Not happy with my extra memory.

[MBrown]

Ok. Before I had these specs

C2D E4500 2.2GHz @ 3.0GHz
Gigabyte P35-DS3L
Crucial Ballistix 2GB of DDR2 800MHz
eVGA 8800gts 640MB @ 620/1568/1940
Antec P182
Vista Home Premium x64

and I got an average of 42 fps on Ultra High Settings @ 1440x900 in Far Cry 2.

So I went and bough 4GBs of Corsair XMS2 and my average fps dropped to 32. BTW I have my 4gb ram running faster than my 2gb. How is this possible?

Edit: Sorry for the confusing post. Let me try and clarify some stuff.

My pair of crucials were rated at 800MHz but I had to clock them down to get my CPU stable at 273x11. I don't remember exactly what the memory speed was but it was in the 600s.

My new pair of corsairs are also rated at 800MHz. When I first put this pair in my system I had to reset my bios because it wouldn't boot up. Finally got it to boot up and I ended up with a CPU overclock at 300x10 and my memory (corsairs) at 720. I did my benchmark with these settings and compared to my previous ram I dropped 10 fps. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

I have speedstep on and I cannot figure out how to turn it off, futher, I am pretty sure I didn't have it disabled with my old ram because I didn't know how to turn it off then.

 

[DSF]

All your RAM runs at the same speed. One pair doesn't run faster than the other.

Have you used CPU-z to verify that your components are all running at the speed you listed?

 

[MBrown]

Originally posted by: DSF
All your RAM runs at the same speed. One pair doesn't run faster than the other.

Have you used CPU-z to verify that your components are all running at the speed you listed?

What do you mean. I had a pair of crucials (2GB) that I took out and put in a pair of corsiars (4GB) and I have them running at 720MHZ compared to 600 something that I had my crucials at.

cpu (when under load it goes to 3GHz

memory

 

[TidusZ]

Looks to me like your running at 1.8 ghz. WELL THERES YOUR PROBLEM!

 

[zerocool84]

Originally posted by: TidusZ
Looks to me like your running at 1.8 ghz. WELL THERES YOUR PROBLEM!

Yep look at that multi, an E4500 has a multi of 11.

Please refer to this thread for your overclocking needs.

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2057083&enterthread=y

 

[MBrown]

When under load it goes back up to 3GHz.

 

[TidusZ]

Turn off all that speed stepping shit, you don't want that.

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: MBrown
When under load it goes back up to 3GHz.

you have a desktop system speed-stepping? can you not afford the power hit or something?

 

[MBrown]

Originally posted by: xSauronx

Originally posted by: MBrown
When under load it goes back up to 3GHz.

you have a desktop system speed-stepping? can you not afford the power hit or something?

I can't figure out how to turn it off in the bios.

 

[DarkRogue]

I'm not sure why everyone would think that is the problem.

Certainly it could have a bearing on his issue, but unless he explicitly fiddled with the setting after installing the RAM, it should have been active as well, which means the only thing that should have changed was his RAM. I do find it odd that his RAM would be running at a different FSB strap though. According to the information provided OP, your previous RAM was rated for 800MHz but you ran it at 600MHz. Afterwards, when you installed the Corsair RAM, you're running it at 720MHz, and assuming your CPU's FSB stayed the same, that means the strap has also changed (I'm assuming the new Corsair RAM is also PC2-6400, although this information was omitted.) Could this not be the cause of the problem?

As far as how to turn speedstep off, there should be a setting somewhere in your BIOS along the lines of CPU EIST.

Edit:
Just noticed you said 600 something - would this be 667MHz?

 

[Blain]

You're OCing but can't turn off speed-step?
Are you OCing via the BIOS or software in Windows?

Dynamic OCing is NOT the best.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Maybe the higher fsb rated ram is running with looser timings? Although that probably wouldn't cause that drastic a performance decrease.

 

[MBrown]

Originally posted by: DarkRogue
I'm not sure why everyone would think that is the problem.

Certainly it could have a bearing on his issue, but unless he explicitly fiddled with the setting after installing the RAM, it should have been active as well, which means the only thing that should have changed was his RAM. I do find it odd that his RAM would be running at a different FSB strap though. According to the information provided OP, your previous RAM was rated for 800MHz but you ran it at 600MHz. Afterwards, when you installed the Corsair RAM, you're running it at 720MHz, and assuming your CPU's FSB stayed the same, that means the strap has also changed (I'm assuming the new Corsair RAM is also PC2-6400, although this information was omitted.) Could this not be the cause of the problem?

As far as how to turn speedstep off, there should be a setting somewhere in your BIOS along the lines of CPU EIST.

Edit:
Just noticed you said 600 something - would this be 667MHz?

yeah my old ram was rated at 800 as well but I had to slow it down in order to get my CPU OC stable.

I have searched my bios backwards and forwards and can't find anything that looks like CPU EIST. Maybe I need to update my bios? I even did Ctrl-F1 to get into the advance settings.

My memory isnt at 720MHz anymore because I was gettings BSODs.

 

[MBrown]

Originally posted by: Blain
You're OCing but can't turn off speed-step?
Are you OCing via the BIOS or software in Windows?

Dynamic OCing is NOT the best.

via bios.

And the original post has been edited for more clarity.


Edit: Apparenttly the E4500 does support EIST so it wasn't showing up in my bios. So what I did was disable CPU Enhanced Halt and that worked...frustrating at this point. Also I have put my OC settings back to what they were with my old crucial sticks at

CPU 273x11
memory 656...dammit I forgot already...getting late.

Anyway I am still getting 10 less fps. Bad memory possibly?

 

[0roo0roo]

no...bad memory causes heinous crashing..not slow downs

 

[TidusZ]

pay one of these other guys to fix your pc for you and then be done with it imo. Sounds like it needs a bit of bios maintenance at the very least

 

[MBrown]

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
no...bad memory causes heinous crashing..not slow downs

well it crashed overnight when it was doing orthos prime.

 

[betasub]

Could be time for memtest on those new sticks.

What Vram are you using for them? 1.8V? 1.9V? or some auto setting?

 

[Blain]

To determine if the memory is faulty (can't really know for sure)...
1. Reset the BIOS back to "Default" (no OCing, extra voltage, etc... "Default")
2. Download Memtest86+ and create a bootable ISO CD.
3. Reboot and run Memtest86+
4. After test has been completed, view the test results.
5. Take the test results with a grain of salt, since...

"<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.memtest86.com/tech.html#trouble">Please be aware that not all errors reported by Memtest86 are due to bad memory.
The test implicitly tests the CPU, L1 and L2 caches as well as the motherboard.

It is impossible for the test to determine what causes the failure to occur. However, most failures will be due to a problem with memory module.

When it is not, the only option is to replace parts until the failure is corrected.</a>"


It's just that easy! :thumbsup::laugh: