Help w/ Gigabyte MoBo

[Schryver]

I've been having severe problems with Gigabyte's motherboard GA-HIXP, or rather my friend has been having problems... I've done everything I could to help him, and we're coming here as a last resort.

He bought the mobo so he could change cases from a dell (ugh) to his newly-aquired Thermaltake xaser. Problem was, dell makes their mainboards proprietary and oddly-sized, so he couldn't transfer it. So he did some research and went with a Gigabyte MoBo, since Asus' RDRAM solution wasn't as attractive.

Here's where the problems started. We got it up and running, and he tried to install windows on a cleanly formatted western digital hard drive. At about 40-some percent, <i>every time</i> he got a blue-screen-o'-death. Sometimes it'd say something about an IRQ error, other times it'd be some sort of memory-related error.

Well, we did all we could to troubleshoot the system... removed all the PCI cards, swapped out CD-ROM drives, changed Hard Drives, new graphics card, even tried a new power supply. We even tried 2 different RIMMs of RAM, since we occasionally got that memory error. Nothing let us avoid the blue screen of death.

So we figured, must be Gigabyte's fault. So, we RMA'd, no problem. A week later, new board comes, we put it in the new case.

Blue screen of death.

OK, so now I'm at a loss as to what is wrong. I figure it's one of three things:
a)Dell does something to their processors (is this possible?) that makes them only work in their mobos. But I've heard stories that people are taking 1.8A's out of Dells and putting them in their own systems...?
b)Some sort of RDRAM-configuration error.
c)We just suck at installing stuff.

So any ideas what's wrong?

GA-HIXP motherboard
Dell P4 2.26 w/ 533 FSB
GeForce4 Ti 4600
2 RIMM Samsung PC800 RDRAM 256 MB
2 RIMM Kingston valueram PC800 RDRAM 256 MB
Enermax 430W Power
WD Hard Drives
Other stuff...

Thanks for your help. Just ask if you need more info.

 

[jlanka]

during the install, try underclocking the RAM (e.g. set it to 400 instead of 533, CAS 3 instead of CAS 2)

<i>It's always the one thing you never suspected.</i>

 

[Crashman]

Like the last guy said. Reason being you're running PC800 on a 533 bus CPU. Intel/Dell board probably used more conservative timings, you should try loading the thing with the memory at it's slowest BIOS settings.

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[lonelygoalie]

Hi, this is the "friend" with the problematic gigabyte board that the first poster was talking about. Thank you both for your responses. Just to make sure I understand, I have to set the RAM speed lower? In the gigabyte BIOS, under "RDRAM Bus Frequency" the bios has three options:

"Auto - set RDRAM bus frequency automatically"
"PC800 - set RDRAM Bus frequency to PC800 (Default value)"
"PC600 - set RDRAM bus frequency to PC600"

Then it says "For FSB frequency=133MHz":

"Auto - set RDRAM bus frequency automatically"
"PC800 - set RDRAM bus frequency to PC800 (default value)"
"PC1066 - set RDRAM bus frequency to PC1066"

There are also options for "Over RIMM Voltage" and "Memory ECC Mode" with enable and disable options for both. These are the only settings regarding memory that I think there are and the info I provided is right out of the manual. Are these the settings to which you refer and what settings should I make? Thank you for your help.

 

[lonelygoalie]

Does anyone have anymore info on this? I've got all these computer parts sitting around and I want to know if it will be possible to fix this issue with the gigabyte board. Thanks!

 

[Schryver]

Hmm... I'm still confused.

See, I'm mostly familiar with DDR memory settings; I totally understand how to set CAS latency and all those other numbers that follow it. But this is RAMBUS we're talking about here... and I don't see any of those settings. Bah. All I remember finding is a setting for PC 800/1066, and 800 is obviously the more conservative of the settings. I suppose we can build his computer up for a fourth time and see if we can bump it down to 600...

I'm just really confused about this RAMBUS stuff. Why wouldn't PC800 work on a 533 FSB? Is it the memory's fault, the mobo's, or the processor's?

Again, thanks.

 

[Crashman]

It's weird, but Intel recommended you use only PC800-40 with the 533 bus. It could be the other timings are based on the CPU bus? Doesn't seem likely. But PC800-40 is definately faster than PC800-45.

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[Crashman]

OH, you could also try raising the memory VOLTAGE one step, as that board is supposed to be able to do that. You might have to use a key combo from within BIOS to get the extra features, I think it's CTRL-F1.

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[Schryver]

Heh I've been reading this board for a while, and I noticed that a lot of people dislike RAMBUS strongly... I never really understood why 'till now.

These suggestions sound really good to me, Crashman. I definitely remember seeing something about RIMM overvoltage or something like that. If that fails, I guess he'll have to get rid of the 45 ns memory and get some 40... bummer.

Well, one more build can't hurt... of course, I never thought it would be possible to go through as much Arctic Silver as we have... heh... :-/

 

[Crashman]

My suggestion would be that if the voltage doesn't fix it, tell him to get PC1066, it would give him a good boost in performance over PC800.

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