Can't get memory to run at 1066mhz (rated) in vista

[Foxhunter39]

Hi all,

I didn't know if to post this in the vista forums or here, so I'll settle with this. anyway I build a new system yesterday and installed vista to latest sp1 (all updates) and installed some games. I Got corsair dominator (2 sticks of 2gs) 4gbs of ram and they are rated at 1066mhz. So I upped my FSB to 400 mhz to put my Quad core speed at 3.4ghz(Q9550 rated at 2.83ghz) Anyway since then I was unable to get vista to run stable in games. I could play a couple of games like steams HL2 series and COD4 but other games would hard lock and the system screen would go black and reboot. After restart Vista would say that ATi drivers where to blame(BSOD Error 1033) However, sometimes vista would recover and say that "atikmdag stopped responding"

System:
Q9550 Core two Quad (OC to 3.4ghz and fsb set to 400mhz)
CORSAIR DOMINATOR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) <---I can only set at 800mhz for system to be stable in games. I can run vista at this speed it is only when in games.
Asus Rampage Formula

3870 Radeons Crossfired (not OC at stock and use rivaTuner v2.11 to put fans at set speed so it should neever overheat )
650watt BFG powersupply

I'm in a rush so if you need more info I'll post it later.

 

[kamkal]

you might have to up the voltage on the mem to get it to be stable @ 1066

 

[Foxhunter39]

you might have to up the voltage on the mem to get it to be stable @ 1066

Yea i upped the voltage to it's rated settings when i put it at 1066.
Timing 5-5-5-15
voltage at 2.1

And it still crashes. I seriously think this is a vista problem if I am able to run some games at 1066mhz just fine and other I can't.

Edit: Btw I'm using Vista 64 fyi

 

[eklipz330]

well, theres no disgrace in running at ddr2 800, that should be optimal enough to resist bottlenecking in your processor

 

[kamkal]

yea you can tighten the timings at 800 to get similar performance when compared to increasing speed but loosening timings

 

[bauercole]

i had to slightly overclock timings to 5-7-7-20 to get mine to run at 1066. but then with your processor overclocked its gonna bump that up, that may be your stability issue because your RAM looks at CPU multiplier to know how fast it needs to run also.

 

[VXBlade]

I believe your RAM timings are probably fine. What makes you think the RAM is the issue when the error itself says its the video card driver? That baffles me a little. The ATI drivers are problematic in some games and I have a feeling your problems are the same as mine. I can play HL2, and WOW for HOURS and no crashes, I pop in WAR or COD4 and crashes start happening. If the RAM was the problem it would be having the same issue in all the games.

I found out that the problem seems to be the GPU downclocking. I was running RIVA tuner to monitor GPU clock rate and GPU use, and the crashes would happen because the GPU would downclock. The GPU use would then spike and Viola... crash. Not sure of CCC.exe has a way to do this, but I enable low level GPU overclocking for the games that had the problems and made sure the stock GPU clock speed never moved while playing those games and my crashes went away.

David

 

[compunerd22]

I have the same problem. When I run my Dominators at rated 1066, I can play most game and even benchmark my PC with no issues. Unfortunately, some games (Warhammer Online) crash horribly at 1066, but no problems at all at 800. When I say crash, I mean unceremoniously rebooting of my machine - no error, no warning, just CRASH! Sometimes I get rapid-fire graphics driver (2x8800 Ultra) failures and immediate recoveries. Ultimately, the graphics driver fails and the computer requires a reboot before it will play nice-like again.

To David, its pretty common knowledge that GFX cards make use of a small portion of system RAM - you can see it in your BIOS. This is particularly true when SLI is enabled. All I can think of is that at 1066, the GFX cards can't properly make use of that small shared portion of RAM, resulting in the crash.

I know its not my PSU, which it 1000w, and checks out thoroughly with a multimeter. It's not bad memory modules, because the all test out completely with Vista's memory test and Memtest86. It's not a bad board, because everything else works great, even when being benched with FutureMark. I have tried every driver version, every voltage combination, every memory timing, SLI, no SLI, removing a card, swapping cards, reseating RAM, etc. Some of these changes will vary the frequency of my crashed, but NOTHING eliminated them completely except running my memory at 800MHz.

Mike