Added 2gb ddr2(800) more to rig, games have trouble now.

[Sagan]

Hi, my first post here.

First of all let me introduce my specs to clarify the problem.

q6600-2.4ghz
8800ultra
2gb corsair ddr2 (800) ADDED 2gb more of the same kind, a total of 4gb.
IP35-pro mobo
Windows Vista 64 bit Home premium


My Usual gaming experience is like this: I get the normal desktop crash fussing about the display drivers or the familiar BSOD after playing games like ArmA, Coh, bioshock, and World in Conflict. But today I bought an extra pair of ram since vista was hauling 1gb itself leaving me with 1gb to spare with all my applications I thought more ram was needed.

So I boot my rig for the first time on 4gb ram, everything seems normal and vista detects the presence of 4gb so far so good. I go and try out ArmA and the screen freezes in black for about 2-3 minutes. Then I see the ingame menu stuttering with badly rendered background scenario, it was a mess. Ok, what the hell. Next I go play World in Conflict, the menu loads fine but when entereing a game it stutters awfully like ArmA forcing me to get out.


What I did to change this situation was to remove 1 of the 4 sticks of ram and boot again this time on 3gb

Now it looks like this:

Slot 1 ======== 1gb ram
Slot 2 ======== 1gb ram
slot 3 ======== 1gb ram
slot 4 ======== EMPTY


So I boot up to vista and check to see if the 3gbs of ram is there and I proceed to ArmA just to see if I get different results. Well what do you know, ArmA loads perfectly fine, I play for about half an hour. Same positive results with world in conflict.

I shut down, remove the ram from the 3rd slot and insert the other ram in slot 4. I boot up, check my status and I ran the same games fine. This was to prove that I didn't have a bad stick.

I narrowed down my problem to the point where my games wont want to run or hardly run when all ram slots are used up.

I don't know what might be causing this issue but its certainly odd, I can only point out that Dual Channel might be interfering with the 8800's tendency to do what it wants with the ram.

What should I do, what can I do to fix this issue?

 

[p_o_s_pc]

If you have ram overclocked drop the overclock. Up the V-dimm(volts) to the ram.Change the timings.

 

[hat]

I think that's just something vista does. It might be fixed in the upcoming SP1. Use 2GB until SP1 comes out, then try. Also some motherboards set voltage incorrectly, make sure it's getting the correct voltage.

 

[Sagan]

I remember after reading a guide that overvolting the ram ddr2 to 2.1v would solve BSODs, actually minutes after booting vista I got a random desktop BSOD, the default value was 1.8v for my ram.

My general issue is that the games wont even load properly, not even for 1 seconds straight, and this has something to do with 4gb ram and vista.

 

[hat]

it's not overvolting. It's setting it to factory specs because the motherboard didn't detect it correctly

 

[suraswami]

Check for BIOS updates. I know a few EVGA boards have the same problem. Just put only the 2 new sticks and see if everything is ok. Try switching pairs. Also for DDR2, my experience is 2.0V is stable on evey test.

 

[Kursah]

Make sure you're running the recommended voltages for that memory (a lot these days seem to need to be increased from the default 1.8v), and set to the recommended timings also. Like others said it may help to increase voltage, since it's easier for your MB to send lower voltage to 2 dimms more consistently than 4 dimms. This also applies to OC-ing memory, at least in the past, that it will take more voltage to power 4 dimms at an OC-d speed fully stable and memtest stable, than it will for 2 dimms.

Hope that helps!

 

[Sagan]

I just got recently this new computer and I'm entering the overclocking world by learning little by little, most of your help confuses me because I'm not trained. A good guide would help on how to do these things.

 

[GLD]

One thing I have seen before with 4 sticks of memory on AMD/939 boards is that it will lower the clock speeds and so you need to go in to the bios and manually set the proper ram speed and timings. I have had to manually set the cpu multiplier to what it is supposed to be for the correct memory speed to work. So go in to your bios and manually set your cpu multi. and vcore, and manually set your ram voltage, speed and timings. Everest, available in the download section here on TPU, will show you what your rig is running at.

 

[keakar]

theres always too much BS with all 4 slots used, if you feel you need 4gb ram then get a set of 2x2gb sticks and you will have no more problems. sell the ram you have and maybe you can return what you just bought.

anyone thinking of 4gb should avoid getting 4x1gb and get 2x2gb set.

 

[Wile E]

theres always too much BS with all 4 slots used, if you feel you need 4gb ram then get a set of 2x2gb sticks and you will have no more problems. sell the ram you have and maybe you can return what you just bought.

anyone thinking of 4gb should avoid getting 4x1gb and get 2x2gb set.

It really depends on the hardware and/or the settings used. I'm currently running 4x1GB in my rig, with no issues. (one set is Crucial Ballistix, one set is G.Skill HK)

All that I had to do was manually set my voltage and timings for the ram.

 

[Oliver_FF]

It could well be something to do with the shared graphics memory in Vista. If it's actually trying to address all 4GB's of your ram, AND have some shared memory for your 8800 you're going to quickly run out of address space...

Go to start->Run, type "dxdiag" and press enter. That'll load a directX diagnostics program. When it's loaded, go to the Display tab and read out what it says next to "Approx. Total Memory"

fyi with a 512MB 7900GTO with 2GB's of ram it reads 1272MB

 

[Sagan]

I realized that I can't even surf the web, my wireless network adapter wont start because the drivers wont start on 3 slots used of 4 slots. It quickly comes back to work when I put back the 2 slots.

Right now I read approx memory 1499mb, booted on 2gb ram.

After installing all 4gb dxdiag announces 2523mb on the display tab. ArmA doesn't run, or load to the menu, and when it does it looks sloppy with stutters.

 

[Oliver_FF]

I realized that I can't even surf the web, my wireless network adapter wont start because the drivers wont start on 3 slots used of 4 slots. It quickly comes back to work when I put back the 2 slots.

Right now I read approx memory 1499mb, booted on 2gb ram.

After installing all 4gb dxdiag announces 2523mb on the display tab. ArmA doesn't run, or load to the menu, and when it does it looks sloppy with stutters.

Oops sorry, I missed the part where you said you were on a 64bit OS...

Don't suppose that is what could be giving you issues?

 

[Sagan]

Oops sorry, I missed the part where you said you were on a 64bit OS...

Don't suppose that is what could be giving you issues?

hehe, its ok. I know that people on 32bit OS had to learn the hard way about vista + 4gbs of ram fairy tale.

I think my problems are now resolved, and windows likes my 4gbs of ram, so all games run fine except arma. But I would blame Arma's developers since they have a hall of fame of bugs

 

[Wile E]

hehe, its ok. I know that people on 32bit OS had to learn the hard way about vista + 4gbs of ram fairy tale.

I think my problems are now resolved, and windows likes my 4gbs of ram, so all games run fine except arma. But I would blame Arma's developers since they have a hall of fame of bugs

What did you do to resolve the issue? Just curious.

 

[Sagan]

What did you do to resolve the issue? Just curious.

I don't think I did much. I just jumped around the ram slots, and I installed an additional vista update supporting this issue. The link is below.


http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...7c-614b-404c-850c-377541e93c18&displayLang=en

Thats it, thanks to all who posted ITT.