AMD 690G does not support Vista 64-bit with 4gb ram?

[FrodeNilsen]

I am building a few systems based on the Gigabyte GA-MA69G-S3H.

OS used are Ubuntu 32-bit, XP 32-bit, MCE 2005, and Vista Ultimate 64-bit.

The systems use 1, 2, 4, or 8GB RAM. Kingston and Crucial. All Micron chips.

Everything runs smoothly and rock solid, until Vista 64-bit is fed with 4gb RAM or more. 2gb runs fine.

The screen is corrupted with horizontal white lines, that grows until it covers the entire screen. Vista will eventually crash.

I have come across some info about the 690g+sb600 does not support 64-bit DMA, and thus will not run Vista 64-bit with 4gb RAM or more.

It is hard to find info about this on the web due to the tonn of "xp shows 3gb ram but I am using 4gb" topics.

Have I recieved a bunch of lemons MBs, is the gagabyte MB a lemon, or is this the 690g a lemon? I find it hard to believe the latter, as this is not a UVD glitch, but a huge flaw if true.

Anyone out there running 64bit Vista, 690G, and 4gb ram or more?

Just for the record:
All BIOS versions are tested.
All ram modules are tested, we are talking about 12-14 sticks.
3 types of PSUs are tested.
2 types of HD and a number of drives. All S-ATA.
2 different types of DVD. All ATA.
2 types of cpu cooler. Temps are fine.
chipsett cooler improved, did not help corruption, but temp fell drasticly.
Clean install Norwegian Vista 64bit, disconected from any form of nettwork.
All sort of patching does not help.
Tried a bunch of ATI drivers.
Tested with onboard GFX, x1300 non HM, and X1900xtx. The X1900XTX is running the same os just fine on a s939 system. Elimenating the GFX driver as well.
amd 3800 x2 and 5200 x2 65nm. Several og each.

 

[RaptureMe]

Did you try updating the bios to the very newest version?
If not try that first while running just a 1GB stick.
Then after the bios update, power off the pc and install the rest of the memory.
It should run just fine.
If not post back..

 

[FrodeNilsen]

Updating with one stick did not work.

So far I have tried F1, F2, and F4A.

Please note that this is an Vista 64-bit issue only, works just fine with 4gb under XP.

The Gigabyte is listing the am2 5200 X2 65nm CPU as supported by F1. It is not.

The Gigabyte is listing the 2gb kingston sticks as supported by the MB, but they have tested a stick with different chips.

The sticks will pass a memtest even with 4gb.

Is there a way to disable DMA under vista 64-bit? It is reported to be the problem by two other users.

 

[bka4u2c]

Try installing KB929777 from Microsoft when using 2GB then install the additional memory.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929777

 

[FrodeNilsen]

As I said, it runs fine with 2gb, and numerous updates have been installed.

This update is included in my Vista Ultimate CD, I have even installed the PC with 4gb once. The kb929777 is not needed as it is supposed to be fixed by the time they made my CD.

I have also tried the newer update that was supposed to improve memory handling, but to no use. I do not recall the kb number.

Has enyone a working 690g+sb600 mb with Vista 64-bit and 4gb or more? I have yet to hear of one, and I have been looking for a month!

I hope the 690g is not broken, but I have to wonder why no one can kill this broken 64bit DMA myth with a working setup.

 

[GullyFoyle]

Originally posted by: FrodeNilsen
Please note that this is an Vista 64-bit issue only, works just fine with 4gb under XP.

Shouldn't your topic read: Vista 64-bit does not support AMD 690G with 4gb ram?

 

[FrodeNilsen]

Originally posted by: DanDeighan

Originally posted by: FrodeNilsen
Please note that this is an Vista 64-bit issue only, works just fine with 4gb under XP.

Shouldn't your topic read: Vista 64-bit does not support AMD 690G with 4gb ram?

No.

If the 690g does not support 64bit DMA, this is a chisett flaw, and thus the chipsett cannot run a true 64bit OS.

I have done some more research and there are reports on Linux problems with this chipsett as well.

The user reviews on Newegg is supporting the DMA argument as well. Plenty of reports on 4gb issues, working xp 64bit riggs, and one divergent review wich is working.

Vista is not to blame if a chipsett is broken, even if you hate Vista.

The topic should rather read:64bit DMA broken for AMD chipsetts?

 

[Gary Key]

Originally posted by: FrodeNilsen


Has enyone a working 690g+sb600 mb with Vista 64-bit and 4gb or more? I have yet to hear of one, and I have been looking for a month!

Gigabyte could not recreate your problem last night. I had the problem, this is going to sound weird, but once I changed hard drives, Vista64 + 4GB on the 690G worked fine, at least in early testing now. I did report your problem and a similar one I was/am having with a like configuration. What SB driver set are you using?

 

[FrodeNilsen]

Originally posted by: Gary Key

Originally posted by: FrodeNilsen


Has enyone a working 690g+sb600 mb with Vista 64-bit and 4gb or more? I have yet to hear of one, and I have been looking for a month!

Gigabyte could not recreate your problem last night. I had the problem, this is going to sound weird, but once I changed hard drives, Vista64 + 4GB on the 690G worked fine, at least in early testing now. I did report your problem and a similar one I was/am having with a like configuration. What SB driver set are you using?

Glad to hear that there probably is a fix! I really apreciate your help!

Anyway:
I have tried a bounch of drivers. The shipping driver did not work, nor have any of the drivers on gigabyte web worked. Most boards were bougt 23rd of june from Norek, a Norwegian wholesaler. The retail part of their business is known as Komplett.

The Vista driver CD is version 1.0.

Basicly I have downloaded and testet all drivers up til Catalyst 7.6. Not shure about 7.7. I believe I started at 7.3. I have used the official download site of ati, x1250 integrated gfx driver, and there is a SB driver on the same page.

The computers are not of the regular kind, they are optimized for low heat generation and low noise. I am using a 2.5inch drive from Samsung. It is a S-ATA drive HJ160JI.

The CPU is a 3600 x2 or a 5000 x2 both 65nm.

I have used a Seasonic S12-II 430W PSU, or 3 different kind of the fanless Silverstone PSU.(one Estasi)

I do believe I tried to run the OS on a 3.5inch 250gb S-ATA drive from Samsung, but I will retest this on Sunday. I do have a 300gb Maxtor ATA drive, 2 different 500gb WD S-ATA, a Samsung 500gb s-ATA, an older 80GB ATA, and a 2.5 inch 160gb western S-ATA. I will try all of these. Untill something works.

What driver is Gigabte using? What driver did you use? Would be nice to know that a driver should work while runing through all these drives and tests.

The memory chips are Crucial 1gb sticks from a kit named CT2KIT12864AA80E with micron chips. The 2gb sticks are Kingston KVR667D2N5/2G also micron chips.

The Vista OS is a Norwegian Vista Ultimate OEM 64-bit. This means that I have been using the multilingual drivers.

By the way, what sort of harddrive did you use that did work, and what drive did not?

Do I need to patch the OS, or should a late june CD work? When did your system work, since all patches posted after that should not be needed.

I might miss the entire Sunday, aint I?

 

[Peter]

You probably have a bad DIMM or a DIMM timing issue there, with the bad spots only being used in 64-bit mode.

That's difficult to debug, I'm not sure whether the usual test programs like memtest+ even access memory beyond the 32-bit threshold. www.memtest.org if you care to try.

 

[FrodeNilsen]

Originally posted by: Peter
You probably have a bad DIMM or a DIMM timing issue there, with the bad spots only being used in 64-bit mode.

That's difficult to debug, I'm not sure whether the usual test programs like memtest+ even access memory beyond the 32-bit threshold. www.memtest.org if you care to try.

Thank you for trying to help me out. The issue you are raising about bad memorysticks have been adressed.

I am currently using 4 different 2GB sticks and 8 different 1GB sticks. These run under all sorts of stress under both Vista (2gb ram), Linux, and XP. They pass every memtest I run, from memtest86, prime, games, and others.

I have had bad sticks before, and know quite a bit how tricky that can be to find out.

If anyone run a AM2 system with these sticks, using 64-bit Vista and 4gb ram or more, please let me know, as that would indicate that there is no compatibility issue.

As for harddrives, I have tested two alternate harddrives so far, with the same result.

Some vendor indipendent feedback will be highly appreciated, as the vendors will try to kill any "64bit DMA borken for AMD chipsetts" story. I will only kill the story when I am told and shown a working fix. The harddrive story does not seem to work so far.

There might be some problem with Micron memory chips and AM2. If this is not sorted out by monday, I will buy a Nvidia board or two, and I bet they work just fine.

If not Intel is next. And they do work.

 

[lopri]

NF 7050PV works fine with up to 8GB of RAM. Have no clue regarding 690G. Have you tried PATA hard disks?

Oh, and believe it or not, Intel chipsets aren't that generous to 4 sticks of DIMM, either.

 

[FrodeNilsen]

Originally posted by: lopri
NF 7050PV works fine with up to 8GB of RAM. Have no clue regarding 690G. Have you tried PATA hard disks?

Oh, and believe it or not, Intel chipsets aren't that generous to 4 sticks of DIMM, either.

I guess I have to try a Nvidia board, cause I have given up 690G.

I just tried a 80GB P-ATA disk. I installed Vista from scratch, disabeling the the S-ATA controller from the start. Everything went smooth until the ATI drivers were installed.

After installing the lastest catalyst and SB driver, the system went into blue screen. refused to boot. After enabling the S-ATA in bios, the blue screen went away. Yet the screen corruption and crashing were still there with 4GB.

The system refused to install if I disabled sound, LAN, USB, parallell port, seriall port, and FireWire in the BIOS. The Vista CD went blue screen on me. Using 4GB really makes things happen with these MBs.

I tried this to exclude the drivers and HW issues these components would produce.

I have tried at least 3 different 160GB 2.5 inch Samsung drives with 4gb. On top of that I just tested a 160GB 2.5inch s-ata Western, a 250GB sata Samsung, and a 80GB p-ata Western.

I have been using two different systems for the recent testing. They behave exactly the same.

I have even tried to install the patch mentioned in a post in this tread.

The list of tests is now so sickening long that it is time to test an alternate type of chipset and an alternate 690g board.

I bet the alternate chipsett will work fine and the alternate 690g is falty. I will know by tuesday. It will be quite a jobb replacing the boards, I wonder where to send that bill.

The 7050 is a nice option. Anyone with a 7050 board with nice sound on them?

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: FrodeNilsen
As I said, it runs fine with 2gb, and numerous updates have been installed.

Well that's good, but the hotfix is for systems with 3GB or more, not 2GB or more. Thus, the fact that it runs fine with 2GB is not an indication that you don't need to install the KB929777 hotfix.

Using 2GB populated, install Vista 64, apply all updates and hotfixes, including KB929777, install the latest ATI drivers, then install the other 2GB and enable memory remapping in BIOS. If you don't have memory remapping in BIOS, that may be your problem. Its required to use 4GB or more under 64-bit OS.

 

[nidhoggr]

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2106970&enterthread=y

Same problem here, it is definetly not related to the 4GB Patch or anything else you might have proposed.
Use MSconfig to set max. RAM to 4096MB so Vista will only use 3329 MB -> no problems at all -> fucking adressing Problem, either Catalyst drivers or 690G chipset in my case. I hope its only the drivers not the chipset itself.

All Gigabyte 690G Boards have this problem btw.

edit: I have noticed that you only ran ATI cards. I have no nvidia PCI-E card to test, maybe you got one. If the problem dosnt occur with an nvidia card, it would only be an issue with Catalyst adressing the memory.

edit2: Yeah, that board got no memory remapping option, but afaik this option is only required for 4GB on 32bit systems. Memtest with 4GB runs absolutely fine.

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: nidhoggr
edit2: Yeah, that board got no memory remapping option, but afaik this option is only required for 4GB on 32bit systems. Memtest with 4GB runs absolutely fine.

Why would 32-bit systems require memory remapping into address space they don't have? Memory remapping is explicitly for making use of address space beyond the 32-bit boundary, which only 36-bit PAE and 64-bit OS can do.

32-bit OS = memory remapping disabled
64-bit OS (or 36-bit PAE) = memory remapping enabled with 4GB or more, disabled with 3GB or less

 

[nidhoggr]

Ok well then sounds logical. But why doesn't my mobo have that fucking option (PAE is for 32bit Systems, got that mixed up)
Might resolve that problem. I have contacted Gigabyte and ATI about this problem, maybe there is a chance that they can fix it.
I've just read some articles about 64bit-Systems in german and they lead to one conclusion: one of the I/O with high bandwidth does not support 64bit-DMA and causes all the problems (SATA-Controller or graphics adapter). Thats from a linux blog concerning the 690G chipset:

One issue was with SATA: when in AHCI mode, the chipset falsely claimed to support 64-bit DMA. New kernels force 32-bit DMA for this chipset. Personally I don't care, since I only have 4GB of RAM. This isn't a high-end development or server board, anyway. (Come to think of it, I don't even know if the previous chipset I used, the nForce4, supported 64-bit DMA...)

That sucks, really
Gotta live with 3.3GB over the next few months...

edit: So now I got it. My system only lacks one damn BIOS setting which tells the hardware that im using an 64bit OS. -> memory remapping. Great, everything else would be fine. Well, gotta contact Gigabyte about that issue again. Maybe they have some beta-bios resolving this...

 

[Blacklash]

If you have a Creative sound card yank it along with the drivers. Use something like driver cleaner to make sure all of their drivers are removed.

 

[FrodeNilsen]

Originally posted by: tcsenter

Originally posted by: FrodeNilsen
As I said, it runs fine with 2gb, and numerous updates have been installed.

Well that's good, but the hotfix is for systems with 3GB or more, not 2GB or more. Thus, the fact that it runs fine with 2GB is not an indication that you don't need to install the KB929777 hotfix.

Using 2GB populated, install Vista 64, apply all updates and hotfixes, including KB929777, install the latest ATI drivers, then install the other 2GB and enable memory remapping in BIOS. If you don't have memory remapping in BIOS, that may be your problem. Its required to use 4GB or more under 64-bit OS.

Thanks for spending time to help me out.

I have never heard about memory remapping in BIOS is needed for 64bit os. Where is that setting normally located?

I know users who use Nforce4 s939 boards, 4gb RAM, and x1900XT, Vista 64-bit, who do not even know what memory remapping is. (just placed a phonecall to check). They install with 4gb from scratch, and it works flawlessly. (Well not Creative soundcards, but that is a different story).

One of them is using an Abit KN8-SLI. In the ABIT manual I can only find two settings related to mapping:
"MTRR mapping mode": Continuous
and
"32 bit Dram Memory Hole": Auto

He does not alter any of these.

The argument that memory mapping has to be altered by the user for Vista 64-bit to work with 4gb is false.

Still this might be a necessity for 64bit os, it might just be that Nvidia has gotten this to work automatickly. Maybe I should call Microsoft on this one.

 

[FrodeNilsen]

Originally posted by: nidhoggr
http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2106970&enterthread=y

Same problem here, it is definetly not related to the 4GB Patch or anything else you might have proposed.
Use MSconfig to set max. RAM to 4096MB so Vista will only use 3329 MB -> no problems at all -> fucking adressing Problem, either Catalyst drivers or 690G chipset in my case. I hope its only the drivers not the chipset itself.

All Gigabyte 690G Boards have this problem btw.

edit: I have noticed that you only ran ATI cards. I have no nvidia PCI-E card to test, maybe you got one. If the problem dosnt occur with an nvidia card, it would only be an issue with Catalyst adressing the memory.

edit2: Yeah, that board got no memory remapping option, but afaik this option is only required for 4GB on 32bit systems. Memtest with 4GB runs absolutely fine.

Thank you for spending time to help me out.

Actually I am unhappy for every user beeing unable to run 4gb vista 64bit, as it points more and more in the direction of a malfunction.

Could you please check the maker of the chips on your memory sticks. Mine are all Micron, and the next thing they will be throwing at me, is that there is an issue with Micron chips.

The fix you are reffering to should disable 64bit memory access, not really solving anything is it. The 8gb system is a bit wasted then.

You also made a remark on ATI only GFX. Well, I did test a GF6200LE, but it went blue screen on me. It uses tubo cache memory...

The particular x1900xt is running fine on a s939 Nforce4 4gb 64bit vista system. The GFX driver works on Nforce4, but not on my 690G?

Do you know of any other 690g users experiencing the 4gb problem?

 

[nidhoggr]

Right now I dont know anyone else using an 690G Board with 4GB Ram.
I also dont wont to remove my heatspreaders on my memory because I dont really know how those new Vitesta Heatspreaders are attached to the modules, for me it looks like they are glued hehe. But memory isnt the problem. I can stress-test with prime95 as long as I want or run memtest for hours, no errors.
But if I install a graphics card the system goes boogie.
If the X1900 works on nforce, then most probably it isnt a catalyst problem.

So there are three options:

Chipset drivers from ATI that fix the problem.
BIOS from Gigabyte adding the remapping function.
Microsoft fixing it with an Update for Vista.

Well, i contacted ATI and Gigaybte so far, lets see what they will answer.

 

[FrodeNilsen]

Originally posted by: nidhoggr

edit: So now I got it. My system only lacks one damn BIOS setting which tells the hardware that im using an 64bit OS. -> memory remapping. Great, everything else would be fine. Well, gotta contact Gigabyte about that issue again. Maybe they have some beta-bios resolving this...

If you read the forum post from Gary Key, he claims that Gigabyte could not reproduce the issue.

If they could not reproduce my problem, it should mean that their system is working, would it not?

Gary also reports a working system, at least in early testing.

It is not simple to get these boxes to work, as highly skilled users cannot get them to work.

Lets believe the feedback for a while, and let them prove their case. There should be no need for a fresh BIOS, SB driver, or GFX driver, if Gigabyte has a working system. All they need to do, is tell us how we get our boxes working and what we do wrong.

After all, they claim that I can use 16gb ram on this MB. They claim that this works fine on Windows 64bit OS. Vista is that kind of OS.

I will be happy to make an identical box to the one Gigabyte claims work. I will be happy to install the OS the way they describe too. I can even ship them a box, so they can get it to work for me.

 

[FrodeNilsen]

Originally posted by: Blacklash
If you have a Creative sound card yank it along with the drivers. Use something like driver cleaner to make sure all of their drivers are removed.

I only use the MB,ram,cpu,psu,DVD,floppy, and harddrive.

I even tried to disabel all the integrated parts I could, or some of them, resulting in a blue screen.

This board is so messed up.

 

[SilverHair]

Have you RMA'd the board yet?

Could it be a defective board that only surfaces when using Vista 64 drivers?

 

[nidhoggr]

Well I am using IDE driver 5.0.0.5 in native IDE mode (AHCI will crash Vista while booting even if AMDs SB drivers are installed), HDDs are:

Seagate 250 GB 7200.10 ST3250410AS
Seagate 320 GB 7200.10 ST3320620AS