ASUS A7N8X Deluxe and 2 Corsair XMS PC3200 512MB DDR Dimms Problems with Some Games

[-S-]

I have the following hardware:

Asus a7n8x Deluxe
2x Corsair XMS pc3200 512MB DDR Dimm - Total of 1GB
AMD 2500+ Barton 333fsb
Geforce 3 Ti200 64mb
Windows ME


When I run just 1 stick of my 3200 ram above, (does not matter which
of the 2 dimms or which bay on the motherboard) battlefield 1942 runs
fine. When I add the 2nd stick (does not matter which one, or which
combination of banks the 2 dimms are in, either in single or dual
channel mode) the game will simply kick me back to the desktop. I've
tried everything I can think of.

- I ran the ram in DDR mode at 166fsb to match my cpu at 166fsb
- I ran the ram in DDR mode at 200fsb and the cpu in 166fsb at stock
multiplier 11.0 for the Barton 2500+
- I ran the ram in DDR mode at 200fsb and the cpu in 200fsb at 9.5
multiplier
- I ran the ram in DDR at CAS 2.0 and 3-3-7 for the other settings in
all combos above
- I ran the ram in DDR at CAS 2.5 and 3-3-8 for all above

Whenever I just run 1 stick of this stuff all my games work fine.
When I run 2 sticks either in Dual Channel or even Single Channel mode
in all the bios settings above I get kicked to the desktop when I run
Battlefield 1942. My other game, Jedi Knight 2 Jedi Outcast runs fine
with both sticks on. I also tried the adjustment in the 1942
VideoDefault.con file and set 'renderer.allowAllRefreshRates 1'. I am
getting ready to bite the bullet and order pc2700 ram and RMA this
3200 stuff unless anyone can help me out. Thanks in advance!

 

[rkd]

Windows Me is limited to 512 megs of memory.

 

[callsignviper]

I have the following hardware:

Asus a7n8x Deluxe
2x Corsair XMS pc3200 512MB DDR Dimm - Total of 1GB

(snip)

1 GB ram!

Read here: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;253912

Give it a try it might help.

 

[callsignviper]

Windows Me is limited to 512 megs of memory.

Not entirely accurate!

Read here: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;253912

 

[-S-]

Thanks everyone for your replies. I did not realize there was an
issue with the Win9x family and going over 512MB of ram. When I get
home later today I will test this out, it makes sense that this would
be the problem. I also received the 'out of memory' prompt on the
desktop when attempting to open a MS-DOS window when running both
sticks of my ram (1GB), which is explained in the ms helpdesk link you
provided as a symptom.

This would also explain why my ram is not working in either single
channel or dual (DDR) mode, in various fsb and latency bios settings
when I have more than 1 stick of ram on the board. It is unusual that
only Battlefield 1942 is not working where as my other games are such
as Jedi Knight 2 (which BTW looks amazing even with just 1 stick of
ram) and Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds. This may be because it is
the only application I have that attempts to access over 512mb of ram.

It would make sense if ME did not support over 512mb, most all
motherboards at that time did not support more than 512 anyway, I know
my pentium 3 800mhz 133fsb w/ Intel 815E board only supported 512ram,
which is the system that I'm upgrading from, hence trying to get away
with using my old ME OS. I would prefer not to have to upgrade to XP
for money reasons, even though I've heard that it's MS' best OS thus
far. I'll post again and let everyone know what I find.

Thanks

-S-

 

[me]

I have the following hardware:

Asus a7n8x Deluxe
2x Corsair XMS pc3200 512MB DDR Dimm - Total of 1GB
AMD 2500+ Barton 333fsb
Geforce 3 Ti200 64mb
Windows ME

When I run just 1 stick of my 3200 ram above, (does not matter which
of the 2 dimms or which bay on the motherboard) battlefield 1942 runs
fine. When I add the 2nd stick (does not matter which one, or which
combination of banks the 2 dimms are in, either in single or dual
channel mode) the game will simply kick me back to the desktop. I've
tried everything I can think of.

- I ran the ram in DDR mode at 166fsb to match my cpu at 166fsb
- I ran the ram in DDR mode at 200fsb and the cpu in 166fsb at stock
multiplier 11.0 for the Barton 2500+
- I ran the ram in DDR mode at 200fsb and the cpu in 200fsb at 9.5
multiplier
- I ran the ram in DDR at CAS 2.0 and 3-3-7 for the other settings in
all combos above
- I ran the ram in DDR at CAS 2.5 and 3-3-8 for all above

Whenever I just run 1 stick of this stuff all my games work fine.
When I run 2 sticks either in Dual Channel or even Single Channel mode
in all the bios settings above I get kicked to the desktop when I run
Battlefield 1942. My other game, Jedi Knight 2 Jedi Outcast runs fine
with both sticks on. I also tried the adjustment in the 1942
VideoDefault.con file and set 'renderer.allowAllRefreshRates 1'. I am
getting ready to bite the bullet and order pc2700 ram and RMA this
3200 stuff unless anyone can help me out. Thanks in advance!

I the "vcache" section of the system.ini file add maxfilecache=524288 to
limit vcache to 512 meg and all should be well.

 

[-S-]

Thanks again to everyone. The link provided was the solution ...
Windows ME needs help if you are going to run over 512MB of ram, in
the order of editing the system.ini file to cap the virtual cache to
512MB.

My question now is, by putting a cap on the virtual cache at 512MB,
does my computer even use the extra memory (I have 1GB in my case)
when I am gaming? (The whole reason I have 1GB). Thanks for your
help.

 

[Mike Gorman]

Just FYI, I'm using Corsair mem and having bf1942 issues too. I use a
single stick of 512 pc2700. It's their Value Select product and I think it
may be the cause of my 'crash/crash to desktop' problems.

 

[Storm]

UR on the right track, keep digging in MicroSoft knowledge base. I had to
adjust my system.ini in Windows ME also. I wish I could remember the setting
to correct, but it's slipped my mind.