AMD 64 and DDR400 issues

Aaargh! I've spent the last 3 days trying to get my gaming platform up and running, and if its not one issue, its another. Please please please, someone from THG help me.......

I've hand build the following config;

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (130nm) 939 Socket
MSI K8T Neo2 FIR (Socket 939)
4 x 512 MB Simpletech DDR400 CL2.5
2 x 200 GB Western Digital w/8MB SATA
Xfx Geoforce 6800 GT 256 MB
560W Thermaltake PSU
AMI BIOS ver 3.2 as downloaded through MSI LiveBIOS Update.
Operating System: WinXP Pro SP2
The above is rigged to my 34" digital TV through my H/Kardon 5.1 using s-video. Text quality is deplorable, but then, it was meant to be a gaming machine at 1024 res so I'm not complaining.

The issue I have is all RAM and Mobo.

First off, when I insert either all 4 or 3 of the modules in the available 4 DIMM slots, my computer just hangs after displaying the Win XP splash screen. Can't log into Safe Mode either. Just hangs after Mup.sys

When I use only 2 modules, in a combination of either DIMM1 and DIMM3 or DIMM3 and DIMM4, my BIOS reads the current RAM frequency at DDR200, even after I manually set it to DDR400.

Worse, System Properties displays total available physical RAM of only 512MB. It the same when I use only one stick. RAM frequency is given as 200Mhz and total physical RAM is 256MB, i.e., always half of installed RAM.

I've written to MSI, but I've yet to hear from them. From other forums, I was given to understand that a beta version of a newer Mobo BIOS fixes the issue, but that didn't work either.

Any thoughts, anybody?





<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by habeebhashim on 10/26/04 11:21 PM.</EM></FONT></P>