Mercury PVT800X-L Motherboard - Memory Problem

[Pete Baston]

Hi,

I've been having a memory problem with a Mercury PVT800X-L motherboard,
and wondered if anybody else has seen similar problems ?

First of all I tried to use a 333Mhz DDR module - which should be
supported according to the manual. The system would boot OK if the CMOS
was cleared, but would not boot at all subsequently - not even any
beeps.

I then got hold of a 400Mhz DDR, and the system seems to boot OK. I've
been seeing a lot of crashes, however, of Win XP home. Running "windiag"
gives errors during the "stride6" test. For now I've improved matters by
dropping the bus speed to 100Mhz (and the P4 clock from 2.4 to 1.8Ghz !)

Do I have a dodgy motherboard, or am I not using the right RAM ?

Any suggestions welcome !

Pete.

 

[Pete Baston]

I think I've sussed the problem - so I'll post this in case it helps
anybody else.

It looks like setting the "DRAM Frequency" in the (AMI) BIOS to the
default "auto" option does not work properly, and causes the DRAM bus to
be run too fast. Setting this to "CPU+0", ie 133Mhz makes everything
work fine.

For info the Mercury PVT800X-L is made by Kobian (www.kobian.com). It
uses a VIA chipset.

Pete.