F2-8500cl5d 4gpk x 2 (8gb) and m4n72-e amd 1090t

[NOMAD8459]

Hi, I have just recently purchased 2 of the F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK kits from a company in England.

I have read through various listings on this forum in terms of getting them stable.

I made sure to check the QVL of the asus board and this memory was listed and this was my reason for buying it.

I am aware that it states that 1066Mhz be only be supported on 2 DIMMS and that I should consult the QVL, well the QVL states that this memory will run 4 DIMMS as it has a little dot in the A, B, C section on there stating as such.

Also from what i have gathered the 1066 issue was with earlier processors and earlier BIOS and that it had been rectified with better IMC from AMD.

I am running an AMD 1090t X6 3.2Ghz processor on the 2403 bios which is the last available for the board, it states at ASUS that this processor was compatible from BIOS 2201.

I fully expected given all this that when i set the BIOS to 2.1V and the DRAM frequency to 1066 that I would be able to boot without issue.

Of course this wasnt the case at all.

I have tried the chips at 800Mhz, even at 4-4-4-12 and all seems well but 1066 is a no go.

I have tried lowering the TRFC to 195ns, CPU-NB voltage to 1.4v, HT voltage to 1.3v, NB voltage to 1.4v all with a TRC setting of 41 which is the highest my board will allow, all to no avail, the dimms will not remain stable, I have managed to boot into windows with these settings but it crashes within seconds of logging in, have also tried raising the CPU-NB frequency.

By overclocking the bus frequency to 250Mhz I seemingly can gain stability at 1000Mhz on the RAM with all settings on auto, which boots up at 5-5-5-15-24 this is using the 800Mhz divider in my BIOS. But this not really ideal, Having read on here that 800Mhz at 4-4-4-12 is faster than 1066, I can categorically state that is not, the bandwidth at 800Mhz with 4-4-4-12 is 7.41Gb at 1000Mhz at 5-5-5-15, it is 9.41Gb that is a big difference in bandwidth and the latency was increased from 57ns at 1000, to 63.6ns at 800 with the tighter timings.

System as follows:

AMD 1090T X6 3.2Ghz processor
M4N72-E ASUS motherboard with NVIDIA 750a chipset
GTX 470 SOC graphics card.
500Gb boot drive.

This is a ridiculous situation that either ASUS or GSKILL need to sort out.

I have previously had OCZ reapers running in this board at 8GB at 1072Mhz but when i got a bigger CPU cooler, I needed lower profile memory, I thought that I had found some that fitted the bill.

I have also installed a 120MM high rpm fan blowing directly over the DIMMS.

[NOMAD8459]

And why so expensive???

Also why is DDR2 so expensive, its nearly twice the price of eqivalent DDR3????

[NOMAD8459]

Forgot to say....

Do you have any further tips or insights into getting better results???

[GSKILL TECH]

Post some pictures of BIOS settings, especially advanced timings. This motherboard technically does NOT support full slots of DDR2-1066, and you can confirm that with ASUS. Although, tweaks can help stabilize the higher performance. If you were able to achieve DDR2-1000, try lowering the timings at that frequency.

Thank you
GSKILL TECH

[NOMAD8459]

I am not surprised by your comments and they were to some extent expected, however it does state on the ASUS QVL which can be readilly downloaded from their support site to confirm that the board supports 4 slots of this memory.

What you are basically saying is: it is buyer beware!

When i have previously obtained 8GB DDR2 at 1066 with OCZ reaper with this board, what you are actually saying is that this board does not support full slots of your memory!

As i have said previously, this is not stated clearly enough with ASUS, maybe that isnt your issue but it does need stating here maybe, so some other poor sap doesnt buy your inferior memory.

I really am dissapointed with the hours I have spent trying to work with this memory that is on an approved list and is stated as working in full slots.

[NOMAD8459]

Cant seem to upload pictures to your forum, dont have any site hosting accounts so am unable to provide a photo of the BIOS,

The advanced settings containhigher when in 1066 mode)

Dram frequency, 667, 800, 1066.

TCL: 7 MAX
TRP: 12 MAX
TRCD: 12 MAX
TRAS: 30 MAX
TRC: 41 MAX
TWR: 8 MAX
TRRD: 7 MAX
TRWTTO: 17 MAX
TRFC0: 300NS MAX
TRFC1: 300NS MAX

DCT STRENGTH CONFIG

VARIABLE FROM 0.75X TO 1.5X. WHEN ON AUTO 2 OF THESE VALUES ARE AT 1.5X, 1 AT 1X AND 1 AT 1.25X.

I know that these are the drive strengths and that they can help overclocking RAM and that also higher speed RAM like the OCZ reapers needed these boosting up to 1.5x, something that their EPP did by itself, which your EPP is not capable of, this board supports EPP as it is NVIDIA but when on auto at DDR2 1066 it trys to load 5-7-7-20-32 timings which dont work....

Anyway what would you suggest for tighter timing at 1000Mhz??

4-4-4-12 definitely does not work at that high frequency.

Dropping the trc to 20? I know alot of standard timngs are 5-5-5-15-20, I was surprised to see these at 24, anyway, I doubt there is much left in these chips at 1000Mhz to be honest, the TRFC are at 127.5ns on auto with 5-5-5-15-(3-5)-24-6-3-7-127.5 (1000Mhz)

Its the DRAM driv
e strength which is still at 1x by the way, the others set higher on auto.

[NOMAD8459]

PS: I dont enjoy spending hours of fruitless searching and of setting various timings and of nearly corrupting my windows, just to get some memory to work....

[Tradesman]

First I'd ensure you have the latest BIOS, then start with one of the sets at stock timings 5-5-5-15, voltage 2.1 and CR at 2N. If problems there, prob want to run Memtest on each stick individually to see if you may have gotten a bad sticks. If that works, then add the other sticks, and add .1 to the CPU/NB (and possibly raise DRAM voltage to 2.15). One problem you may be encountering is mixing sets of DRAM, while generally sets of the same model can be mixed, on occasion you run into sets that won't play together, (which is one of the reasons GSkill and others offer 1,2,3,6,8,12,24 GB sets, GSkilll test these sets to ensure that all the sticks in a set work together, and guarantees then as a set. With different sets you might have gotten PCBs, ICs, et all from different production runs and even sticks from different runs. ASUS states in their QVL that 2 sets will work together, might check with them to see what settings they used if the above doesn't work or get back to us and if you can post up your BIOS settings.
Actually if they are still within the return window, I'sd suggest taking them back and exchanging for a 2x4GB set. Just took a look at their product page and it is interesting to say the least (contradiction wise)

[RamJam]

A Pain

Have run into this a couple times where clients want to build with a new AMD on an older gen motherboard using DDR2 and it's a real pain. I'd side with Tman and just get a set of 2x4GB if you want 8GB. As he said, mixing sets can be a problem and it's much worse w/ AMD than Intel

[NOMAD8459]

Thanks for your replies, ASUS QVL just states 5-5-5-15 @2.0-2.1v, they really dont offer much other advice, I am pretty sure that the RAM is good, as I say it boots and runs good at 1000Mhz and also at 800Mhz with tighter timings, also this motherboard just simply doesnt post if the RAM is bad, I have had that issue before, It literally will not allow you into BIOS even, with a bad stick.

The BIOS is the latest its 2403.

The computer is fast enough with 1000Mhz I guess, it just took me a lot of hard work to find some good settings, I cant imagine what a complete novice installing this RAM would go through and that is what I dont like, If the EPP was programmed properly there wouldnt be these issues. The OCZ reaper had a good EPP program which just simply worked at advertised speeds with only a minor adjustment to the TRFC.

As i say bandwidth is 9.41GB which is well over 8500 specs anyway even at these settings.

Thanks anyway.

[NOMAD8459]

Believe me, I am tempted to get a new motherboard, the sabertooth 990fx is available here for ?150, this RAM cost me ?127, but when I factor in the cost of new DDR3, it becomes a pain.

The thing is the only real option for 2x4GB is the GEIL black dragon which is ?180!!!

Bear in mind that corsair vengence DDR3 at 1600Mhz is only ?68 for 2x4GB.

Its the astronomical prices of DDR2 that get to me also, I believe its cause alot of DDR2 seems to go bad, if its a faulty technology though, why should the consumer pay for it??

[NOMAD8459]

The serial numbers on the RAM are concurrent, they run in complete numerical order which was good on the part of my vendor, I was surprised actually that for 2 sets I had concurrent serial numbers.

[Tradesman]

Could just work at finding stable settings at 1000, and keep it there, then write down and save all your setting and experiment with 1066 when you have some free time, as Jammer said, it can be a real pain. As far as price goes, right now DDR3 is the 'standard' so while there's still demand for DDR2 (and DDR) and will be for a while, the demand continues to shrink, so manufacturers have to raise prices to continue to make it do to the cost factors of the ICs, and in particular having to set up and run a production line on a limited number of sticks, which also takes that particular line down from making DDR3. If you take a look, you'll also note that the availability of mobos that run DDR2 are shrinking (as well as mobos that use older generations of CPUs).....I know I've taken some nice boxes in on trade for new builds that have very hot CPUs (i.e. 9550, 9650s) and have had problems in looking for good socket 775 mobos, which is a shame since those CPUs can run all day long at over 4GHz (or faster).

[NOMAD8459]

Thanks for your replies, I do have complete stability with them at 1000Mhz, tried lowering these timings but it just BSODs on enetering windows, I am happy enough at the minute, the 250FSB allows me a nice CPU overclock, was just very dissapointed that the memory didnt just work out of the box as did the OCZ reapers, thinking it was on the QVL and all that.

[NOMAD8459]

I have noticed that other people seem to be having a lot of issues with this memory o any number of motherboards.

Someone using intel reports that his spd xmp tries to boot the sticks at 5-7-7-20 also so what is going on with the SPD EPP on these modules???

Something is amiss, telling your customers to play around with settings just isnt fair.