Please help me get system going...

[camara120]

I first setup a system with:
Accelertech (Rioworks) HDAMC
Dual Opteron 250's
SilenX 600W Power Supply
4 GB OCZ PC3200 Registered ECC Memory
ATI 9600 Sapphire AGP Card

I couldnt get windows to install... it would keep saying it had trouble copying file.xxx. I know the CDROM and hard drive and cables are fine, but I changed them all out jsut to make sure and the problems remained.

I then ran memtest and it was failing with the memory. So I RMA'd the memory, but the new memory they sent me still had the same issues.

So I replaced the motherboard, RAM, and PSU

Now its:
Iwill DK8N
Dual 250's
Antec 550w Power Supply
512 MB Corsair Registered ECC Memory
ATI 9600 Sapphire AGP Card

I still get errors in memtest. I was able to install XP without any errors. But after I installed the IOAPIC driver, rebooted, and started to install the nforce drivers, the system just rebooted and wont boot anymore.

I also notice that at 1600x1200, there is some tearing on the screen. the video settings are correct and that is the default resolution for my Dell 2100FP. Could it be possible a bad video card could cause all these problems?

Please help me out if you can.... Thanks!

 

[camara120]

 

[Homerboy]

tearing sounds like a overheated video card to me.
all that lovely hardware and you cant get it to run?
Ship it to me please

 

[mechBgon]

With that memory, I would crank the memory voltage straight up to 2.8 volts. Give that a try.

 

[camara120]

I found out this motherboard can only supply 2.5 volts to the memory. So the SPD settings are too low. I set the memory to 3-3-3-8 and it can pass memtest now.

I dont think the tearing is related to heat. I can run at 1600x1200 on analog with no tearing. I can run at any resolution under 1600x1200 on DVI with no tearing. The AC is also on in the house and the case temp is pretty low since its not closed.

I wonder if its a compatibility with the motherboard and the ATI chipset.

Also the BIOS only shows like 2700MB of memory when I have 4GB.... someone said thats an issue that occurs when you fill up all 8 memory slots, but I dont know if thats true or not. If I set the AGP Aperature to 512MB, the system memory drops to around 2000MB. Its weird. =/

 

[mechBgon]

Read the owner's manual and I'll bet they tell you about how not all 4GB will show up (Tyan does on their dualie boards, it's The Way Things Are). If you encounter further stability issues, drop the memory bus to DDR333 and see if that helps out.

 

[camara120]

My manual says nothing about how not all 4GB RAM will show up

I also looked up a dual Opteron K8W manual here and I didnt see anything in that respect either


The memory is working ok now that I lowered the settings... the DVI tearing seems to be a problem with my Dell 2100FP