Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Asus P5Q SE Plus & F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK will not boot with all 4 slots occupied.

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Asus P5Q SE Plus & F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK will not boot with all 4 slots occupied.

    I've browsed through this forum, but haven't found a post that reflects the same equipment I have, although the problem is similar.
    My machine is an Asus P5Q SE Plus with an Intel core 2 Duo E8500 3.16Ghz CPU, and an nVidia Quadro FX3400 PCI-E 256MB video card, running Windows 7 -64bit.
    I originally had 4 1GB Kingston Dual-channel RAM sticks installed in all 4 slots, and this has been working fine with the BIOS set with all Auto parameters.
    I purchased two G.Skill F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK 4GB dual-channel kits to increase my RAM capacity to 8 GB. However, the machine won't boot when I occupy the other two (black) slots with the sticks.
    Going through the various posts for some pointers, I've manually set the following parameters in the latest (v2204, 08/28/2009) AMI BIOS:
    Set DRAM speed to 1066
    Set timings to 5-5-5-15
    Set Northbridge voltage to 1.40 volts
    Set RAM voltage to 2.10 volts
    Set RAS# to RAS# Delay to 2
    Set Write Recovery Time to 8
    Set Row Refresh Cycle Time to 80
    All other settings are on [Auto]

    Alas, I haven't had any success with these settings. The machine boots and runs fine with two slots (yellow) occupied, but when I install the other two sticks, all I get is the machine fans starting up and a black monitor screen. The monitor doesn't come out of standby in this instance, i.e. the power button remains amber rather than switching to white when it receives a signal. I've tested each individual stick with MemTest86+ v4.00 for three hours each and it reports no errors.
    Is there any other settings I must make or have missed to get the full 8 GB to work?

  • #2
    Do you have the latest BIOS for the mobo? Have you tried taking compressed air or similar and blowing out the slots? Sounds like it may be a bad stick or a bad slot on the mobo, do you have or can you borrow 4 other sticks you can try with?


    Pls offer comments on support I provide, HERE, in order to help me do a better job here:

    Tman

    Comment


    • #3
      Tman~
      My original setup used 4 - 1GB sticks of Kingston RAM, occupying all four slots. The G.Skill RAM won't boot the machine when more than two slots are filled.
      I've installed a pair of sticks in the A2 & B2 slots as an experiment, and they also boot the machine. But when I place another stick into the A1 or B1 slot it's a no-go.

      Comment


      • #4
        Post pictures of BIOS, we can see what's going on and possibly causing a problem.

        Thank you
        GSKILL TECH

        Comment


        • #5
          Gentlemen,
          Attached here is the AI Tweaker portion of my BIOS in question. If you require any additional sections to be posted, please give a holler.
          I also must add that I had posted a request to ASUS as to the proper settings for this RAM, and received a reply stating that I should contact the RAM manufacturer. Their response is as follows:
          "typically it is best to get the memory off a memroy manufacturers comnpatible list for a board generally located on their website. then you can generally just call them and give them the board and memory model numbers to get the specific timings they used in their testing past that we would not be able to recomend settings as each stick type could have different timings"

          First page of AI Tweaker BIOS Settings (1 of 3):


          Second page (2 of 3):


          Thanks for your help.
          - Tom Zeeba -

          Third page (3 of 3):

          Comment


          • #6
            Ai Overclock Tuner - Manual

            RAS# to RAS# Delay should be AUTO (this is probably the problem)

            Thank you
            GSKILL TECH

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by GSKILL TECH View Post
              Ai Overclock Tuner - Manual

              RAS# to RAS# Delay should be AUTO (this is probably the problem)

              Thank you
              GSKILL TECH

              Sorry fellas.
              There was no joy in Mudville today. I changed my settings per your instructions, but it still doesn't boot up with the 4 sticks.
              <Heavy Sigh>

              Comment


              • #8
                All looks pretty good, may want to raise the vCore (CPU Voltage), you show it on AUTO, to maybe 1.27. May also want to run a few passes of Memtest on each stick to see if possibly there's a bad one. Also with two sets could try raising DRAM voltage + .05, possible Row Refresh Cycle time up a tad to 84, another possible is that the two sets just don't want to play together.


                Pls offer comments on support I provide, HERE, in order to help me do a better job here:

                Tman

                Comment


                • #9
                  Sorry to revive a seven month old thread (did the OP ever solve this?), but I have a potential simple solution for anyone coming across this. I have an Asus mobo, M3A78-T, which is an AMD platform but this issue might be specific to Asus. While it is advertised to support DDR2-1066 across all four memory slots, the fine print gets a lot more specific. 1066 is only supported in two slots at a time, in a specific configuration. In order to use all four slots, the memory has to be downclocked to DDR2-800, or the motherboard will not boot.

                  Specifically for the OP's situation, since the kingston ram was running under all auto parameters, it is quite possible it was only clocking 800, even though the chips will ID themselves as 1066. Since you changed the DRAM frequency to 1066 the mobo can't downclock to 800 like it wants to. Set that back to auto or to 800 and it should be able to run 8 gigs with all four slots filled. Otherwise you'd have to upgrade to 2 x 4gb sticks of 1066 and run those in A1 and B1. As the case is with my motherboard, and I suspect yours, while it is advertised to support 16gb/DDR2-1066, it's really 16 gigs of 800 or 8 gigs of 1066, as each slot can only run a 4 gig chip.

                  OP has probably moved on from this long ago, but if anyone stumbles on this thread from google as I did, hopefully this solution (or at least explanation) can be of some help.

                  Comment

                  Working...
                  X