A8N-SLI memory frequency problems

[oompadroonka]

Ok currently i have:
A8n-SLI
AMD 64 3500+
2 gigs in 4 512mb sticks of kingston DDR400
Antec true power 550w PSU
1 200 Gb Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM SATA drive
2 X Leadtek 6600GT 128mb in SLI

ok the problem is, that the memory in the BIOS when i boot shows DDR 333, even tho it is DDR400. The only tweak i did was use Ntune for better graphics.
Everything is working fine, but that bugs me. Nothing is overclocked.
I update the BIOS to the beta on the asus.com site from a file called 1002-1003.zip

What should be my next step, thanks a bunch

 

[smc13]

Check your ram to make sure it is what you think it is. You can use cpu-z to identify it. You can also go into the bios to specify DDR400. It is advanced> cpu configuration> dram configuration > max memclock

 

[GuitarDaddy]

This is normal with 4 sticks of ram. All A64 boards will drop to DDR333, if you want to run DDR400 you have to change command rate to 2T.

 

[ahurtt]

Yah, what GuitarDaddy said. To get around this you might be able to leave the DDR set to DDR333 in the bios on 1T (which is actually just setting RAM speed to 5/6 of the cpu frequency with this motherboard) and up your cpu frequency to 240 which would yield you an RAM speed of 200. Right where it should be for DDR 400. What are the stock cpu frequency and multipliers for the 3500+? Is it 10 * 220? Doing this however, would leave your CPU overclocked by 200MHz but that should not be much problem for an A64. But if you don't want to OC your cpu much, you can lower your cpu multiplier to 9.5 * 240 = 2280MHz. Then your RAM should be at its rated DDR 400 speed and the CPU would only be over by 80MHz beyond factory spec. Just remember that even though the BIOS says setting the RAM to DDR333 sets an artificial limit on ram speed, that is not how it actually functions on this motherboard! It just means it runs the RAM at 5/6 the CPU frequency speed.

Has anybody tried anything like this to try and get 4 * 512MB DDR400 RAM running in 1T?

 

[Gunnman]

Don't listed to GuitarDaddy check your motherboard manual. Some boards do work with all banks full running at 400. The problem is the latency issue with dual sided RAM, some boards can't handle 4xDualSided RAM. Buy Single sided RAM and it will generally always hit 400 when the banks are fully populated. Or buy 2x1GB sticks like me.

Your motherboard manual should spell it all out for yas and the vendors to go with that have been tested, if not e-mail the motherboard vendor.

I am running:
AMD FX-55
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe
2x 1GB Corsair XLPro
Adaptec 2200S Dual Channel SCSI U320 RAID Controller
4x Quantum U320 15K 16M in RAID-0
2x 6600GT (waiting for 6800UE)
Audigy 2 ZS
Zalman Water Cooling Tower

 

[ahurtt]

Do not be so quick to dismiss what GuitarDaddy said without first investigating. I happen to know he owns the motherboard (as do I) this guy is asking about and he has provided a lot of good help to people around here. However, page 2-12 in the motherboard manual has a nice chart which actually includes a lot of types of Kingston DDR and tells you which memory model numbers are supported in what configurations. As far as what is NOT supported it says on page 2-11, "Due to CPU limitation, DIMM modules with 128Mb memory chips or double-sided x16 memory chips are not supported in this motherboard."
What is the specific model number of your Kingston RAM?

 

[Gunnman]

Sorry GuitarDaddy, don't mean to be a hater. <0 Salutes

I have done alot of investigation and I do realize you can try to get around the issue (if your lucky) just thought I would point out the obvious.

 

[oompadroonka]

thanks you all for the replies, i went to the bios and set the memory max threehold to DDR600 and now it see it as DDR400, aparrently when you have it on AUTO it lowers it.

On a nother note, anyone knows where can i download the BIOS that has the pci lock?

I am a noob here and tried anyways to use ntune without the pci locked and had all kinds of problems, had to reinstall windows all together(thanks God for my backup HDD ) .

I am pretty new to OC'ing AMD, never done it before(done on P4s tho). Lets see what i near from this. Like many in here i cannot have an Asus board without OCing it!!

 

[ahurtt]

I have found nTune to be hokey at best. It sometimes reports that my pci clock is running at 19MHz when other utilities like ClockGenNF4 report it at 33.33MHz. I use ClockGenNF4 instead. The PCI lock should be automatic once you overclock the CPU frequency by as little as 1MHz in the BIOS. But if you want there should be an option in the bios also to manually set the lock at 33.33. It's maybe under CPU configuration in the Advanced Options I think. I forget where exactly but it's like Prego. . .It's in there.

also do you know if the memory is in fact running at 1T command rate when you bump the max speed up to DDR 600?

 

[oompadroonka]

well i havent changed in the BIOS from auto, should i select 1T in the BIOS to force it to use that mode?

 

[Visual]

Originally posted by: ahurtt
Yah, what GuitarDaddy said. To get around this you might be able to leave the DDR set to DDR333 in the bios on 1T (which is actually just setting RAM speed to 5/6 of the cpu frequency with this motherboard) and up your cpu frequency to 240 which would yield you an RAM speed of 200. Right where it should be for DDR 400. What are the stock cpu frequency and multipliers for the 3500+? Is it 10 * 220? Doing this however, would leave your CPU overclocked by 200MHz but that should not be much problem for an A64. But if you don't want to OC your cpu much, you can lower your cpu multiplier to 9.5 * 240 = 2280MHz. Then your RAM should be at its rated DDR 400 speed and the CPU would only be over by 80MHz beyond factory spec. Just remember that even though the BIOS says setting the RAM to DDR333 sets an artificial limit on ram speed, that is not how it actually functions on this motherboard! It just means it runs the RAM at 5/6 the CPU frequency speed.

Has anybody tried anything like this to try and get 4 * 512MB DDR400 RAM running in 1T?

two comments...
first, 3500+ defaults at 11*200, all A64s default at 200HTT of course, to be in sync with DDR400. getting his HTT to 240 will be a fair bit above specs granted there are some chips that'll do that just fine, even on stock cooling, but on others you just can't run that high. trying out such overclocks is better done with clockgen than in the bios, so if it can't cope with it, a reboot is all that you need to be back to stock... but this is another topic.

second, i don't think the fraction multipliers are working... i admit i haven't tried them, but i remember reading about problems with any .5 cpu multipliers some time ago. could've been for nforce3, it you know for sure it works on nf4 then ignore this part of my post

 

[Whitewolf]

As far as I know the 2GB @ DDR333 is not a motherboard issue but rather an A64 cpu memory controller limitation which will be addressed in the new steppings/cores. So GuitarDaddy is very right on this one!

 

[Thorsson]

There was a lot of discussion about the .5 multipliers - my recollection is that the initial scare story was wrong, and it was the utilities that were reporting wrong. Sudhian is the place to go for the full SP I believe.

It is certain that all mobo manuals for NF3 & NF4 chipsets state that RAM runs at DDR333, but it will probably OC to 400 - just not to 500 like you might get with 2 sticks...