HELP! BIOSTAR TForce 550 VDIMM jumper causes failure to POST!

[BOLt]

Hello. As my message title suggests, my system is not able to POST when I set the VDIMM jumper to the normal 2.1V (BIOS-controlled) setting.

I had set it to pins 2-3 awhile back to toy around with OCing my RAM, but I've since identified that the RAM is failing because of heat (too hot to touch and only boots after downtime to cool off).

Consequently, I've decided to revert back to 2.1V. However, when I power down, set the VDIMM jumper back to pins 1-2, clear CMOS, and power back up I am greeted with a POST code error on my motherboard. (I do turn off the PSU to ensure the CMOS is actually cleared.) The LEDs on the board indicate a RAM issue causing failure to boot. Lights come on, the hard drive spins up, fans whirl, but there no indication of the system POSTing.

I have tried setting the BIOS settings such as VCore, VDIMM, RAM timings (including a 2T command rate), HTT, CPU multi, RAM divider, etc. to very conservative values when setting the jumper to position 1-2 (BIOS controlled VDIMM), but still no luck.

Any advice is welcome. I am considering flashing the BIOS to the latest official version. I will update here when I have done that. I am not 100% sure which motherboard revision I have, but I know it's either 1.1, 1.2, or 1.3.


My computer specs are:

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+ Brisbane Socket AM2
Motherboard: Biostar TForce 550
Memory: 2GB of Buffalo FireStix PC2-6400 DDR2
Video Card: Sapphire HD 3850 256MB
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB SATA
DVD R/W: NEC ND-3550A
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit
Operating System: Windows Vista Ultimate x64
Other Components: Antec SmartPower 2.0 350W PSU

 

[BOLt]

bump

 

[heymrdj]

You might have already fried out the chips on your RAM making them fail at lower voltages. I would get alternative RAM and attempt to boot at factory voltage. At this point RAM seems to be the issue.

 

[BOLt]

i think you may be right. i will put in an order for a couple of gigs of ddr2 and see what happens. i wanna flash the bios first though. i have this fleeting hope that it will somehow cure my system instability.

 

[BOLt]

anyone have any more insight?

 

[BOLt]

bump

EDIT: just ordered some ballistix tracers from newegg for the decent cost after MIR. we'll see how it goes. hopefully i can get the firestix RMA'd and have 4GB for vista x64...

 

[Zap]

Good luck on the RMA. I also think the RAM may be failing at the lower voltage after "burning in" at the higher.

 

[BOLt]

yeah. hopefully newegg gets my ballistix to me on monday. funny thing is their stock voltage is 2.2V and my mobo only goes up to 2.1V through the BIOS. the only higher voltage option is via the VDIMM jumper that killed my firestix. heh. i have a super lanboy case, so i'll have to dremel the side panel and add a fan to blow over the RAM if i wanna use the jumper again (which i'm hesitant to do right now given my current predicament). pretty ironic, if you ask me.

 

[BOLt]

system works fine. the ram went bad. no more 2.4v jumper for me (until i can dremel a 120mm hole in the windowed panel for the yate loon fan i bought).

 

[Zap]

:thumbsup: Thanks for the update!

 

[BOLt]

no, thank you guys!