Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

[gg1978]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

maybe do a test install of Win 7 x64?? you don't have to enter a product key, it'll let you run for a while without one, that way you could test stability before you buy any more RAM.. I did have 8 1G DIMM's in it, so i know all 8 DIMM slots should be good.

[Topcat]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

Just a hint with this board, if all DIMM's are populated, you can not run the RAM at full speed (400MHz), it will crash (BSoD0, fail MEMTEST, and cause all kinds of havoc. Its a bug in the chipset, and no fix. I had to turn the RAM clock down to 266 when I had 16gb in mine, 8x 2GB sticks. Removing 2, and it was fine at full speed.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

Just a hint with this board, if all DIMM's are populated, you can not run the RAM at full speed (400MHz), it will crash (BSoD0, fail MEMTEST, and cause all kinds of havoc. Its a bug in the chipset, and no fix. I had to turn the RAM clock down to 266 when I had 16gb in mine, 8x 2GB sticks. Removing 2, and it was fine at full speed.

There be my issue i bet.

I may bump it to 333 and try agian.

[gg1978]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

Yup, that's a limitation of the Opteron's integrated DDR controller. If you have a board with 8 slots per CPU, it's limited to 266 so even slower.. Although it should auto drop the speed to 333 if all 4 are populated.. If you only have 4 working DIMM's i would put two per CPU, so you get the most speed at least for testing!!

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

Just a hint with this board, if all DIMM's are populated, you can not run the RAM at full speed (400MHz), it will crash (BSoD0, fail MEMTEST, and cause all kinds of havoc. Its a bug in the chipset, and no fix. I had to turn the RAM clock down to 266 when I had 16gb in mine, 8x 2GB sticks. Removing 2, and it was fine at full speed.

I owe you big time. Good call. Stepped it down to 266, all is well with all 16gb.

So, I can pick either Faster RAM or more RAM.

Thoughts and ideas?

Edit- tried 333 and 366, no dice. I wonder if that's partially why V3.0 never ran well (I ran all 16GB at 400)... But given the AGP issues on all but Xp x64, It wasn't viable in the long run.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

Speaking of 7 x64, it seems that I misplaced my copy of 7 ulitmate upgrade for this thing... I bought a 3rd upgrade key from the college bookstore so I didn't have to scuttle V2 (as it's still a complete and running rig), but I may have to buy a 4th as I can't find it even if my life depended on it.

side note- been a bad day for losing shit... lost my debit card and DL today as well. F***ing perfect

[thesloc]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

Report your license and card asap

You ever actually tried to bypass Windoze activation?? Or are you really optimistic they're gonna come out with more support for your machine in the future???

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

Report your license and card asap

You ever actually tried to bypass Windoze activation?? Or are you really optimistic they're gonna come out with more support for your machine in the future???

The former- I'm working on that, I know.

The latter- they're legit upgrade discs, since I have a valid student ID (I am a student at the college) I can get win 7 upgrade discs for $20 a pop. The reason I don't just use another disc and skip activation till I find it is since it's an upgrade, the COA key won't work (you have to have had xp/vista on the hdd used for the install when windows setup begins). Not like XP and 2K, when the upgrade disc was a different image and one could be prompted to insert a previous windows disc to prove the upgrade.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

Found the COD of the dead hdd... bad I/O board. it's not spinning up and a specifc part of the baord gets really hot...

I may see how cheap I can find another disk... as the only point in saving this one is to maintain a corruped xp x64 install (haven't redone the array just yet). That would save me maybe 30 mins... but given that it has 27 bad sectors, I don't see putting good money after bad.

edit:

Bid on this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Western-Digi...torefresh=true

Offered on this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Western-Digi...torefresh=true

As I don't think anybody here on BCN has any WD740's sitting around... if you do, then if the following doesn't work out, then let me know.

[Topcat]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

I owe you big time. Good call. Stepped it down to 266, all is well with all 16gb.

So, I can pick either Faster RAM or more RAM.

Thoughts and ideas?

Edit- tried 333 and 366, no dice. I wonder if that's partially why V3.0 never ran well (I ran all 16GB at 400)... But given the AGP issues on all but Xp x64, It wasn't viable in the long run.

I ran 12gb @ 400MHz when I was using it for some GPU/SLI and gaming tests. When I began using it as a server (of sorts), I put all 16gb in and clocked the RAM speed down to 266, and it was fine, 100% stable....and as a server, I didn't even feel the downclock.

No problem bud....I ran into this same problem with mine, and was scratching my head....and upon research, experimenting, and some select 4-letter words, I figured it out.... haha

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

Just a hint with this board, if all DIMM's are populated, you can not run the RAM at full speed (400MHz), it will crash (BSoD0, fail MEMTEST, and cause all kinds of havoc. .

Back in 2004, I may have uncovered a bug with the Asus A7N8X family. (or the nForce2 chipset)


Memtest86 failed at anything higher than 195 Mhz. After 195, it was at least roughly 1.5 errors per Mhz.
I got at least 1 error at 196 Mhz and 10 errors at 200 Mhz within 1 hour, IIRC.

I dunno if it was even the RAM, even though it was with only PC2700.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

I ran 12gb @ 400MHz when I was using it for some GPU/SLI and gaming tests. When I began using it as a server (of sorts), I put all 16gb in and clocked the RAM speed down to 266, and it was fine, 100% stable....and as a server, I didn't even feel the downclock.

No problem bud....I ran into this same problem with mine, and was scratching my head....and upon research, experimenting, and some select 4-letter words, I figured it out.... haha

How were you doing 12gb?

This board will only do 1, 2, or 4 DIMMs per CPU... not 3.

Clarify?

[Topcat]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

removed the last DIMM in each channel. Won't run in dual channel (atleast the bank that's missing a DDIMM), but it was all detected. Run 8GB if you want full dual channel @ 400MHz.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

removed the last DIMM in each channel. Won't run in dual channel (atleast the bank that's missing a DDIMM), but it was all detected. Run 8GB if you want full dual channel @ 400MHz.

Yeah

8gb is what V2 had, and it was more than plenty... but that was x32, this is x64 so I'll be using double the RAM (or roughly so). I'll probably run 16gb to start and see where my RAM usage is, and then decide.

I'm not big on mixed single/double channel setups, as it leads situations resembling clock skew.

*please no x32 vs x64 discussions here, if you want me to explain why this is, I'll make a new thread*

[Topcat]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

^
Honestly, I'd run the RAM clock @ 266 and call it a day. Unless you're doing some really memory-intensive things like massive rendering applications, you won't really feel it.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

^
Honestly, I'd run the RAM clock @ 266 and call it a day. Unless you're doing some really memory-intensive things like massive rendering applications, you won't really feel it.

I see. V2 ran at 266 as well... I'll see how my RAM usage is under load and see what I get.

[c_hegge]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

TBH, I think that unless you're actually using applications which need more than 8GB (which few do), then you're better off with 8GB at 400MHz. The speed of the RAM will always be an improvement (at least in theory), but the amount won't make a difference unless you actually use it

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

TBH, I think that unless you're actually using applications which need more than 8GB (which few do), then you're better off with 8GB at 400MHz. The speed of the RAM will always be an improvement (at least in theory), but the amount won't make a difference unless you actually use it

My thoughts exactly. Hence why I'll try 16gb and see how much actully use, and if I'm nowhere close to breaking 8gb, pull 4 modules and drop the speed.

[mariushm]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

Yeah

8gb is what V2 had, and it was more than plenty... but that was x32, this is x64 so I'll be using double the RAM (or roughly so). I'll probably run 16gb to start and see where my RAM usage is, and then decide.

*please no x32 vs x64 discussions here, if you want me to explain why this is, I'll make a new thread*

Not going to start discussion (at least i hope so) but no, 64 bit operating systems don't use twice the memory.
The memory usage does increase a bit, but only by about 10-15% and 32bit applications running on 64bit windows would use the same amount of memory as on 32bit OS.

On that old system, you would be fine even with 8 GB of memory, but it's not worth dropping down to 8 or 12 just to get higher frequency.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main rig V3.5

Not going to start discussion (at least i hope so) but no, 64 bit operating systems don't use twice the memory.
The memory usage does increase a bit, but only by about 10-15% and 32bit applications running on 64bit windows would use the same amount of memory as on 32bit OS.

On that old system, you would be fine even with 8 GB of memory, but it's not worth dropping down to 8 or 12 just to get higher frequency.

The reasons which I won't go into actually are at the core of memory addressing (I took a college digital class where we actually built memory arrays with bare IC's). There are ways around it, which if done properly can often reduce the effects. However, with directly ported x32 programs, it will use double the ram. I may write a thread on how this works...