p35 DS3R and 4 gigs of ram slower ???

[mykemyk2008]

Hi i just bought another 2 gigs of ram so i now have 4x1 gigs of ddr2 pc8500. I know about 32 bit limitations etc etc but my problem is this. My ram runs much slower in benchmarks and memtest86. Almost 40% slower. My steup is such

Vista Ultimate 32bit
Q6600 @ 3.5 ghz
GA P35 DS3R rev 2.0 bios f6
4x1 gig crucial ballistix ddr2 pc8500 5-5-5-15

When i run memtest86 3.4a it says my bandwidth is 3200mb/s. When i use to run it with 2 gigs it said my bandwidth was near 5000mb/s. When i run SiSoft Sandra i used to have memory bandwidth of around 8000-8800mb/s now with the 4 gigs it runs at 6400mb/s. I have changed nothing in my bios after changing to 4 gigs. My bios is configured correctly all manual settings. Im an experienced overclocker so i know my settings and my bios. I just dont see how going to 4 gigs can slow my system down 40%. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[notherdude]

I think your MOBO is running the RAM at a slower speed because you have all four slots populated. Some MOBOs do that.

 

[mykemyk2008]

So i wonder if running my ram say at 1400 mhz would bring me up to stock speeds. I know it sounds nuts but if it is just running slower due to that maybe it will work.

 

[Shadow703793]

Turn off the Page file.

 

[mykemyk2008]

Why would i turn off page file? What would that do?

 

[notherdude]

So i wonder if running my ram say at 1400 mhz would bring me up to stock speeds. I know it sounds nuts but if it is just running slower due to that maybe it will work.

Good question. The MOBO slows the RAM because of it's own limitations in running all four slots. So even if it allows you to override the settings you may be unstable. I'm not sure.

Check your real world performance, the slower RAM may or may not actually affect it very much.

 

[mykemyk2008]

Well i see no real performance gain at all with the extra 2 gigs. I check real world gain with bf2 load times. And i time it with a stop watch. So what would turning my page file off do?

 

[Shadow703793]

Why would i turn off page file? What would that do?

Turning off the page file in a 4GB system increases performance (makes the pagefile run on the RAM instead of the HDDs) Remember that HDDs are slower than RAM. See:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000422.html

Edit:
!!!DO NOT TURN OFF THE PAGE FILE COMPLEATLY, JUST MAKE THE SIZE SMALLER!!!

 

[mykemyk2008]

What should i put my page file size to then? I have it set to automatically manage paging file size for all drives. When i open taks manager these are the numbers


Physical Memory total 3581MB
cached 2800MB

Page File 1475M / 7331M

Im using about 1.14 gbs while im writing this.

 

[Shadow703793]

Reduce them to 4GB total.

 

[Xtreeme]

Turning off the page file in a 4GB system increases performance (makes the pagefile run on the RAM instead of the HDDs) Remember that HDDs are slower than RAM. See:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000422.html

Edit:
!!!DO NOT TURN OFF THE PAGE FILE COMPLEATLY, JUST MAKE THE SIZE SMALLER!!!

BECAREFULL. I use adobe Illustrator, photoshop and dreamweaver. You run a few of those and that small pagefile will DUMP all your work when you go to save saying not enough mem close some apps. This is on a 2gb ram system with 4gb page file! So pagefile size depends on your application. I need 10gb pagefile.

Some programs require pagefile.

 

[Guest]

Make your page file 1024 static on your OS drive. Also it might help to lower your RAM to 800 mhz and then lower your timings to 4-4-4-12 or something close. that should give you a nice performance increase.

 

[Shadow703793]

^Agreed.

 

[Xtreeme]

dont forget not jsut mem needs bumped most times its the mem controler that isnt strong enough so it needs a small bump too. The problem is the signal degrades at high speed over 4 dimss vs 2. So by lowering it keeps the data. But if you oclock to get back to speed you want most need to bump the chipset voltage.