Can I DISABLE dual-channel on nForce4 Ultra?

[bmarinari]

I just got an ECS KN1 Extreme nForce4 Ultra board. I installed 2 512 MB sticks of RAM (not identical) in the first two slots. Since the two sticks of RAM are from different manufacturers, I didn't expect dual channel to be enabled, but it was. System runs mostly OK, but freezes relatively often. Thinking that perhaps the problem was that dual channel operation was failing since the sticks are different, I moved one to the third slot. Then the system wouldn't POST -- blank screen. So if I leave only one stick in, everything works fine with no lockups. Is there are way I can use the first two slots for RAM but force dual channel to be disabled?

Thanks in advance.

 

[mlc]

as far as I know....

1 stick goes in the B1 slot...

then if you add a 2nd stick .. it would go into A1 for dual channel....

to run out of dual channel... I would think you should put the 2nd stick into the B2 slot...

if no post.. then memory is not compatible with each other....

 

[LTC8K6]

Have you run memtest with the memory in DC mode to rule out a bad stick?

 

[bmarinari]

Yeah, I ran memtest overnight with no problems. I also ran this mem in my old system for over a year with no problems. I don't *think* it's a bad stick, but I'll try to check tonight. I'll keep running with one stick, but swap the other one in. I would think I'll continue to get lockups if the stick is to blame.

For that matter, I guess I can try all combinations of non-dual channel slots to see if I can find one that boots.

 

[bmarinari]

In case anyone is following this, here's what happened. I put the two sticks in slots 3&4 (as opposed to 1&2), and the system again detected dual channel, but without the lockup problems. Though after I played WoW for an hour or so, I had problems with the application crashing. Since this system is new, this could be heat-related, but on a whim and put the sticks of RAM back in slots 1&3, but swapped from the previous time I had tried this. They were correctly detected single channel, and everything seems fine so far. If I continue to have the crashing problem, I'll probably put them back in slots 3&4 and run dual channel, and debug the heat problem.