P35-D3SR 4GB Issue

[oompaloompa]

I have the above board, failry new, second one I've had. I have 4x1GB Corsair Dominator PC2-8500 Ram and have random reboot issues. Sometimes when I reboot the PC will stop, restart, restart again and will have dropped the CPU speed and all the settings in that section of the BIOS. I am running Vista x64. Other issues include apps crashing in Windows etc.

I have set the ram to run in auto mode, the board is not overclocked at all. The ram is running at 1066mhz, the CPU is a QX6700 at stock of 2.66Ghz

What is causing these problems. With 2 sticks of Ram it is fine. I have tried running the ram at 800 and it makes no difference. Would I be better with 2x2GB or a different board?

One small note is that the system sleeps with no problem, although I think when I wake it up some of the USB Ports are reluctant to work correctly.

 

[Surfdigger]

I have the same problem as what you are describing. I have the same board and the memory. I am using a Q6600 processor. I will try your solution to only put 2 GByte instead of four. However, I am hoping someone will be able to help to solve this issue so I can make use of all memory.

One more note, I am running Vista Home premium 32bit.

 

[night_wolf_in]

did u apply the right voltage? even if u did, try to increase a bit (over the official voltages requirement).

test your rams with memtest86+ give it couple or three runs.

 

[Surfdigger]

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, the timing (5-5-5-15) and the voltage (2.2V) are set in accordance with the info on Corsair's website. In order to get the 2.2V I had to manually increase the DDR voltage by 0.4V - it defaults to 1.8V. If the bios is set to Auto it comes to 2.1V.

I will give your suggestion a try to increase the voltage.

 

[smartel7070]

I don't have a solution for you but I can tell you that I have the same board but with different memory. I have 4x1gb Patriot http://www.patriotmem.com/products/detailp.jsp?prodline=5&catid=2&prodgroupid=38&id=317&type=1 and I never had any problem with it and the board. Have you called Gigabyte support ? Maybe your ram configuration and type is problematic with the P35-DS3R.

 

[Surfdigger]

Haven't called Gigabyte support yet. The Dominator 8500 memory were tested by Corsair with the P35-DS3R in standard and overcloked mode. Also, on the Gigabyte website this memory is mentioned on the AVL (Approved Vendor List). So all indications are that it should work. The fact that Oompaloompa mentioend that he doesn;t have a problem if he uses only 2 GByte instead of four (not verified by me yet) would indicate that it ought to work correctly.

 

[night_wolf_in]

IF the over volting works, then it is great.

try to relax the timers more. -that is another solution. you should try.

if by all means the four sticks dont work, do as above mentioned (ask gigabyte tech support).

and give it a rough test, which means, test each stick you have individually, like this sequence i made.

test stick 1 alone
test stick 2 alone
test stick 3 alone
test stick 4 alone
test stick 1,2
test stick 1,3
test stick 1,4
if all working fine, repeat same process in the other two slots (i believe you have four slots).
next test three sticks together. and laslty, 4 sticks together.

i know, this seems crazy (but it is very scientific way of defining a problem if there was in either rams or the mobo slot).

 

[Zorg]

I don't know that I would increase the RAM voltage above 2.2V. You don't need to run the RAM at 1066 the difference in real world performance is negligible. You might try upping the Vmch a little bit. The P35 mobos are known to have problems with four sticks of RAM.

 

[bilbat]

There's a GREAT Gigabyte forum over at:
http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69
They have a 'sticky' specifically for memory testing/tuning on Gigabyte mboards...

I've heard that Gb boards, in general, 'like' Mushkin RAM. Not to say others' WON"T work, just that Mushkins seem to take less fiddling with, and if you ARE willing to fiddle, might OC better. I'm planning a new workstation, and was going to buy 8Gb OCZ 1066 as it was a little cheaper, & they seem to have good support (especially at NewEgg) but, it seemed to me, I'd GLADLY pay $15 a stick to cut several hours of cursing at the BIOS while tweaking.

 

[shortstuff_mt]

This thread was kind of highjacked. The OP said he was running the RAM on AUTO settings. The timings and voltage should manually be set to the manufacturers specs. Run memtest86+ for at least 8 hours. If it comes up with errors at the rated timings and voltage, test each individual stick and return the kit with problems.

 

[Scotteq]

Also - Go into the advanced memory settings and ensure tRFC ("Refresh to Activate Delay") is set to 54 or greater.

 

[jaysins]

I have the same board but 2x2gb geil memory which is overclocked by 253 Mhz at stock voltage. I would definitely try memtest and switching around memory as it seems like either a particular stick or slot may not be working. If that's not the problem you may need different memory, the geil ddr2 800 4-4-4-12 comes highly recommended by me. At 2.1 volts I'm running at above speed and 5-5-5-15 and am currently limited by the FSB on my board.

 

[Surfdigger]

I have put all settings in the BIOS back to AUTO.

Currrent status - stick 1 in slot 1 tested 5 cycles (for 2.5 hours). No problem. Started with stick 2 in slot 1.

I am using MEMTEST86 as suggested. It does the mem testing just fine, other options, like SPD, are giving no data. Is this expected behaviour?

 

[Surfdigger]

Update - all sticks tested in slot 1, no errors. Now checking the stick I tested longest in slot 1 (7 hours) in the rest of the slots.