C'n'Q: problem with 2 double-sided DIMMs!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tillerman
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Tillerman

I'm glad that I could resolve a couple of problems that all go back to
the same problem. I participated in several discussions along the way,
and now I want to share what I learned with as many of you helpful
people as possible. Most important discussions were:

Re: Welcher Speicher damit ASUS K8V stabil läuft?
de.comp.hardware.cpu+mainboard.amd - 9. Sept. 2004 von Tillerman (8
Beiträge)

ASUS K8V SE deluxe Who uses Cool&Quiet?
de.comp.hardware.cpu+mainboard.amd - 21. Juli 2004 von Tillerman (2
Beiträge)

Re: K8V SE Deluxe: HD-Controller Problem?
alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus - 30. Juni 2004 von Tillerman (7
Beiträge)

Conclusion of the problem:
- spontaneous reboots under windowsXP
- disc write failures, loss of partitions
- thus installation failures occurred all along the several windows
installations, causing many "side-effects"

Who's the bad guy?
- I pinned down the problem to the Cool'n'Quiet - function of
processor and mainboard. As soon as C'n'Q was disabled in BIOS and the
AMD processor driver uninstalled, the system worked OK. But far too
hot for summerdays. This was difficult to find out because of the side
effects of the faulty installations. First I thought it was the
HD-controller going mad...
- Since yesterday I know that Cool'n'Quiet actually does work well and
is not bugged. It does cause problems if you have 2 double-sided
memory modules installed in your system. I am running 2 512mB modules
and did not know anything about single oder double sided stuff at all.
The logical layout of 512mB modules appears to be double-sided, even
if you have memory chips only at one side of the module. You CAN get
single-sided modules providing 512mB per module, but they are rare and
expensive. Thus anybody with 2 modules will most likely have the
instability problems when running C'n'Q!
(To check: run the system with C'n'Q and use Prime95 from mersenne.org
to detect "hardware problems". Now remove one of your memory modules
and try again: no problems!)

Solution:
- I will try 2 new modules (now MDT, then Kingston). Should this also
not work I will try to sell the modules and get one 1gB module. That
would be the most expensive solution, but it is said that it will
finally resolve the problem, which is what all this is about, right?

Thanks to everybody!

Tillerman

-------

Keywords: Cool&Quiet, Cool'n'Quiet, cool quiet

My system:
ASUS K8V SE Deluxe
AMD Athlon 64 3200+
Zalman Cooler
2x512mB DDR RAM 400MHz, MDT = "good german brand"
PNY Geforce 5700 LE 128mB
Drives:
160gB Maxtor 7.2k 8mB
160gB Samsung 5.4k 2mB
80gB WD 7.2k 2mB
Ricoh 4x DVD+ Burner
(all connected to the PATA controllers of the southbridge rather than
any of the fancy SATA/Raid controllers)
350W AC adapter
 
Who's the bad guy?
- I pinned down the problem to the Cool'n'Quiet - function of
processor and mainboard. As soon as C'n'Q was disabled in BIOS and the
AMD processor driver uninstalled, the system worked OK. But far too
hot for summerdays. This was difficult to find out because of the side
effects of the faulty installations. First I thought it was the
HD-controller going mad...
- Since yesterday I know that Cool'n'Quiet actually does work well and
is not bugged. It does cause problems if you have 2 double-sided
memory modules installed in your system. I am running 2 512mB modules
and did not know anything about single oder double sided stuff at all.
The logical layout of 512mB modules appears to be double-sided, even
if you have memory chips only at one side of the module. You CAN get
single-sided modules providing 512mB per module, but they are rare and
expensive. Thus anybody with 2 modules will most likely have the
instability problems when running C'n'Q!
(To check: run the system with C'n'Q and use Prime95 from mersenne.org
to detect "hardware problems". Now remove one of your memory modules
and try again: no problems!)

Solution:
- I will try 2 new modules (now MDT, then Kingston). Should this also
not work I will try to sell the modules and get one 1gB module. That
would be the most expensive solution, but it is said that it will
finally resolve the problem, which is what all this is about, right?

Thanks to everybody!

Tillerman
Click to expand...
<<snip>>

Did you following the instructions in Table 1 "Recommended Memory
Configuration" ? There are two address busses on your motherboard,
and with two double sided sticks running at DDR400, one stick
should go on each bus, not both sticks on the same bus (see the
eighteenth row of the table). That is why the table recommends
Slot1 and Slot3 for the two sticks. (The configuration in row
twelve of the table, is the next most stable config for two sticks.)

Slot1 is on one address bus, while Slot2 and Slot3 are on the
second address bus. Even though this is a single channel motherboard
(i.e. single data channel), the memory controller buffers copies
of the address on two busses, in order to drive the address at
full speed. If you place the memory sticks in Slot2 and Slot3,
then both DIMMs are feeding from the same address bus, and that
would only be stable if you reduced the memory clock speed.

If you still have memory problems, adjust "DDR Voltage" to 2.7V
and see if the error rate drops. The error rate can be checked
with memtest86 from memtest.org (I assume it runs on a K8V).
DDR400 memory is officially rated at 2.6V, and a little extra
won't hurt.

HTH,
Paul
 
When I first installed the system, I followed the instructions in the
mainboard manual (1 mem-module per bus, thus slots 1 (blue) and 2 (1st
of the yellow ones) used).
When I got the system back from the vendor (who did not find any
problems with my system), the modules were placed in slots 2 and 3, so
both were connected to the second bus. Besides the performance issue
that did not solve my C'n'Q problem, so I changed back to slots 1 and
2, trying 1 and 3 on the way just to be sure (certainly that didn't
solve my problem).
I did not play around with the timing settings, because 1. I know that
the EEPROM of the mem-modules is programmed OK by the manufacturer
(all necessaary values entered and in the correct fields). 2. the
modules are not special by any means: plain DDR400 Cl3 shouldn't
provoke problems by itself! I actually did not believe that it would
be possible to decrease the speed further than that, but I would have
tried the voltage thing if I had come accross it.

To cut a long story short:

I gave my vendor another try (he was not willing to give me a 1gB
module in exchange because it is so much mor expensive): I got two
DDR400 512mB Cl3 Kingston modules to play with and - tadaa - it works!

Thanks for your tips, I appreciate your help, but lucky me I did not
have to go into the frequency/voltage-story! It would makes me feel
funny if I entitled myself to know those parameters better than ASUS -
that could be the case, though.

Tillerman
 
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