A8N-SLi Premium 4 x 512Mb Dual Channel running @ 333Mhz instead of 400Mhz??

[Ian R]

Hi

Ive been using 2 x 512Mb PC3200 which is auto detected to run in Dual
Channel mode @ 400Mhz.

Ive just fitted another 2 x 512Mb PC3200.

At boot up it shows 2Gb but now it says Dual Channel @ 333Mhz.

The mobo is an ASUS A8N-SLi Premium.

I have the BIOS set to auto detect.

Is it OK to manually adjust the RAM speed up to to 200Mhz so that it runs at
DDR 400?

I dont understand why it isnt automatically set to run at 400Mhz. Can
anyone explain why its gone down to 333Mhz?

As an aside... it took me an age inserting/removing/reinserting the RAM
before they were all recognised. It took over an hour! I kept getting POST
beeps (2 fast then 3 slow).

For a while I thought I had killed my Mobo and/or some of the RAM. Cant
believe it was so
iffy. I can only think that it may have been dust in the empty slots which
caused the problem! Has anyone else had that sort of problem?

Thanks for any info

Ian

 

[DaveW]

If you use low quality (inexpensive) RAM sticks you can run into the
problems you cited.

 

[Bob Knowlden]

It's normal for this board.

http://support.asus.com/faq/faq.aspx?no=FFC7FB3A-68C0-6372-EE3B-D9013EB965D3&SLanguage=en-us

When you populate all four DIMM slots, the board falls back to 333 MHz.

The work-around is to manually set the frequency back to 400 MHz. Asus
suggests that you use RAM that's certified for use in all 4 slots. (There's
a list in your manual, and a possibly newer manual available for download at
support.asus.com. )

HTH.

Return address scrambled. Replace nkbob with bobkn.

 

[Infinicat]

Hi

Ive been using 2 x 512Mb PC3200 which is auto detected to run in Dual
Channel mode @ 400Mhz.

Ive just fitted another 2 x 512Mb PC3200.

At boot up it shows 2Gb but now it says Dual Channel @ 333Mhz.

The mobo is an ASUS A8N-SLi Premium.

I have the BIOS set to auto detect.

Is it OK to manually adjust the RAM speed up to to 200Mhz so that it runs at
DDR 400?

I dont understand why it isnt automatically set to run at 400Mhz. Can
anyone explain why its gone down to 333Mhz?

As an aside... it took me an age inserting/removing/reinserting the RAM
before they were all recognised. It took over an hour! I kept getting POST
beeps (2 fast then 3 slow).

For a while I thought I had killed my Mobo and/or some of the RAM. Cant
believe it was so
iffy. I can only think that it may have been dust in the empty slots which
caused the problem! Has anyone else had that sort of problem?

Thanks for any info

Ian

The dust issue is probably the killer just as you suspect. I used to
refresh all board, RAM, and cable connections every six months or so
for similar reason. But, these last few years, I've become too old,
fat, and lazy to bother. I just wait until things start getting flaky
then do it. For the first ten years of PC history that practice fix
more "bum" hard drives than anything else.

One junior tech support guy on our Windows 95 team told me I was full
of sh*t about it, until one day he came back with, "Uh, sorry about
that. Disconnecting and reconnecting the guy's hard drive cable at
both ends fixed the problem completely."

The sad part was that people would spend about an hour fine-tooth
combing through config.sys, autoexec.bat, win.ini, & system.ini line-
by-line over the phones before they'd begin to consider the hardware
side of the picture.

Lots of wasted support hours over your basic Degenerative Connection
Integrity Disease issues.

Things seem to have improved significantly in that area these last
five years or so. Not sure what may have changed to have fixed that
problem, but I don't have to do it anywhere near as often these days.

 

[Ian R]

Hi

Ive been using 2 x 512Mb PC3200 which is auto detected to run in Dual
Channel mode @ 400Mhz.

Ive just fitted another 2 x 512Mb PC3200.

At boot up it shows 2Gb but now it says Dual Channel @ 333Mhz.

The mobo is an ASUS A8N-SLi Premium.

I have the BIOS set to auto detect.

Is it OK to manually adjust the RAM speed up to to 200Mhz so that it runs
at
DDR 400?

I dont understand why it isnt automatically set to run at 400Mhz. Can
anyone explain why its gone down to 333Mhz?

As an aside... it took me an age inserting/removing/reinserting the RAM
before they were all recognised. It took over an hour! I kept getting
POST beeps (2 fast then 3 slow).

For a while I thought I had killed my Mobo and/or some of the RAM. Cant
believe it was so
iffy. I can only think that it may have been dust in the empty slots which
caused the problem! Has anyone else had that sort of problem?

Thanks for any info

Ian

Hi Guys

Thanks to all of you for replying.

I manually set the memory to 400Mhz.

I then ran a memtest utility for a few hours which ran the CPU and memory @
100% and to my relief and pleasure it showed no errors - Phew!

Ian I^)

 

[Ian R]

The dust issue is probably the killer just as you suspect. I used to
refresh all board, RAM, and cable connections every six months or so
for similar reason. But, these last few years, I've become too old,
fat, and lazy to bother. I just wait until things start getting flaky
then do it. For the first ten years of PC history that practice fix
more "bum" hard drives than anything else.

One junior tech support guy on our Windows 95 team told me I was full
of sh*t about it, until one day he came back with, "Uh, sorry about
that. Disconnecting and reconnecting the guy's hard drive cable at
both ends fixed the problem completely."

The sad part was that people would spend about an hour fine-tooth
combing through config.sys, autoexec.bat, win.ini, & system.ini line-
by-line over the phones before they'd begin to consider the hardware
side of the picture.

Lots of wasted support hours over your basic Degenerative Connection
Integrity Disease issues.

Things seem to have improved significantly in that area these last
five years or so. Not sure what may have changed to have fixed that
problem, but I don't have to do it anywhere near as often these days.

Infinicat...

Thanks. This experience has made me realise just how temperamental things
can be.

I was close to writing off these components.

Glad I hung in there... but what a palaver!

Cheers

Ian I^)