P4C800-E Deluxe memory question

[Deathwish]

I recently ordered a P4C800-E Deluxe mainboard, along with two sticks of
Kingmax 512Mb PC3500 DDR RAM. I downloaded the manual and found that in the
list of recommended memory, the memory that I purchased is listed in their
"Qualified vendors" list, but it states that only one stick can/should be
used. Does anyone know if this means two sticks will NOT work, or is that
just an Asus recommendation, and it may be okay? I feel kind of stupid
finding this out after I have already ordered my stuff. Thanks.

T.

 

[Paul]

I recently ordered a P4C800-E Deluxe mainboard, along with two sticks of
Kingmax 512Mb PC3500 DDR RAM. I downloaded the manual and found that in the
list of recommended memory, the memory that I purchased is listed in their
"Qualified vendors" list, but it states that only one stick can/should be
used. Does anyone know if this means two sticks will NOT work, or is that
just an Asus recommendation, and it may be okay? I feel kind of stupid
finding this out after I have already ordered my stuff. Thanks.

T.

If Asus documented how they made these recommendations, we'd be
able to advise you. It is just a list, so we don't know how many
modules were tested, and most of all, there is no explanation of
how a one module limit can exist on a dual channel board.

The only theory I can come up with for you, is that perhaps the
dual channel config needs slightly different memory timing settings
than a single channel. There have been posts here and in abxzone,
where other motherboard models exhibit slight differences between
single and dual channel modes, and it is hard to justify that.

Now, say the Kingmax has aggressive settings in the SPD, and these
are too aggressive to get the machine to POST with two sticks.
That might be a reason that they don't work, but that is stretching
things quite a bit. Maybe you could insert one stick, get into
the BIOS, set the timing to 3-4-4-8 (or whatever the max is) in
memory manual timing mode, then save, exit, and power down.
Insert the second stick and see what happens. Crank the settings
back up towards more normal values, while using memtest86 or
memtest86+ to search for signs of trouble.

HTH,
Paul