GigaByte GA-8IHXP Problems

Built new computer starting Monday night with GigaByte GA-8IHXP and following:

2 - Samsung 256MB PC1066 RDRAM (Rambus)
Pentium 4 2.26Ghz 533Mhz
ATI A-I-W RADEON 7500
HD 80GB|IBM 7200R
Evermax 350 watt Whisper Power Supply
TOSHIBA SD-R1202B DVD/CD/CD-R
Windows XP

Keep getting the blue screen of death while copying files on Windows XP install (never get all of the files copied - sometimes crash even earlier). Error messages vary - "Page Fault in Nonpages Area", "IRQL Not Less Or Equal", some simply blue screen, some "Unable to copy file" (most commonly, hid.dll). Sometimes really strange messages, such as HD format not compatible with Windows XP, file format copied (setup.exe) not recognizable by Windows XP.

Swapped out power supply, HD, DVD/CD, different Windows XP install disks, same problems. Flashed to latest BIOS, disabled RAID controller on MB, same problems. Reformated HD several times. Have not gotten a working install in 20+ attempts.

Seems to me likely MB, memory or CPU, but I don't have comparable of these items to swap out.

Anyone had similar problems? Ideas?

Thanks,

Bippy43

Thanks, I'll give it a try & let you know.

How can you tell the fake Samsung 1066 from the real stuff?

Interesting. When the BIOS is set to auto detect the memory, and I use a separate utility to identify the memory, is shows it at a frequency of 1072 (1066 RAMBUS). I manually set the BIOS to 800 RAMBUS, and got a clean install on Windows XP the first time. When I reset the BIOS to auto or 1066 RAMBUS, I got multiple problems running under Windows XP, as soon as I changed it back to 800 RAMBUS, no problems with the same programs.

Will be calling MStar tomorrow to swap out the house brand Samsung RAMBUS 1066 for the Kingston.

Hopefully this will work out - thanks for everyone's help.

So how did this whole thing turn out? You have the same set-up that I've been trying to piece together
(GA-8IHXP w/512MB rambus, 2.4GHz P4, WinXP).

Latest is that I ran Sandra (SiSoftware) and found that the supposed House brand MStar Samsung PC1066 memory (stickered as such) is actually PC800-40 memory!!!! I had another supplier (MultiWave) overnight replacement Kingston PC1066 memory, but I missed the delivery on Friday, and will have to go to FedEx on Saturday to pick it up.

I will be having another conversation with MStar, about their "House" memory products!

At this point I anticipate no further problems following the memory swap out. I have been running the board with the BIOS set to PC800 memory with no problems in the interim, fully loaded the OS and application software, and am now only awaiting the memory swap before delivering to my friend for whom I built the system.

A special thanks to Crashman, who apparently is clairvoyent (at least about memory issues).

I will post one last (hopefully) message when the memory is swapped out and everything is OK - the only minor problem I have now is that the driver for one of the USB conrollers on the board will not install, but with 10 USB ports, I'm not too worried - looks like a BIOS update issue, which is mentioned on the Giga-Byte site as having been fixed in the latest BIOS, but apparently not (or I'm screwing up somehow).

Great news that you fixed your problem! I have been "forced" to upgrade VERY recently (Last night in fact) due to some hardware that failed on me from an irreputable source. Shame I was past my warranty.

I've been having a problem with my BIOS settings. I didn't know if anyone else encountered this or not...

I have 2 256MB Kingston 1066MHz RDRAM Chips.

But in my BIOS, the highest setting I am allowed to choose is 800MHz. I'm hoping that after getting home and updating my BIOS that will automatically solve the problem.

My POST screen also flies by so fast that I can't even read it so I can't see if it's auto detecting at 1066 or not.

Has anyone else had this problem? I'm pretty positive it's not the RAM, after all, Kingston is the best manufacturer of the RDRAM... so...

Guess I'm just fishing for some ideas. I haven't tried everything that I can yet. Hehe, my post is based more out of boredom than dire need I suppose.

Anyone have this problem with the GA-8IHXP board?

Giga-Byte GA-8IHXP (850E)
Pentium 4 2.0GHz
(2) 256MB Kingston 1066MHz RDRAM

For some reason I can't access my BIOS anymore during boot. While the system is POSTing I hit delete and F8 and nothing happens.

I had this problem after the first time I booted the computer also.

So I guess I'm just going to have to reset the BIOS manually by taking the battery out. (Wish there was a jumper/switch to do this though)

I managed to read what it says in the beginning also. It says that my Rambus Bandwidth is 400/100 and I have it set to auto for the RDRAM MHz.

(BIOS is fully updated as well as all the drivers for my mainboard.)

The P4 2.0 CPU uses a system bus speed of 400MHz, rather than 533MHz. Only the 2.26, 2.40 and 2.53 GHz P4 CPUs run at 533MHz. The P4 2.0 CPU uses a 100MHz system bus clock speed, with quad pumping.

If you look towards the bottom of page 34 of the GigaByte MB manual, you will note that the MB can only use 600MHz or 800MHz memory speed with a 100MHz FSB frequency, hence your inability to take full advantage of the 1066 Kingston memory speed.

As far as entering BIOS setup, when you hit delete, it cycles through a full boot cycle THEN enters BIOS setup - being impatient, I did the same thing I suspect you are doing and rebooted before giving the MB time to complete its cycle & get to BIOS setup. It will work fine if you give it the time.

bippy43

My system is similar: GA-8ihxp / P4 2.26Ghz 533FSB CPU / 4x kingston 1066 8/256 RIMM / ti 4600 AGP.
I started building last week. In course of week I have had many issues with Kingston RIMM. With the initial 4x I got from googlewear I could not get to run with BIOS settings in HW mode. Only could get to run with FSB clocked down to 110MHZ in bios. Easy tune would lock up >120Mhz.

Went down to a local electronics store and picked up 2 more in order to diagnose problem. These turned out to be same Kingston model RIMM with mushkin label affixed. With only 2X of these mushkin 1066 8/256 system ran stabily enough to complete a clean xp home install.

BTW memtest86 ran cleanly forever on the mushkin RIMM. I found that all 4x of kingston 1066 RIMM I obtained from googlewear are failing various things with memtest86. In trying to isolate whether this was bad RIMM problem, cpu or mobo one of these puppies corrupted XP system files so bad that it required a full reinstall of XP. I contacted Kingston regarding problem and they are cross shipping me replacements for the bad ones and I will return 2X once I get a GB passing memtest86.

So now I am benchmarking system. I have BIOS FSB settings set to HW mode / Memory 1066. Using GB Easy Tune in auto mode I am only able to get system to run to 2.271GHZ CPU / FSB 133MHZ. Any attemts to change FSB clock settings > 133Mhz results in lockup. One thing I noticed about easy tune is when you set easy tune to > 133MHZ PCI Freq goes > 33MHz. I am wondering whether the lockup is being caused by PCI bus speed? Isn't there something about base AGP clock being 4X PCI?

Sandra memory BW is coming out real low too. 30% effiency 1455MB/s! I have tried boosting in BIOS CPU Vcore to +100mV. This did not seem to make things go faster. I was under impression that theoretical memory BW in a p4 RIMM system is 8X FSB speed. So a running at 2.271GHZ CPU and 533Mhz should get to 4.264M. Is this another problem with Kingston 1066 8/256M RIMM performance? Rechecking the BM done with the GA-IHXP on Toms showed same RIMM faster CPU. I can't see why difference between 2.5G cpu and 2.26G would account for that much differance in memmory BW performance.

The other question I have is whether proccesses running XP home is affecting BM results?

The good news is Warcraft III is running great at 1200x1600. With all the the apparant RIMM problems I have had bringing this box to life I have not had much time to test anything else.
BP