Thanks to ryderOCZ I was able to figure out some problems I was having with some OCZ premier ram, and now it is working great. Suddenly I find myself with 2gb of Ram... hmmm, what to do.
I decided to see what the E-Stepping X2 and my trusty (some would say rusty) nForce3 could do together with 4X512mb dimms. I had 4x256mb with my old A64 3500+, and I had weird stability problems. So I am curious to see if the new memory controller is really any better when used with an old chipset (nForce3).
First the specs:
CPU: X2-4200 @ stock clock
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-K8NS Ultra-939 (F9 Bios)
Ram: OCZ4001024ELDCGE-K (Value BH5) and OCZ4001024PDC-K (Value ?)
Video Card: X800XT AIW
Sound: Audigy 2 Value
I popped open the case, and loaded up the motherboard with the ram. Reconnected the power, and bios error! Bios recovers itself to the last backup image (thanks Gigabyte for Dual-bios
) and posts. On post, I can only see 1.5 gb of ram... in single channel mode... hmmm.
Pull system apart, reseat ram, power up, post, 2gb! Yes!
Dive into advanced bios features and the bios is locked at DDR333 (166mhz). Unable to force it to 200mhz. Oh well, the manual indicated this would happen with 4 double-sided dimms. Besides, I've read that the extra bandwidth that DDR400 offers isn't as important to A64s.
Set ram to 2.5-3-3-6 @ 2.7v (SPD setting for slowest ram, the OCZ4001024PDC-K. Plus some more volts for the BH5). Running 2T at the moment. I'll try 1T later on.
Post, everything is okay.
Memtest86+ 1.65 makes 4 passes with no errors. Testing 2gb of ram took forever...
Into XP, posts ok. No problems, XP sees all the memory. Swap file is now 3.07gb.
2xPrime95 (largeFFT) stable for 4 hours... nice.
S&M runs fine as well.
Fired up BF2, and it is like night and day. The game is actually functional with 2gb of ram. No stuttering for "texture loads", menus are fast, Alt-tab to desktop is quick, exiting the game is instantaneous. Game play is much better, the game seems to run much smoother now.
MS Office runs great, but not noticeably better than with 1gb of ram.
I'll try HL2 and Fear and update this shortly.
Update:
HL2 (Lost coast as well) run fine. The stutters on load or "new sounds" are gone.
I decided to see what the E-Stepping X2 and my trusty (some would say rusty) nForce3 could do together with 4X512mb dimms. I had 4x256mb with my old A64 3500+, and I had weird stability problems. So I am curious to see if the new memory controller is really any better when used with an old chipset (nForce3).
First the specs:
CPU: X2-4200 @ stock clock
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-K8NS Ultra-939 (F9 Bios)
Ram: OCZ4001024ELDCGE-K (Value BH5) and OCZ4001024PDC-K (Value ?)
Video Card: X800XT AIW
Sound: Audigy 2 Value
I popped open the case, and loaded up the motherboard with the ram. Reconnected the power, and bios error! Bios recovers itself to the last backup image (thanks Gigabyte for Dual-bios
) and posts. On post, I can only see 1.5 gb of ram... in single channel mode... hmmm.Pull system apart, reseat ram, power up, post, 2gb! Yes!
Dive into advanced bios features and the bios is locked at DDR333 (166mhz). Unable to force it to 200mhz. Oh well, the manual indicated this would happen with 4 double-sided dimms. Besides, I've read that the extra bandwidth that DDR400 offers isn't as important to A64s.
Set ram to 2.5-3-3-6 @ 2.7v (SPD setting for slowest ram, the OCZ4001024PDC-K. Plus some more volts for the BH5). Running 2T at the moment. I'll try 1T later on.
Post, everything is okay.
Memtest86+ 1.65 makes 4 passes with no errors. Testing 2gb of ram took forever...
Into XP, posts ok. No problems, XP sees all the memory. Swap file is now 3.07gb.
2xPrime95 (largeFFT) stable for 4 hours... nice.
S&M runs fine as well.
Fired up BF2, and it is like night and day. The game is actually functional with 2gb of ram. No stuttering for "texture loads", menus are fast, Alt-tab to desktop is quick, exiting the game is instantaneous. Game play is much better, the game seems to run much smoother now.
MS Office runs great, but not noticeably better than with 1gb of ram.
I'll try HL2 and Fear and update this shortly.
Update:
HL2 (Lost coast as well) run fine. The stutters on load or "new sounds" are gone.
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