Asus vs. Corsair... They Fight it Out

[Nebor]

IN MY COMPUTER!!!! This is no good...

Alright, I'm running a P4C 3.0ghz, Geforce4 ti4400, Audigy 2, 2 WD HDs in a RAID 0 config, and 2 cd drives. I have a logitech mx700 and an antec 350w PS. I have an Asus P4C800 Deluxe and Corsair TWINX 3200LLPT ram, 1 GB of it.

I'm getting windows lock ups every few minutes, always less than 10 minutes. Nothing in event log, so I go to memory test... and I fail the memtest. It always locks up before completing. I've tried stock memory settings, and then I upped the voltage, and change my timings to both 2 3 3 6 8 and 2 3 2 6 8. The second set got it through one pass of memtest, but it failed on the second pass, test 4. Any ideas from anyone? I'm really stumped... could this be a simple power or heat issue? What settings should I use?



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[OverVolt]

Try backing down to 2.5-4-4-7 or so. Or try letting SPD define the mem timings, then if it still fails then i would RMA the corsair.

And!!! What kinda WD Drives u have in RAID0 kinda curious.

 

[Nebor]

Since Asus is TOTAL CRAP, the board won't run at the SPD settings that it detects... I think I'm stable now at 2 3 2 6.
I have 2 western digital caviar 80 GB 8 mb cache HDs...

 

[AndyHui]

Set the timings to 2-3-2-6, and set the voltage to 2.75V.

 

[Nebor]

Oh yeah, forgot the mention that the first thing I changed was the voltage... another thing this piece of asus junk detected incorrectly...

 

[Lyfer]

Originally posted by: Nebor
Oh yeah, forgot the mention that the first thing I changed was the voltage... another thing this piece of asus junk detected incorrectly...

more like user error.

 

[Nebor]

How is it user error? This board defaulted the voltage to 2.65v.... under Corsair spec.

 

[borgmang]

Kinda harsh on ASUS.

 

[AndyHui]

It's the Corsair RAM not being in spec. All DDR SDRAM should conform to the JEDEC standard, which is 2.5 volts.

Voltage is not part of the SPD specification, which is what all boards read from the DIMM. In this case it is Corsair's problem, not ASUS.

 

[Ketchup]

I'd say it's more a conflict between the 875P and your memory, not that it makes any difference in your case. Relax those memory timings, and I bet things will get better.

 

[ChefJoe]

Try 2-3-3-6-4 with the voltage bump... you can use goldmemory boot disk to test the ram (not wait hours for lockup).

 

[gramboh]

I'm using a P4P800 and have experienced very similar problems with both TwinX and XMS 3500, as well as OCZ Gold 3500 EL.

I think the underlying issue is that 865/875 based mainboards are very picky about timings. I can run XMS 3500 stable at 2-3-2-6 without OC'ing and DDR 434 at 2-3-3-7. What I want to do is overclock using 5:4 which should put my RAM at 400 DDR but for some stupid reason it is not stable no matter what timings I use (it is stable with one stick of ram or single channel though).

It just hurts paying such a high premium for RAM and then having to push the timings back.

 

[newbiepcuser]

Originally posted by: AndyHui
It's the Corsair RAM not being in spec. All DDR SDRAM should conform to the JEDEC standard, which is 2.5 volts.

Voltage is not part of the SPD specification, which is what all boards read from the DIMM. In this case it is Corsair's problem, not ASUS.

How do you know its not Asus problem, darn you! You're always sticking up for Asus. I'm going to have to fly to HK and lay the smack down on you.

 

[Nebor]

Well, the memory subsystem and everything tested fine once I turned off Legacy USB support. Apparently it's a known issue that Legacy USB suport causes crashes.... nice feature, Asus.

 

[mechBgon]

Just so you're aware, the difference in actual performance between tight and rather-loose timings is probably on the order of 2%, judging by THUGSROOK's research on this in the past. Backing off the timings also blows the door open for much higher overclocks, from looking at his results (although they're not for the i875P chipset).

Bottom line: I wouldn't freak out if the worst thing that happened is that I had to back the timings down a wee bit and use 2.7 volts.

 

[Compddd]

I dont know why people get the ASUS 875 board when it has the Gigabit lan going through the PCI bus instead of the CSA, and that it cant handle some video cards due unless u bend the end of them, due to Capacitors being near the AGP slot.

Why do people get the Asus when there is the Abit IC7-G?

 

[OverVolt]

Originally posted by: Compddd
I dont know why people get the ASUS 875 board when it has the Gigabit lan going through the PCI bus instead of the CSA, and that it cant handle some video cards due unless u bend the end of them, due to Capacitors being near the AGP slot.

Why do people get the Asus when there is the Abit IC7-G?

Since were not cheap, i never saw any capacitors near the AGP slot that would cause conflict with anything. And Gigabit theoretical bandwidth is 125mb/s which is within spec for the PCI bus . And i seriously doubt any home user could max it out with HD reads maxing out around 60mb/s for non-RAID setups.

 

[Compddd]

Overvolt, you do know the Gigabit thing is LAN, not the hard drive interface. The PCI bus will hamper the Gigabit lan. I dunno, I just like an 875 board that has all the features built in right.

 

[Nebor]

Unless you're actually transferring at gigabit speeds, that shouldn't matter... No one's internet connection has the bandwidth to really make a difference on a 66mhz PCI bus.... At least, that's my thinking.

 

[peter7921]

Originally posted by: Compddd
I dont know why people get the ASUS 875 board when it has the Gigabit lan going through the PCI bus instead of the CSA, and that it cant handle some video cards due unless u bend the end of them, due to Capacitors being near the AGP slot.

Why do people get the Asus when there is the Abit IC7-G?

Well the reason i went with the Asus P4P800 Deluxe is cause i don't like the active cooling on the Abit boards there excessivley loud. I need a quiet board and like the fact that Asus boards have passive cooling. I don't like the P4C though cause of the promise controller(I don't care about the Gigabit LAN not being through CSA like most people i don't need it). I am very excited about the Asus P4C-E 800 Deluxe which fixes all the problems - It uses the CSA Gigabit and the ICHR south bridge allowing Serial ATA RAID through the south bridge.

 

[peter7921]

-----Double post-----

 

[Compddd]

Ahhhh, the E version sounds nice. I went with the Intel D875PBZ because I too cant stand fans and the fans on the northbridge heatsinks are indeed annoying, but I didnt want to go with the P4C800 due to the above problems you mentioned. The E version sounds like a winner though!

 

[borgmang]

The Asus P4C800-E Deluxe is the way to go.

 

[Nebor]

But... what good does that do me?

 

[KDOG]

This is odd. I have the Asus A7N8X Rev. 2.0 mobo and I'm having problems similar to this as well. I get lock ups, slowdowns, and random crashes and restarts. The kicker is - I have Corsair memory too!! I have XMS PC3200. Maybe there is a conflict between ASUS boards and Corsair memory that we could get Anandtech to look into. I'll try to bump my voltage up too and see if that helps.