Vista Ultimate 64bit SLI and RAM over 2Gb

[Guest]

I see the same question asked here, Nvidia community, and other places, but
nothing I try seems to work. I've googled, talked to MS level 2, BFG tech,
Nvidia has me at level 2 now, but issue remains.

I cannot get windows Ultimate 64 bit to load with more then 2gb RAM.

Specs:
Intel QX6700
BFG 680i SLI motherboard
BFG 8800GTS640
(2) Seagate 250 GB (RAID 0)
Patriot DDR2 800 2 GB sticks

FIrst installed XP Pro x64. Everything fine, memory at 4 gb (two 2gb
chips). Latest bios update latest nvidia video card driver update. Then I
decided to shoot for Vista Ultimate 64bit. Two days of blue screen and hours
on phone with BFG and MS support. Same result each time, blue screen Stop:
0x0000007E. BIOS recognized RAM, XP x64 recognized RAM, mem test both chips
fine. Finally MS suggested try with 2gb RAM. Loaded first try. For past
two days I have been unsucessfully trying to get back up to 4gb RAM. Have
tried four 1gb PC5400 chips. Works fine at 2GB, 3 or 4 blue screen same stop
message. I can use either 2gb chip, just not both. I do not have BIOS
setting for memory hole. SLI is disabled.

I'm not the only one having this issue, their are messages in several
different places but no one seem to have a solution. MS blames Nvidia,
Nvidia says not them, BFG of course says not them.

Does anyone have a clue what else I can try? A 2gb chip does make a nice
paperweight but I'd rather have it in my machine.

Hope I did this okay, first time posting but I did look for answers first.

Thanks, Doug

 

[Conor]

I see the same question asked here, Nvidia community, and other places, but
nothing I try seems to work. I've googled, talked to MS level 2, BFG tech,
Nvidia has me at level 2 now, but issue remains.

I cannot get windows Ultimate 64 bit to load with more then 2gb RAM.

Specs:
Intel QX6700
BFG 680i SLI motherboard
BFG 8800GTS640
(2) Seagate 250 GB (RAID 0)
Patriot DDR2 800 2 GB sticks

FIrst installed XP Pro x64. Everything fine, memory at 4 gb (two 2gb
chips). Latest bios update latest nvidia video card driver update. Then I
decided to shoot for Vista Ultimate 64bit. Two days of blue screen and hours
on phone with BFG and MS support. Same result each time, blue screen Stop:
0x0000007E. BIOS recognized RAM, XP x64 recognized RAM, mem test both chips
fine. Finally MS suggested try with 2gb RAM. Loaded first try. For past
two days I have been unsucessfully trying to get back up to 4gb RAM. Have
tried four 1gb PC5400 chips. Works fine at 2GB, 3 or 4 blue screen same stop
message. I can use either 2gb chip, just not both. I do not have BIOS
setting for memory hole. SLI is disabled.

I'm not the only one having this issue, their are messages in several
different places but no one seem to have a solution. MS blames Nvidia,
Nvidia says not them, BFG of course says not them.

Does anyone have a clue what else I can try? A 2gb chip does make a nice
paperweight but I'd rather have it in my machine.

Have you enabled the Memory Hole 15-16MB in BIOS?

 

[Guest]

Have you enabled the Memory Hole 15-16MB in BIOS?

There is no setting for memory hole in my BIOS, nor for anything similar
that I can find.

Thanks though,
Doug

 

[Guest]

DougV,

I found this for WinXP, but could also apply to Vista:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330182

Just more information to see whether it helps.

 

[Guest]

DougV,

Here is another reference that talks about stop errors, including the one
you're getting. You have to scroll down to see 0x0000007E:

http://aumha.org/a/stop.htm

This error can be cause by many things, so there isn't necessarily a simple,
single answer. However, it seems as though the error oftentimes is caused by
a hardware problem. Just More information to help things along.

Good luck,

 

[Guest]

Freddy,

Thanks much, alas no help. When I called MS on this they walked me through
the steps that impact this on XP, I disconnected everything but keyboard,
mouse, and monitor. Even went to wired USB mouse instead of wireless. Nada.
And just to make it more frustrating it worked like a charm in XP Pro x64.
Even on initial install, first time up and running. I've tried clean boots,
clean installs, swapping chips, swapping slots. Gotta be something in BIOS,
just not sure if Vista issue or BIOS driver issue, or Video Card driver
issue. I don't even have a sound card which can sometimes cause a problem,
just onboard card that came with motherboard.

I'm flat stuck and probably have 40 or 50 hours or more into solving this
one issue.

Thanks again though for the comments.

Doug

 

[Guest]

DougV,

I suppose you don't need me to say to try either a different motherboard, to
go back to XP Pro, or to run with 2 GB of RAM. It seems you have tried
everything else. There comes a time to just cut your losses and move on.

 

[Guest]

Freddy,

Not what I wanted to hear but probably good advice. I keep hoping I just
did something stupid but I don't think it's me. So unless someone else comes
up with something yeah I think I'm done for now. Hopefully a fix for Vista
or new drivers from Nvidia will solve the issue INF.

Thanks,
Doug

 

[JW]

Your BIOS settings could be critical to your issue:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929605/en-us

 

[Guest]

JW,

I think you're close in that it is a BIOS issue. Problem is Nvidia
motherboards use Nvidia chpset and the 680i chipset does not support memory
mapping and there is no bios settings for it. When 4 gigs are installed it
is not a matter of Vista not recognizing it, I get blue screen and Vista will
not load, not even in safe mode. Almost everywhere I read about this issue
it involves Nvidia chipset so I think the issue may lie primarily with them.

Ironic in a way, had I purchased a less expensive motherboard I wouldn't be
having this issue, which I guess does prove you don't always get what you pay
for.

Thanks,
Doug

 

[Cal Bear '66]

nVidia based Asus AMD 64 x2 motherboard here, no problems at all with 4GB memory
and Vista Ultimate x86 and Vista Business x64.

 

[Guest]

Which chipset? I'm using 680i SLI board. If you happen to have same chipset
would you be willing to list BIOS settings?

Thanks,
Doug

 

[Steve Jain]

Which chipset? I'm using 680i SLI board. If you happen to have same chipset
would you be willing to list BIOS settings?

I have an eVGA 680i SLI motherboard with an x6800, with x64 Vista,
eVGA 8800GTX, and 4GB of OCZ PC2-7200 RAM (4x1GB) and no problems like
you're describing.

I got my relevant information for memory timings and voltages from
OCZ's support forums.
You may need to increase the voltage to your memory. In order for my
RAM to run at 900Mhz, I needed to bump the voltage up to 2.025V. Check
with your RAM vendor for the correct timings and settings.

You can view screenshots of some of my BIOS settings, but since we
have very different RAM, it's probably not advisable to use my memory
timings.
www.essjae.com/images/bios/chipset1.jpg
http://www.essjae.com/images/bios/chipset2.jpg
http://www.essjae.com/images/bios/memtimings.jpg

----------- ---- --- -- - - - -
Cheers,
Steve Jain, Virtual Machine MVP
http://vpc.essjae.com/

 

[Guest]

Steve and all,

Appreciate your time in taking and posting the snapshots, while not exactly
the same as mine it did give me additional areas to look at. BTW what kind
of CPU core voltage are you running (setting was auto so it didn't show.) I
could only get up to a FSB setting of 1386 with a CPU core voltage of 1.5 and
stay stable. At that point I figured I had it cranked up enough.

Back to the RAM, am now at 4 gig and running stable. I had already
downloaded the patch KB929777 but decided to do it again just for grins. For
whatever reason the patch gods must have smiled on me with favor as this time
it worked.

Everything is completely stable and running fine.

Thanks all for the help.

Doug