Spontanious rebooting after upgrade to Barton

[Doomer]

Asus A7N8X Deluxe Rev. 1.04
AMD Althon XP2800+ "Barton"
1gig Crucial PC2700 (2 x 512mb)

Just upgraded my system from an XP2400+ (266mhz FSB) to an XP2800+ (333mhz FSB)

I am now experiencing spontanious reboots to the extent that the system is unusable.

I suspect the Crucial PC2700 because I know there was a problem with it and NF2 chipset MB's running at 333mhz FSB. What I don't know is if it was ever resolved or not. I have emailed Crucial for an answer and thought I's run it by the experts while I await an answer from Crucial.

Nothing has changed other than the CPU and temps are fine. No overclocking and BIOS settings at optimal.

I suspect it's a problem with the Crucial ram but if anybody has any other ideas, I'm all ears.

Thanks

 

[Zimmy99]

Do you have a strong enough power supply ?

Sometimes that can cause these weird reboots.

 

[Doomer]

Antec 430 watt truepower. It's almost brand new so I can't point the finger at it. All voltages are good.

I cut the memory back to 266 (133) and it runs fine now but I have no intentions of leaving it that way. Hope Crucial warranty is as good as they claim it is.

 

[Peter]

www.memtest86.com

(Admin! I need a parrot!)

 

[Zimmy99]

Antec 430 watt truepower.

Ah that should be enough . Guess you were right pointing at the memory !

 

[Doomer]

It's been crunching SETI for a couple of hours now without a problem. The problem is it won't run at it's rated speed but it will run underclocked.

 

[Aenslead]

Perhaps you could use some stability settings:

Try your memory timings @ 2.5-3-3-7-2. Also, verify your voltage settings... and your power supply, as suggested, might also be the cause of your headaches.

Remember that some modules, even if rated @ DDR333, might only work reliably at their lowest settings.

Bonne chance...

 

[pspada]

The nForce2 boards seem to be a bit particular about memory. I suspect you can run at the 333, but I think you'll have to relax your settings even more than suggested ^. My very good OCZ is running at 2-3-3-8 (400Mhz), whereas it ran at 2-2-2-6 on the prior KT400 chipset mobo. But even at 333Mhz in my 8RDA+, it still needs to be set to 2-3-3-8 to run properly.

 

[Doomer]

Thanks pspada but that didn't work either. No matter what I do it won't run above 133.

Also, I've always gotten sporatic "computer failed memory test" from the post reporter on boot. This too is common with Crucial PC2700.

memtest shows no errors at 133. I haven't tried to run it at anything above that because it's obvious there's a problem.

Here's an old thread at nforcerhq about this issue Crucial PC2700 thread

 

[pspada]

Sorry about your crappy ram, but it makes me feel so much better having spent $150 each 512meg DIMM way back when. I went with this straight from my first stick of PC2100, and have not had to replace it since - probably 5 or 6 motherboards, and twice that many CPUs. :gift:

 

[mechBgon]

If your Crucial PC2700 512MB DIMMs are from early this year, you can bank on it... it's that batch of Crucial acting up. Been there, done that (except my A7N8X-Deluxe is rev. 2). I picked up Corsair PC3200C2 modules to replace it, back when the price was nice and low, and the Corsair definitely took care of the problem (I do run it at 2.7 volts, the max is 2.8 for the XMS stuff).

I think this was resolved by Crucial, so if you bought directly from them, RMA your memory for some fresh PC2700 or opt up to their PC3200.

 

[Doomer]

I decided to order some Corsair XMS. I'm through with Crucial. They were aware of the problem but offered no blanket remedy when they should have earlier this year. I still haven't heard from them. I did buy it directly from them so they should take it back. In fact they should take it back no matter where it was purchased. After all is is their crap ram.

 

[Doomer]

UPDATE:

Just got off the phone with Crucial. They gave me an RMA # no questions asked.

I've got another box with the same exact ram except they were purchased in June whereas the trouble ram was purchased in Jan. or Feb. I took one stick out of the other system to get me by while I await the replacement ram and it runs just fine at 333. Unless this is a dual channel specific problem, I'm convinced Crucial had a bad batch of ram earlier this year.

To Crucial's credit, they took it back even tho I bought it from Newegg (they told me so).

As the Bartons drop in price, I suspect there will be others who run into the same problem. Hope this saves others some grief.

On the spooky side, I didn't even have to tell them who I was. The dude had all my info and order history in front of hime when he picked up the phone.

 

[Aenslead]

:Q

Beware... they are watching you...

 

[pspada]

Everybody in the industry seems to read the anandtech forums.

So I say to them "Asus sucks!".