Memory Problem w/ ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe

[AmbienTGS]

I've had my computer for about 1.5 yrs now and it has worked flawlessly up until now. I purchased two memory sticks (Patriot 1GB PC3200) to add to my computer... the same ones that are in the computer now. I checked the specs on both and they are the same. At any rate, I installed the 2Gb in memory slot 2 & 4 and tried to boot. No post, no nothing... did see lights and all, but no load, not even into bios. Uninstalled, and rebooted. Everything was fine. I installed the new memory chips in place of the old ones and eveyrthing was fine. I reinstalled all and no go. So I thought the memory bays might be bad, so I installed the new sticks in bays 2 & 4 with nothing in 1 & 3. Everything was fine. I am at a loss why these will not work. I have most of the memory settings on auto, which selects the correct settings for the sticks. If anyone could point me in the right direction, i would be greatly appreciative. Thank you.

 

[n7]

First off, welcome to the forums.

Secondly, please post your system specs next time you make a thread like this as it can help.

Thirdly, you are trying run 4x1 GB, correct?

If that's the case, my first guess would be that you have things set to 1T.
You'll have to drop to 2T to run 4 dimms.

If running overclocked, resetting CMOS might not hurt as it will truely set things to boot at defaults.

 

[AmbienTGS]

Yes, I assume listing my system specs would help... lol, thanks.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+
ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe MB
Windows Vista Ultimate 64 & Windows Xp 32-bit Professional
(2) NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT video cards running in SLI mode
2 GB RAM (Patriot 1GB PC3200) 2x1GB, hopefully running 4GB 4x1GB soon
2 RAID 0 setups, one Promise Controller, one NVidia controller
Creative X-Fi Fatality Sound Card

I did drop to 2T and it did load. However, this is now the problem I am experiencing. I can not activate SLI mode with anything greater than 2GB in the board. If I do, the video cards come up as a hardware conflict and will default to generic settings. I have to uninstall the cards thru the device manager and take the memory sticks out. I tried with both 4GB and 3GB in the board, but same issue each time. I drop back to 2 GB and everything is fine. Any suggestions? Thanks.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Turn ON memory remap in your BIOS if that is an option somewhere. That will allow the board to use all 4GB. You also may have to increase your motherboard voltages a little bit to keep it stable with 4 sticks (I did).

 

[AmbienTGS]

Thank you for your response. I did turn on an option that enabled "Hardware Memory Hole", which did help with it finally being able to load and be recognized. My issue is now within windows. When I first load up, everything is fine, works great. Its only at the time that I enable SLI mode on my video cards it decides to not want to cooperate. The 4GB are still there, but the video cards come up as a hardware conflict error. Both of them are Geforce 7800GT cards w/ 256MB RAM. I guess I could leave with only one vid card working, but that would defeat the purpose of an SLI system!

 

[HannibalX]

I have the same motherboard and memory. Nice combo if I do say so.

 

[AmbienTGS]

..thanks! I just wish I could get the memory issue resolved. I see you have 3GB installed. But then again, your not running SLI with that ATi card there. ;-) Love the setup, just wish I could use my extra 2GB sticks.

 

[HannibalX]

Yeah, I have 2x1GB and 2x512 - all identicle moduals. Windows 32-bit won't see more than 3.5GB of ram, may be part of your problem.

 

[cmdrdredd]

you have the latest BIOS I assume? Also try increasing voltage to see where that gets you.

 

[AmbienTGS]

Yes, I do have the latest BIOS. I also increased voltage to 2.7, the highest the memory supports. Still conflict error when switching to SLI mode. I was reading somwhere that the board supports a max of 4GB and the video card uses 1/2GB. Is this what could be causing the problem, because there is a total of 4.5GB in the system? But then again, I tried only using 3GB and it still did the same. Only worked when dropped back to 2GB.

 

[evilharp]

Hi AmbienTGS,

I had some memory problems with my system (A8N32-SLI DLX as well) and like you it was frustrating trying to find a solution. In my case it was a combination of bad ram and a weird Bios issue with the mobo. See: This thread

In your case there are several factors to consider:

1) Which OS are you trying to using the 4gb with? You listed 2 in an earlier post. XP (32 bit) has an addressing limitation where 4gb can only be achieved through various compromises.

2) SLI uses additional addressing space, so you will not be able to see all 4Gb in a 32bit environment. Vista 64 is rated to 128Gb so it should be good there (assuming nvidias drivers cooperate) (See this thread for a similar issue)

3) The maximum amount of ram that the A8N32-SLI DLX will support is 4GB. This is according to the manual and every updated bit info I've seen for our motherboards. Asus recommends no more than 3gb. I personally tried 4 gb with a non sli setup (XP-32) and I cound not see much more than 3 gb in windows.

Personally I am running 3gb under Vista 32 (Ultimate) without problems (other than nvidia's fun BSODs every now and again). Though unlike you, I am running 2*1gb + 2*512mb. (vdimm up a bit and 2T timing).

Try your Vista 64 install and see if it works. (Note it is becoming apparent that the 32bit WOW emulation under Vista 64 imposes the same memory caps as a 32bit environment on 32 bit applications (i.e. max 4gb total addressing, max 2gb per app))