• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Strange problem after RAM upgrade

S

stsai465

Junior Member
I purchased a memory set to upgrade my old PC from 1GB to 2GB and now am getting a strange error. Here is the RAM i purchased.

http://www.newegg.com/product/...x?Item=N82E16820144114

My current PC MoBo is an old ASUS P4S800D-X w/ a Pentium 4-3GHz. I'm currently running Windows 2000 (auto update enabled) on this PC. Previously, the PC had 2-512MB DDR 3200 (for a total of 1 Gig) in the blue DDR slots. The new RAM has been put in the black slots.

After I installed the new RAM, the PC would not POST, and gave off several beeps. Reset did not help. However, doing a full power off of the PSU, then turning the PC back on, allowed the PC to POST.

However, during POST, I get a MoBo error message saying "Overclocking failed". I have never OC'ed this board on purpose, and pretty much have relied on default settings. I'm giving the option of F1 - SETUP, F2 - Load Default Settings and continue. After mucking around w/ the setup and not knowing what to do, I went to "F2". Strangely, the PC now will fully boot, run properly (tested web surfing, a quick game, etc) and seems to register the 2 gigs of RAM under System Properties.

HOWEVER... once I do a Restart, the PC once again will not POST. I have to do another PSU power cycle, then again, I get the message "Overclocking failed". Doing the "F2" option again, will bring the PC back up and again, seems to run stable.

Has anyone seen anything like this? Any suggestions? Turning the PSU off and on doesn't seem like a good idea going forward.
 
Obviously the RAM is being set to timings/settings/frequencies/voltages it doesn't like.

I'd suggest taking a look in the bios @ the timings & speed & voltage to see if the settings match what your kits need.

Keep in mind that you now have to likely set the timings to whatever is looser of the two kits, the voltage to somewhere in between or the higher of the two.

So it should be running @ DDR-400 3-3-3 for example, depending on your old RAM's specs.
 
I'm not really good at bios work, but I did manage to dig up the packaging for the old RAM. The old RAM are Kingston HyperX, KHX4000 CL3/512mb (x2). The new RAM are Kingston HyperX, KHX3200 CL2 AK12/512s (x2). So I take it the "4000" vs "3200" are the problem?

So my best best is to RMA the new RAM and get PC4000s that have CL3 (cas latency) instead?
 
No no...

I g2g to bed here; work without much sleep in a few hours is going to suck...

But post some pics of the relevant bios option for your RAM settings & i have no doubt someone will know what needs to be set to what.

I suspect running at DDR400 (200 MHz) [3-3-3] 2.6-2.7V should be quite achieveable.

Also try Memtesting the RAM to make sure it's stable as well.
 
Just following up; I purchased some old RAM (identical maker, model, CAS-timings, etc) and that has solved the problem. Popped them in, turn it on and booted just fine.

Thinking forward, it's annoying that a common consumer has to be so picky about the CAS timings and stuff like that; I remember back in the old days of SIMMs where it almost didn't matter. Oh well, one learns something every day. Thanks to everyone to responded to this post.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top