to guesses, speculation, zen-fueled enlightenment. What would you do in this situation?

[NEOAethyr]

I've been reading some of the nf4 threads here and it seems that memtest does'nt work corrrectly on a nf4 chipset so...

 

Your gonne just have to mess with the timings and voltages, diveders until you can get windows to install all the way without a copy error, then test it from there.

 

Install the agp driver, and video card driver.

Then test some 3d stuff to push the memory, for instance I use 3dmark03, cpu test2 and the vertexshader test for memory testing.

This works awesome for the main memory timings.

 

(I should put my specs in the sig so I don't need to keep saying this)

I don't have that board though, I have a nf2 ultra b.

 

It even works somewhat for the alpha timings, works though for the drive and slew rates though pretty good.

For the alpha like timings, your gonna have to use gaming, I use ut2k4 demo, dm, for now.

I play a whole round of dm, 50 kills to win.

Then after it runs that without big probs, then I exit ut2k4, if no errors appear from exiting I try doom3.

I play it to the point after the one guy says the baord sent him to investigate, and he's talking to that other dude.

I dn remember the names fo the people but you aught to know what I'm talking about, if it passses that then your pretty good on memory.

 

Use those tests and maybe others inside windows to do your testing.

You're gonna have to ^^.

Just take the idvice the others give you about your type of memory and the timings.

Like I said I dn have the baord so I can't say what could be slack or not and etc.

[spdiscus]

So, I've decided the Ballistix are more trouble than they're worth. I'll be ordering new DIMMs from either ZZF or NewEgg, tomorrow morning. Anything people particularly recommend? Anything to avoid (other than Ballistix)? I'd like particularly to hear what people are running successfully on the nF4 Ultra-D with the 1/25 BIOS. I have yet to make it far enough into a boot to flash to the 2/09 beta.

 

Thanks, again.

[PGBK]

twinmos speed premium winbond utt @2-2-2-7-1t 3.2v 250Mhz...

 

I m still trying to scale my tccd then to select which pair to use for it..

 

my tccd is just a hard game to play w this board but now @DDR500 and still trying

[jess1313]

HeHe......... You are good Rgone.

 

 

 

Jess

[Smoken Joe]

I have OCZ 3200 Platnum revison 2 it will clock up to 305 prime stable 1:1 so far. Ihad no problems at stock speed and I had problems with my first set of memory(non tccd) too.

[spdiscus]

I'm up and running, now. I finally flashed to the 2/1 BIOS (I had planned on waiting until it was *official* but I decided enough people had recommended it). I haven't had a crash since the flash, but I've yet to really do any benching. I'll be staying with the Ballistix, for now.

 

Thanks, everyone!