DFI Lanparty Ultra II B

[dabuddha]

I just bought this motherboard and I put in two 512 meg sticks of mushkin level 1 ddr memory. How can I tell if Dual channel is enabled? I'm currently running memcheck86 and so far, it's had 3 errors.
When I first purchased my memory, one of the sticks had hundreds of errors and they sent me a replacement. Are 3 errors something to worry about or is it ok? It seems the error is the same each time.

It says

Failing address 00030070574 - 760.0MB
Count 3
Chan 1

I currently have the memory in dimm slots 2 and 3

 

[dabuddha]

Mushkin's telling me I need to run the memory at 2.8V. I tried that and the errors still showed up. The first stick ran memcheck86 for hours without a single error. I wonder if it's just another bad stick of memory.

BTW I figured how to tell if It's in dual channel or not. It is currently. My bios is old though. November 2003. I saw there is a Dec 2003 bios out which I'm going to try in a little bit.

 

[dabuddha]

Bah I put the new stick in by itself and ran memtest and it's giving me a buttload of errors. Right now the count is up to 187 errors. When I had both sticks in, it only gave me around 10-15 errors in the same amount of time. Is there something I'm doing horribly wrong?

Here are the memory settings in my BIOS which I was told by mushkin to set:

T(RAS) = 11
T(RCD-READ) = 3
T(RCD-WRITE) = 3
T(RP) = 2
CAS LATENCY = 2.0
T(RC) = 13
T(RFC) = 15

Superbypass = enabled
Sync Mode Memory bypass = auto
data scavenged rate = fast

DIMM1 Driving strength/slew rate are all set to auto for Dimm1 2 and 3

 

[jhurst]

I know in my BIOS it says on the opening screen "Dual Channel Enabled" before it does the drive detection. You can also check it in SiSoft Sandra when you run a memory test it will say "Number of Channels: 2".

As for the errors.......if your system doesn't lock up on you when you function normally, the errors are meaningless. The best determination in my opinion of overall system stability is Prime95. If your system can get through 12 hrs. of P95 Torture Test, I could care less what memtest says. But, if youre system isn't stable, you might try upping the DDR voltage by .05 increments until stable. I wouldnt go over 2.8 though to be safe. I have 2.6v rated RAM and have to run mine at 2.7 for system stability. Or, if you don't want to up your voltage, you can relax your timings some (raise them). Instead of 2-11-3-3, you might try something like 2.5-11-3-3, 2-8-4-4. The 11 T(ras) timing seems really high to me. Most people run at 5 or 6 T(ras).

 

[dabuddha]

Hmm I haven't tried the prime95 torture test. I got discouraged after seeing the numerous errors and took out the stick. Currently memtest worked fine with the 1 stick of 512meg that I was using earlier. I guess I can try prime95 and see if it's ok.

EDIT: Does it matter if I use dimm slots 2/3 vs 1/3?

EDIT2: Which torture test should I run?

I see Small FFTs
In-place Larget FFTs
blend

 

[mechBgon]

How good is your PSU? Those things do run on electricity...

 

[dabuddha]

I just ran prime95 stress test and it gave me this error:
FATAL ERROR: Rouding was 0.49999990463 expected less than than 0.4, Hardware failure detected

This with both sticks in. As for my PSU, I have the Antec True 380w power supply. One hdd, one cdrw, thats it as far as drives go. The dimm voltage is set to 2.8V

EDIT: I'm currently running it with the 1 stick in and it hasn't had any errors at all. (Prime95 that is)

 

[mechBgon]

Try relaxing your timings to 2.5-3-3 and see if it prefers that.

 

[dabuddha]

the 3-3 part would be the t(rcd-read/write)?

What about the setting for t(ras).

 

[mechBgon]

Well some people say to set the t(RAS) to 11 although the modules come programmed typically for something like 7. They claim it performs a little better. I ran SETIBench tests (SETI being somewhat sensitive to memory timings) and got virtually-identical results either way, so I don't think it matters too much from a performance perspective which you choose. Stability-wise, I have no idea. Seems strange that your modules are having errors, at any rate That is nice-quality stuff all around.

 

[dabuddha]

Thanks for all the info. I did relax my timings to what you suggested and prime95 still fails. Memtest-86 still has errors as well with both sticks or just the 1 stick by itself. I guess they sent me a bad stick to replace the original bad stick. I'll give them a call up tomorrow and figure out what they're going to do.

 

[jhurst]

Are you overclocking your processor?

 

[mechBgon]

One other thought just occurred to me: besides the overclocking question, is it running sync'ed to the CPU's bus speed? I'd definitely make sure it's synchronous even if this means running PC3200 at PC2700 speeds.

 

[jhurst]

Normally when your system is failing P95, its because it cant keep up the frequency to the processor/RAM, which means probably you are over stressing the components. I really doubt there is anything "wrong" with your RAM, other than maybe it doesn't run at its advertised timings, but ALOT of RAM is in that boat. Raise the voltage, relax the timings, or send the RAM back. And again, your RAM might not even be the problem.

 

[Soulkeeper]

they were recommending 2-3-2-6 timings for the i875 there for awhile
didn't matter for me but might for you
might try 2-3-3-8 just to see if that affects anything

i run at about 2.8v with my mushkin mem

 

[dabuddha]

Originally posted by: jhurst
Are you overclocking your processor?

I'm running it at stock speed. It's a 3000+ XP with a 400mhz FSB

 

[dabuddha]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
One other thought just occurred to me: besides the overclocking question, is it running sync'ed to the CPU's bus speed? I'd definitely make sure it's synchronous even if this means running PC3200 at PC2700 speeds.

I believe it is. I have the ram speed setting to auto which is 200 mhz. I can do it "By Spd" as well which is 200mhz

 

[dabuddha]

Originally posted by: jhurst
Normally when your system is failing P95, its because it cant keep up the frequency to the processor/RAM, which means probably you are over stressing the components. I really doubt there is anything "wrong" with your RAM, other than maybe it doesn't run at its advertised timings, but ALOT of RAM is in that boat. Raise the voltage, relax the timings, or send the RAM back. And again, your RAM might not even be the problem.

Well I ran Prime95 + memtest-86 with just the first stick of memory and had no problems. Ran Prime95 for hours and memtest-86 overnight. When I put the other stick in there along with the first one, errors crop up. I then tried running the other stick by itself and errors still cropped up. Initially I thought it might be my motherboard but then the first memory stick would have errors galore as well.

 

[Mem]

EDIT: Does it matter if I use dimm slots 2/3 vs 1/3?

For maximum stability I did read DFI recommend you use slot 2 and 3,this is what I`m using for my DFI NF2 infinity Ultra board,no problems at all in dual channel mode.

 

[dabuddha]

I tried 2/3 and 1/3 with the same problem. I just talked to Mushkin and the guy was telling me that he personally ran memtest86 on the RMA stick he sent out to me with 0 errors. They're sending out another stick to me today which he said he'll personally test himself again