Problem with speed of RAM

[McCoy Pauley]

So I'm putting together my first computer today, and so far the mechanical building part seems to have gone well. I can boot up and get into BIOS, but when I try to install XP, it tells me there's no hard drive in the system, so clearly something is wrong.

Okay, I've put everything together, and the parts all seemed to fit, and I can boot it up and go to BIOS (or whatever it is I get when I press DEL during the boot up). But I think the computer isn't detecting my harddrive (largely because when I put in the XP CD, it told me the system didn't have a hard drive.)

This is my motherboard:

MSI "K8T NEO2-FIR" VIA K8T800 Pro Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket 939 CPU

And this is the hardrive I have:
<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://
<b">Seagate 120GB Barracuda 7200RP...amp;manufactory=BROWSE]http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=22-148-039&catalog=23&manufactory=BROWSE[/L]


I'm connecting the hard drive through a SATA cable, which appears to be the only way to hook it up. But I notice that when I go through the BIOS menus, I get options for IDE devices, but nothing about SATA. Also, I'm not entirely sure I understand what all is going on in BIOS in general.

Any ideas? Any thoughts on what I need to do to get the SATA drive recognized? The motherboard has a SATA1 port and a SATA2 port, and I'm plugging the drive into SATA1 -- that's what I should be doing, right? The motherboard manual has a bunch of stuff about RAID arrays, but that has something to do with putting to HDs together, and that's not relevant to my problem, is it?

 

[zeronitro]

SATA controller drivers are not included on the Win XP cd that i know of. Find find the driver for your SATA controller (it should be on the driver cd that comes with your mobo) and put it on a floppy. when win xp setup begins press F6 as it says for installation of "3rd party scsi drivers" or whatever it is. later it will ask you to insert the floppy and choose which driver to use. after this driver is loaded win xp should recognize your HD.

 

[mechBgon]

Ah, more SATA problems ...

Note that the board has two separate SATA controllers that will use two different SATA drivers, too. Try starting with the drive on one of the VIA SATA connectors and use the VIA SATA RAID driver on floppy, doing the F6-key routine. The VIA SATA connectors are the ones up next to the VIA southbridge, not the ones down near the bottom edge of the board (those ones belong to the Promise SATA chip).

If WinXP Setup sees the drive, then you're halfway there... let Setup run, and at the reboot, if it doesn't boot from the hard drive and proceed through the rest of WinXP Setup, then you need to go back into the BIOS and also change the boot-device priorities to get the SATA drive and/or its controller into the action.

Take some anti-worm precautions so you don't catch worms off your broadband connection unintentionally

 

[McCoy Pauley]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
Ah, more SATA problems ...

Note that the board has two separate SATA controllers that will use two different SATA drivers, too. Try starting with the drive on one of the VIA SATA connectors and use the VIA SATA RAID driver on floppy, doing the F6-key routine. The VIA SATA connectors are the ones up next to the VIA southbridge, not the ones down near the bottom edge of the board (those ones belong to the Promise SATA chip).

If WinXP Setup sees the drive, then you're halfway there... let Setup run, and at the reboot, if it doesn't boot from the hard drive and proceed through the rest of WinXP Setup, then you need to go back into the BIOS and also change the boot-device priorities to get the SATA drive and/or its controller into the action.

Take some anti-worm precautions so you don't catch worms off your broadband connection unintentionally

Great -- thanks for the help. I think I'm missing something with the F6-key routine, but I didn't see a time to do that when I had the XP disk in. I have the VIA SATA disk here, though, so I'm game.

I also just went on Seagate's site, and they have a installation program that creates a bootdisk, so I'm going to see if that works.

 

[mechBgon]

At the first screen of WinXP Setup, a prompt appears at the bottom of the window for five seconds stating that you should press the F6 key if you have third-party storage-controller drivers (SCSI for instance). That's when you would press the F6 key. Setup will remember that, and will ask for the drivers on a floppy diskette a few minutes later.

 

[McCoy Pauley]

Maybe something more serious is wrong. I note that the first message I get says "No drive attached to Fastrak controller!" and "NOte: BIOS is not installed"

Have I messed up something at an earlier stage?

EDIT: Nevermind, pressed F6 and entered the SCSI drivers from the disk for the VIA SATA (not the Promise) Now let's see if XP still things there's no HD.

EDIT AGAIN: And now it seems to be working. XP is formatting the drive and now copying in system files.

 

[mechBgon]

You can disable the Promise controller in the motherboard's BIOS if you get tired of seeing that silly message every time Sounds like you're on your way

 

[McCoy Pauley]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
You can disable the Promise controller in the motherboard's BIOS if you get tired of seeing that silly message every time Sounds like you're on your way

Everything seems to be working now, pretty much -- thanks very much.

One question, though -- I had some trouble with getting XP to recognize the two 512 MB sticks of RAM I have in the system. This is the RAM I've got:

Geil Value Series 184-Pin 512MB DDR PC-3200 W/ Blue Aluminum Heat Spreader - OEM

I'm not sure it's running at 400 Mhz, though. Is there anyway to check that through XP?

 

[mechBgon]

You can use CPU-Z from http://www.cpuid.com to get info on that. If it's having stability problems, kick the memory voltage up to 2.7 volts and see if that helps it stabilize.

 

[McCoy Pauley]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
You can use CPU-Z from http://www.cpuid.com to get info on that. If it's having stability problems, kick the memory voltage up to 2.7 volts and see if that helps it stabilize.

Okay, thanks for your help. I got CPU-Z and ran it last night (not in front of the computer right now.) It showed me that the RAM was there, and correctly identified it (i.e., that it was Geil ram of the proper size), but I couldn't tell where I should have been seeing that the RAM was running at the right speed. Perhaps I just don't know how to use CPU-Z. What am I looking for, or what should I be seeing that would tell me something is wrong?

Also, if there is a problem and I need to kick up the memory voltage, I just do that through one of the BIOS menus, right?

 

[mechBgon]

CPU-Z should show the memory at 200MHz, like this pic.

 

[McCoy Pauley]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
CPU-Z should show the memory at 200MHz, like this pic.

Great -- that's exactly what I needed to see -- I'll check it as soon as I can. Thanks again.

 

[McCoy Pauley]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
CPU-Z should show the memory at 200MHz, like this pic.

mechBgon, I appreciate all your help, but I think I'm still having trouble. My CPU-Z is version 1.26, so it looks slightly different from yours, but when I look at the Memory tab, it shows I have 1024 MB (which is what I have), but the Frequency is listed as 163.7 MHz, not 200. Also, it shows the FSBRAM ratio as "CPU:11.0". What does that mean? Going down from there, my other numbers are 2, 3, 3, 7, which seems similar to your picture.

But what does it mean that the Frequency is listed as 163.7 MHz, and what does it the "CPU:11.0" ratio mean?

Also, CPU-Z version 1.26 has a "SPD" tab, which has some additional information, including a "SPD Timinsh Table" which has two columns, one showing 166 MHz, one showing 200 MHz. Any idea what that means?

I have my RAM installed in DIMM1 and DIMM2 of this motherboard. Since it's single channel ram, I assume that's okay? Or should I try to put it in DIMM2 and DIMM4, which one of the configuration tables on MSI's site suggests?

 

[mechBgon]

To start out with, it sounds like the board has decided to run your memory at DDR333, possibly because both memory modules are on the same channel. Start by putting them into the dual-channel arrangement The modules don't have to be "dual-channel"-packaged to work in dual-channel mode, although you will want the two modules within each pair to be similar or identical (like, you wouldn't mix one single-sided module and one double-sided module on the same pair).

Once that's done, you may find that your memory is running at 200MHz (DDR400 aka PC3200). If not, then you'll need to dive into the motherboard's BIOS menus and set the memory frequency manually.

The SPD table shows the factory-preset timings that the module would use by default at a given speed, if it's left to call the shots itself ("SPD timings" or "by SPD" means that the motherboard lets the module say what timings to use). Timings are not of huge importance, despite some people freaking out over getting them as tight as possible and stuff

So in summary, try arranging the modules for dual-channel operation and see if that gets everything on track

 

[McCoy Pauley]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
To start out with, it sounds like the board has decided to run your memory at DDR333, possibly because both memory modules are on the same channel. Start by putting them into the dual-channel arrangement The modules don't have to be "dual-channel"-packaged to work in dual-channel mode, although you will want the two modules within each pair to be similar or identical (like, you wouldn't mix one single-sided module and one double-sided module on the same pair).

Once that's done, you may find that your memory is running at 200MHz (DDR400 aka PC3200). If not, then you'll need to dive into the motherboard's BIOS menus and set the memory frequency manually.

The SPD table shows the factory-preset timings that the module would use by default at a given speed, if it's left to call the shots itself ("SPD timings" or "by SPD" means that the motherboard lets the module say what timings to use). Timings are not of huge importance, despite some people freaking out over getting them as tight as possible and stuff

So in summary, try arranging the modules for dual-channel operation and see if that gets everything on track

Thanks again for all the help. I opened up the machine last night and tried changing the RAM configuration. First, I put each stick in one at a time (in DIMM1) and booted up to see what CPU-Z said. For both sticks the machine booted up, BIOS selected 400MHz when I used the "SPD" option (rather than manually setting speed), and CPU-Z showed that the RAM was running at full speed (400 MHz). Then I tried putting the stucks in the dual-channel configurations suggested by the MSI manual (i.e., sticks in DIMM1 and DIMM3, or in DIMM2 and DIMM4). Both times, when I turned on the machine, nothing happened. I mean, literally nothing -- no signal was sent to the monitor, and while the power was on and all the fans were going, the machine just sat there. No post, no BIOS, no nothing. I got the same result regardless of which of the two configurations I tried.

The manual for the MSI board contains more or less this information on installing the RAM, and as far as I can tell I was following it properly. But I can't figure out what would make the machine do nothing at all. Is there something I need to do in BIOS before I reconfigure the RAM in DIMM1 and DIMM3?

At this point, I figure the RAM is running at nearly full speed in DIMM1 and DIMM2, which isn't ideal, but works pretty well. I'm just completely mystified about what I'm doing wrong when I try the other configuration, and what I can do to fix it. Any help is, as always, greatly appreciated.