DELL Precision 690 - Anyone get more than 4GB RAM to work?

[drmayerr]

The 690 is supposed to max out at 32GB and 64GB with a riser. If you've got more than 4GB working, how did you do it and how many GB did you get to work?

This is what's happening wth my memory upgrade attempt:

I just bought 8 sticks of Hynix 4GB PC2 5300f R2. With 8 or 4 sticks of the Hynix -the 690 won't post. When I mix them -4 sticks Kingston in upper white slots, 4 sticks Hynix in lower black slots, BIOS recognizes all sticks, but Win7 Pro 64 only sees 12GB and only 4GB is usable. All sticks pass DELL online diagnostic utility.

My setup is:
Motherboard: DT029
BIOS: A08
CPUs: 2 - 2.33Ghz Xeon
OS: Win 7 Pro 64
RAM: 4GB = 4 sticks 1GB Kingston PC2-4200f R2

Thanks guys

 

[oldjolyon]

I've managed to get 20Gb (4 x 4Gb + 4 x 1Gb) running OK - I started with 8 x 1Gb and have been replacing 1Gb modules with 4Gb (in pairs) as & when I can find tham at a reasonable price.

However, this evening I have had a problem similar to yours after replacing the last 4 x 1Gb with another 4 x 4Gb of Hynix - the BIOS reported the new DIMMs as 2Gb, while Windows got completely confused. The problem appears to be that the new DIMMs are quad-rank organized (4Rx8) and the 690 doesn't seem to like that. The other 4Gb modules are 2Rx4 and the 1Gb ones 2Rx8 (the BIOS display shows this, as does Ray Hinchliffe's excellent SIV utility - )

I've had to revert to the 20Gb configuration & will in future avoid quad-rank RAM for this machine.

I'd be interested to hear whether your problem is also quad-rank memory.

My setup is:
Motherboard: MY171
BIOS: A06
CPUs: 2 x 5160 Xeon (3GHz Woodcrest dual-core)
OS: Windows Server 2008 R2
RAM: 4 x 4Gb PC2-5300F (2 Samsung, 2Hynix) + 4 x 1Gb PC2-5300F (Hynix)

Regards,

Jolyon

 

[drmayerr]

Thanks Jolyon,

Yes it does turn out that the 32GB of Hynix RAM hymp151f72cp8d5-Y5 AC that I bought is indeed Quad Ranked.
That must be it since, I've tried every other suggestion that has been given me including reverting back to A01 BIOS, with no luck.

I'll have to ebay these sticks out & try to get Dual Rank sticks. Do you know if they can fit 32GB of RAM on 8 Dual Ranks sticks? Otherwise I'd have to go to a riser to get 32GB?

Thanks Again,

Drew

 

[oldjolyon]

Drew,

Thanks for letting me know - I'm going to have to do the same. They should be quite saleable as a lot of newer Dell & HP servers will take them.

Yes, you can get 4Gb 2Rx4 DIMMs & I expect those to work. Anyway, to use the risers you need the 1000w PSU and I've only got the 750. But you have to be very careful on eBay - a lot of the listings don't tell you what rank they are, and you can't always see from the photos.

Do let me know how you get on, & I'll do likewise.

Best regards,

Jolyon

 

[drmayerr]

Jolyon,

Is your 4x4GB Dual Rank and your 4x1GB Single Rank?

I'm curious because there's a guy on Dell's Community Forum that says that the 690's 8 RAM slots can only accommodate a total of 8 Ranks. Here's his post dated 11/13/2012:

"I think the Precision 690 motherboard can accept a maximum of 8 ranks, so if you use 2R memory, you can fill only 4 slots before rest of ram is wasted. If you use 1R memory (single Rank) you can fill all 8 slots. However, I assume the Memory Riser cards allow this 8 rank limit to be exceeded.
Lets say you have:
4pcs of 1GB 2Rank (2R) memory in slots 1-4
Then put 4 pcs of 4GB 4rank (4R) memory in slots 5-8
First of all, they will be downgraded to 2R and lose half their capacity, so bios will show then as 2GB 2R, but because they are 4R they will not work on their own (system will beep on post). And because all 8 Ranks are already used by your slots 1-4, the ram is not useable (windows would show 12GB installed (4 gb useable)).
Hope this helps the many of you who are asking about this...
If you want 16gb best bet is 4 x 4GB 2R memory...
If you want more, get the risers... which I believe are designed to work with 1gb or 512mb single rank dimms for a max of 64GB"

But it sounds like you've got at least 12 Ranks working (or 16 if your 4x1GB sticks are Dual Rank) which means he's wrong which I hope is the case since I'd like to get 32GB working.

Thanks again,

Drew

 

[seb2sebcustom]

can u plz tell me how your computer turns on with the ram ur puting in ive just built a dell 690 and cant get it to start up trying to find out the problem plz

 

[seb2sebcustom]

how do u now wot rank it is

 

[oldjolyon]

Hi Drew,

Sorry - have only just seen your post.

That's utter nonsense about adding together ranks from different slots - it just doesn't work that way. AFAIK the only restriction is that the 690's chipset doesn't support quad-rank memory - if you stick to dual-rank, any combination will work as long as it is in pairs. Matched sets are better, though - since my last post I have replaced all my sticks with 8x4Gb matched dual-rank sticks and it is motoring along nicely. For the record, the 1Gb sticks werfe dual-rank too (2Rx8)!

Regards,

Jolyon

Jolyon,

Is your 4x4GB Dual Rank and your 4x1GB Single Rank?

I'm curious because there's a guy on Dell's Community Forum that says that the 690's 8 RAM slots can only accommodate a total of 8 Ranks. Here's his post dated 11/13/2012:

"I think the Precision 690 motherboard can accept a maximum of 8 ranks, so if you use 2R memory, you can fill only 4 slots before rest of ram is wasted. If you use 1R memory (single Rank) you can fill all 8 slots. However, I assume the Memory Riser cards allow this 8 rank limit to be exceeded.
Lets say you have:
4pcs of 1GB 2Rank (2R) memory in slots 1-4
Then put 4 pcs of 4GB 4rank (4R) memory in slots 5-8
First of all, they will be downgraded to 2R and lose half their capacity, so bios will show then as 2GB 2R, but because they are 4R they will not work on their own (system will beep on post). And because all 8 Ranks are already used by your slots 1-4, the ram is not useable (windows would show 12GB installed (4 gb useable)).
Hope this helps the many of you who are asking about this...
If you want 16gb best bet is 4 x 4GB 2R memory...
If you want more, get the risers... which I believe are designed to work with 1gb or 512mb single rank dimms for a max of 64GB"

But it sounds like you've got at least 12 Ranks working (or 16 if your 4x1GB sticks are Dual Rank) which means he's wrong which I hope is the case since I'd like to get 32GB working.

Thanks again,

Drew

 

[oldjolyon]

Usually it's written on the label as something like 2Rx8 (dual-rank), 4Rx8 (quad-rank) etc. - the rank is the number before the "R". If there isn't a label it's probably dodgy memory anyway, but you could try googling the part number if you have it.

Quad-rank memory will not work properly in any 690 AFAIK, but it should at least POST and get to the BIOS - if it doesn't get that far, the problem is rather more fundamental. I suggest you check is that it really is PC5300F - the "F" is important as it indicated fully-buffered ECC memory. Any other sort of PC5300 simply won't POST.

Regards,

Jolyon

how do u now wot rank it is

 

[seb2sebcustom]

help need all dell 690 win 7 drivers plz

 

[Samoose]

help need all dell 690 win 7 drivers plz

They should be under here http://www.dell.com/support/troubleshooting/us/en/04/servicetag/H3TG33J
However, on ur PC there should be a Dell service tag, plumb this into the support/downloads page on the dell website and it should return the exact drivers needed.

 

[andremedia]

Hi, originally I had 4 x 1gb sticks of memory which came with the 690 from Dell. I identified the the memory and found a supplier with the same brand, model, speed and latency - I bought 4 of the 2gb sticks and added them for a total of 12 gb and the 690 worked immediately...so my config is 4 x 2gb and 4 x 1gb, filling up the 8 memory slots

 

[rezoloot]

Im not sure if this has been answered because I got lazy reading the answers but I'm running win 7 ultimate 64 with 32 GB ram, all fours in a row, Im not sure about your sys but until I loaded ultimate on it, it was only registering one of my cpu's and 8 GB of ram, found out ultimate for sure and I was sure win 7 pro registered all ram and cpu's, I had a right bother with drivers as well but managed to find them, here are the names of them if your interested

Intel_PRO_17.0_PROWinx64.exe self extractor
Intel_INF_allOS_9.3.0.1020_PV.exe
intel_rst_10.1.0.1008_whql.exe
Broadcom_NetXtremeI_win7_2k8_x64-15.2.0.5b.exe

they are the whql drivers and they can be loaded by sys or via floppy, dvd or usb

hope it helps even though its a bit late

PS some systems take buffered or unbuffered ram but I'm fairly sure you cannot mix the two, I think that's like beer and wine to us