P4V8X-X and 3 PC2700 DIMMs...

[Marc Guyott]

Greetings all!

I am unable to get the P4V8X-X to run stable with three PC2700 DIMMs in it.

I am using an ASUS P4V8X-X (Rev 1.03, BIOS 1008) and I have three identical
(well, as close as you can get buying off the shelf) 512MB DIMMs. If I only
use the first two DIMM slots on the motherboard with any combination of my
three DIMMs the system is rock solid and MemTest-86 V3.0 works fine. The
minute I populate all three DIMMs MemTest-86 V3.0 fails on test 5 in the
upper 1/3 range of addresses.

The User Guide for this motherboard says that only two PC3200 DIMMs are
supported but I have three identical PC2700 DIMMs so they should all work.
I suspect I may have to tweak something in the BIOS.

Does anyone have any experience with this board that can give me some
insight?

All three DIMMs are:

512MB Kingston Value RAM
PC2700 CL2.5 184-pin DIMM
Model #: KVR333512R

And all three DIMMs pass MemTest-86 as long as they are in slots 1 or 2.

I have a 3.06 GHz P4 for the CPU if that matters.

Thanks in advance!
Marc

 

[Marc Guyott]

Well, I heard from ASUS tech support tonight. It seems that the P4V8X-X
only supports two banks of PC3200 (one double sided DIMM), four banks of
PC2700 (two double sided DIMMs) and three banks of PC2100 (three double
sided DIMMs). I am a little frustrated because all the documentation says
that you can use 2 DIMM slots if you have PC3200 and all 3 DIMM slots if you
have PC2700/PC2100. No where does it say anything about double sided versus
single sided DIMMs. So this board is known to be unstable when using 3
PC2700 DIMMs.

Can someone enlighten me concerning double sided versus single sided DIMMs.
Is there a performance difference? Can you buy 512MB PC2700 DIMMs that only
use one side?

And on a slightly different thread, am I better off to use 1GB at 333MHz or
1.5GB at 266MHz? I suspect I am better off using the 1GB at 333MHz because
I am not running any apps that really need even that much memory but I was
wondering what folks thought.

Thanks in advance for any replies!

Marc

 

[Paul]

Well, I heard from ASUS tech support tonight. It seems that the P4V8X-X
only supports two banks of PC3200 (one double sided DIMM), four banks of
PC2700 (two double sided DIMMs) and three banks of PC2100 (three double
sided DIMMs). I am a little frustrated because all the documentation says
that you can use 2 DIMM slots if you have PC3200 and all 3 DIMM slots if you
have PC2700/PC2100. No where does it say anything about double sided versus
single sided DIMMs. So this board is known to be unstable when using 3
PC2700 DIMMs.

Can someone enlighten me concerning double sided versus single sided DIMMs.
Is there a performance difference? Can you buy 512MB PC2700 DIMMs that only
use one side?

And on a slightly different thread, am I better off to use 1GB at 333MHz or
1.5GB at 266MHz? I suspect I am better off using the 1GB at 333MHz because
I am not running any apps that really need even that much memory but I was
wondering what folks thought.

Thanks in advance for any replies!

Marc

Yea, that sounds more like it. Asus has correctly documented the
rough rules of thumb you list above, on many of their motherboards,
and mysteriously got them wrong on some others.

If you aren't doing anything with serious memory consumption patterns,
then 1GB will cover your requirements. I have three computers with
1GB and no complaints. If you like to use Photoshop, for example,
and edit large pictures, then the more memory you can get, the
better off you would be.

Single sided 512MB DIMMs are available. The first thing to check,
is whether your motherboard "supports 1GB modules", as when Asus
lists a fact like that in the manual, that fact would apply to a
double sided module. A single sided 512MB DDR DIMM is just a
1GB module, with the chips missing from one side. So, that is
one way to (at least partially) verify that the motherboard can
handle 64mx8 bit chips. (Looks OK.)

I've seen one report, that Crucial sells a single sided DIMM. In the
past, the part number might have included -8T for an eight chip
module, and -16T for a sixteen chip module. I cannot find anything
like that by looking at the Crucial web site, so you may have to
phone Crucial and seek confirmation of exactly which 512MB product
would feature only eight chips and be single sided.

The chips needed to make a single sided DIMM have been available
for more than a year (Samsung), but there is little incentive for
companies to focus on that need. (Even though we as end-users know
they have value, no one in the marketing department knows this.)
If you find them anywhere, it will take a phone call to someone
knowledgeable, to confirm you are getting exactly what you want.

To prove that these modules are being made, look at this page,
in the 512MB module section. Some modules are listed as "single
rank" and others as "dual rank".

http://www.micron.com/products/modu...count=184-pin&version=Unbuffered&package=DIMM

On the Samsung page:

http://www.samsung.com/Products/Semiconductor/common/product_list.aspx?family_cd=DRM030202

this would be a sample of the good stuff (64mx8 * 8) :
http://www.samsung.com/Products/Sem.../UnbufferedDIMM/M368L6523CUS/M368L6523CUS.htm

The trick is, finding these at retail. Crucial sells Micron stuff
(they're the same company), so you could try the Micron part
numbers with them.

Paul

 

[Marc Guyott]

Thanks for the information Paul.

Do you (or anyone else reading this (-: ) know if there is a big difference
between running at 266MHz FSB instead of 333MHz FSB?

I am leaning towards just staying with 1GB and leaving things at 333MHz. I
am not even sure if the CPU will work at the slower speed (it is a 3.06MHz
P4 Northwood with HT). I suspect it will but I also suspect that I won't
gain much benefit having 1.5GB and the performance will be 20% slower. So I
am leaning towards returning the last DIMM I bought and being happy with 1GB
of RAM.

Thanks in advance for any more insight and thanks again for your great reply
Paul!

Marc