Boots w/ 1GB but not 2GB

[21stHermit]

I have 2 GB (2 x 1GB) of Patriot PC3200 3,3,3,7 1T on a MSI Neo2-F MB w/ a A64 3000+.

I have WinXP loaded on a SATA HD and the system boots fine with either DIMM installed, but not 2 DIMMs. When I install 2 DIMMs, I put one in the green bank and the other in the purple banks, just like the manual says. I've tried switching the DIMMs, I've tried different DIMM sockets. Always boots w/ one, never w/ two.

Any suggestions on how to solve this?

System:
Athlon 64 3000+ 939 Retail
MSI K8T Neo2-F, Via Chipset
2 GB PC3200 DDR (2 x 1GB Patriot)
Asus 8X AGP VGA Card, Basic
Thermaltake 420W Purepower
Hitachi 250G SATA

 

[bob661]

You may have to run the ram at DDR333 to get it to work.

 

[Peter]

With one DIMM per channel? No.

www.memtest.org

to check the DIMMs individually. Then set your BIOS to have everything RAM related on "auto" and retry.

 

[21stHermit]

Originally posted by: Peter
to check the DIMMs individually. Then set your BIOS to have everything RAM related on "auto" and retry.

The board defaults to auto, that's where I started. Did try DDR333, no help. Have a couple of experiment to run, will report back.

 

[21stHermit]

Did a test putting both DIMMs in the green sockets, booted fine but best I can tell the system only saw 1GB of RAM not 2GB.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

[joelslaw]

at msi it says if you are using two dual sided dimms, that they should be in slots a2 and b2. (that's the 2nd and 4th slots from the cpu) is that where you put them?

Edit: NO WAIT! msi numbered their dimms really screw-ily. They may be numbered from the edge of the board to the socket, not the ussual from the socket to the edge....... maybe. At any rate, their site says if you wanna run 2 dual sided dimms in dual channel they have to be installed in dimm slots 2 and 4, BUT it says that if you install them in slots 1 and 3, not only will they not run dual channel, they will be forced to run at a lower speed. But as I said before, it looks to me like MSI numbered the slots weird, so you may have to try both.

Also, do you have the latest BIOS?

 

[21stHermit]

Originally posted by: joelslaw
Also, do you have the latest BIOS?

Thought I did, turns out not.

There are two similiar named and numbered AMI Bios thingies:
1) AMIBIOS Utility v3.31a, this is a tool to adjust BIOS parameters [press Delete]
2) The BIOS v3.00 on my MB, this is THE BIOS [press Pause, upper left corner]

This morning I downloaded Live Update 3, then had it flash the latest BIOS. So I'm now at v3.30, 1-10-05.

Low and behold, my system now POST and boots XP (almost) with 2 GB of DRAM. I disabled quick boot and watched the RAM counter go all the way to 2G

Almost . . . XP was so shocked to go from 1G to 2G it refused access and said I had to register first. Prior to that I had 29 days left to register.:disgust:

In any case, Thanks joelslaw :beer: :beer:

 

[joelslaw]

Originally posted by: 21stHermit
Low and behold, my system now POST and boots XP (almost) with 2 GB of DRAM. I disabled quick boot and watched the RAM counter go all the way to 2G

good God man! are you insane??? makes me impatient just thinking about it!

Originally posted by: 21stHermit
Almost . . . XP was so shocked to go from 1G to 2G it refused access and said I had to register first. Prior to that I had 29 days left to register.:disgust:

really? I changed everything in my system one time (except the HDD of corse) and: nothing! I remember this happening to a friend of mine some time back, but when I changed my whole config and it didn't scream I figured MS must have changed it's sensetivity in an update. Did you have all the windows updates loaded before the change?

the other posibility is that my copy of XP pro is different. I got it for free when I went to TS2 one year (pays to work for a microsoft partner ). It's not packaged quite like others I've seen, so maybe the registration is a little different. I highly doubt this, but I don't know how else to explain it (unless my other theory above is true) Then again, maybe windows just likes me better than it likes you. But that'll change when it finds out that the new partition I just made is going to be used to install Linux!

N E way, glad you're up and running! btw did you ever fix that problem you had in your other thread?

 

[Peter]

XP did that probably because you forgot to set date and time after the BIOS update, thus accelerating your 30-day period a bit

 

[21stHermit]

Originally posted by: Peter
XP did that probably because you forgot to set date and time after the BIOS update, thus accelerating your 30-day period a bit

I didn't check the clock after the flash, I'll do that right after breakfast.
Thanks for the heads up Peter.