memory issues with A64 3200+

[redivider]

I think I have some memory problems and I'm not really sure what to do.

First of all here's what I'm working with:

Athlon 64 3200+
Thermaltake Silent Boost K8 HSF
MSI K8T Neo
Radeon 9800 Pro
512MB Mushkin Level II PC3200 (Black)
Western Digital 120GB 7200rpm
Liteon 52x cd-rw
Antec true430 430w PSU

When I first built this system, it was really unstable so I reinstalled with only the necessary components, which included just one 512MB stick of RAM. Once I had it running smoothly I tried putting the other stick back in and some of the problems came back -- mainly just random reboots, but really annoying.

So, I tried to run memtest, but I can't even get it to run. I've tried both the floppy version and the bootable CD version and they both never even load up... The computer just keeps rebooting over and over again. On the floppy version I see memtest start to load but then it just reboots and on the CD version it doesn't even get that far.

I'm not sure if that really means anything though. I would think even with RAM that was completely shot, the program would still load. Are there any known compatability issues with memtest? Am I doing something wrong?

The CPU seems to be fine. It's running at about 50-52C at full load and around 40-41C idle. All fans are running, although I'm not sure they are speeding up to deal with hotter temperatures. I have 2 120mm case fans, plus the Silent Boost K8 fan and the 9800Pro fan, and the case is pretty much silent even at full load. I've never heard any of the fans sound like they were changing speed or anything. Should that even be happening? Or do I need a seperate controller for that or something?

This mobo has a program called Cool and Quiet where you can monitor the temps and voltage and stuff, so maybe some of this will be helpful:

CPU Fan Speed: 2592 RPM
NB Fan Speed: N/A

FSB: 200MHz
VCore: 1.55v
Memory Voltage: 2.60v
AGP Voltage: 1.50v
3.3v - 3.28v
+5v - 4.97v
+12v - 11.82v

My thought was that either the RAM is bad or I just need to up the voltage or something. The only other thing I could think of was a problem with the PSU but it's brand new and it's 430w. With what I have running here, that should be way more than enough to handle the load.

Hopefully, that makes some kind of sense. Basically, I'm getting random reboots, which are less frequent when I only have 512MB of RAM (as opposed to 1GB) but they have never totally gone away. I have all the latest drivers for all the hardware and I can't get memtest to run for some reason, so I can't figure out if the RAM is good or not.

Also, I was trying to check the RAM timings and I couldn't seem to find it anywhere. There's a "frequencies and voltages" (or something like that) page in the BIOS but I didn't see it in there, or anywhere else in the BIOS for that matter. (The BIOS is AMIBIOS v3.31a)

Any help would be appreciated. I finally got some games running on this thing and it's just frustrating that it decides to reboot every once in a while...

 

[sandorski]

1) make sure you have latest BIOS(1.1)

2) MSI has a list of tested PC3200 ram modules and has specifically highlighted PC3200, making me think there could be a reason they have tested PC3200, but not other types. Your Mushkin is not on that list. Could be wrong about this, they may have only tested PC3200 because of its' being the current official speed. You may want to return your ram and get some that's on the list though.

3) To adjust your ram timings you need to go into Advanced Chipset Features.

 

[jdogg707]

I have heard of problems with the MSI board over at the amdmb.com forums and would suggest returning it for something like the Asus K8V Deluxe or something like that

 

[redivider]

If you look around enough you'll find people that have problems with pretty much everything.

I saw at least one person over there that has almost my exact setup and is running stable and overclocking so I shouldn't have any problems running at stock speeds.

Anyway, setting the DDR voltage up to 2.70 (from 2.55) seems to have solved most of my problems. I haven't had any random reboots and ran Prime95 for around 8 hours with no errors. I still can't run memtest for some reason, but I don't think it has anything to do with the RAM.

I still can't figure out why none of the fans seems to ever change speed though. I would think when the CPU temp gets up to 50-52C it should increase the rpms or something but it never does. I'm sure it's just something I don't have configured right, but I don't know what it is.

Thanks for the suggestions though...

 

[JBT]

yeah upping the RAM voltage always seems to help... LOL ALWAYS. I don't know why thats not the first thing people do... Especially with performance ram.