Need help to properly boot with 32GB of RAM

[Tictank]

Hello, first time posting on this forum.

Hardware specs:
CPU: Phenom II x6 1100t 3.3Ghz
Mobo: Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P (Bios ver: F8n)
GPU: ATI HD4890 1GB
RAM DDR3: G.Skill 2x8GB 2133 CL9 Kit, G.Skill 2x8GB 2400 CL11 Kit (Either set currently clocked to default settings 1333MHz C9 1T)
SSD in PCIe slots: Plextor m6e m.2 256GB (Windows 10 pro), 2 x Crucial MX300 525GB
HDD in GSATA port: Western Digital 750GB (Windows 7 pro)
PSU: Seasonic Passive 550W 80PLUS
Other stuff: pcie x1 wireless card, pcie x1 USB 3.0 expansion card

I have a fairly old PC build that can boot fine with 16GB to 20GB (2-3 slots) of mixed DDR3 RAM with windows 10 pro on a m.2 SSD adapted to a PCIe 2.0 slot. But I get problems trying to boot with 24GB to 32GB (4 slots) of RAM. So far the only way I got it to boot with 32GB is when I bash the F8 key which then loads up windows 7 safe mode options; with that I select "run windows normally" and it will then run windows 7 with 32GB of RAM at default settings at 2T with no voltage adjustments necessary. But It's not ideal having to revert back to windows 7 and hit the F8 key everytime I power up the PC...

So any ideas to get it to boot normally under windows 10 with 32GB? Could AHCI mode from PCIe be a problem since I originally had windows 7 running in IDE mode via SATA?

Any help will be appreciated

Thanks

 

[eidairaman1]

Hello, first time posting on this forum.

Hardware specs:
CPU: Phenom II x6 1100t 3.3Ghz
Mobo: Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P (Bios ver: F8n)
GPU: ATI HD4890 1GB
RAM DDR3: G.Skill 2x8GB 2133 CL9 Kit, G.Skill 2x8GB 2400 CL11 Kit (Either set currently clocked to default settings 1333MHz C9 1T)
SSD in PCIe slots: Plextor m6e m.2 256GB (Windows 10 pro), 2 x Crucial MX300 525GB
HDD in GSATA port: Western Digital 750GB (Windows 7 pro)
PSU: Seasonic Passive 550W 80PLUS
Other stuff: pcie x1 wireless card, pcie x1 USB 3.0 expansion card

I have a fairly old PC build that can boot fine with 16GB to 20GB (2-3 slots) of mixed DDR3 RAM with windows 10 pro on a m.2 SSD adapted to a PCIe 2.0 slot. But I get problems trying to boot with 24GB to 32GB (4 slots) of RAM. So far the only way I got it to boot with 32GB is when I bash the F8 key which then loads up windows 7 safe mode options; with that I select "run windows normally" and it will then run windows 7 with 32GB of RAM at default settings at 2T with no voltage adjustments necessary. But It's not ideal having to revert back to windows 7 and hit the F8 key everytime I power up the PC...

So any ideas to get it to boot normally under windows 10 with 32GB? Could AHCI mode from PCIe be a problem since I originally had windows 7 running in IDE mode via SATA?

Any help will be appreciated

Thanks

View attachment 101222

Your board will never run 32GB of ram, it is a chipset limitation.
Read through this page and it states it.
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-MA790FXT-UD5P-rev-10#sp

 

[Tictank]

Ok I can see that but Bios seems to recognise it and the picture I uploaded states "Memory Testing : 32766MB OK".

 

[jboydgolfer]

Ok I can see that but Bios seems to recognise it and the picture I uploaded states "Memory Testing : 32766MB OK".

It's likely that the software your bios is running was written for multiple boards, other boards that possibly do except larger quantities of RAM. Ultimately, regardless of what any reading says if it doesn't work it doesn't work unfortunately

 

[eidairaman1]

Ok I can see that but Bios seems to recognise it and the picture I uploaded states "Memory Testing : 32766MB OK".

I did a general internet search and no one have 32GB running on it.

Dude that is straight from Gigabyte. Ask their tech support even.

If you want a board that supports 32GB of ram it is this one.

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-890FXA-UD5-rev-31#sp

Otherwise find one based on the 970A chipset or 990FX chipset.

Now my board I read somewhere on the web it "unofficially supports 64GB of ram"

 

[newtekie1]

The memory controller is on the CPU, so no chipset limitation is involved. Of course that doesn't mean the motherboard will properly support 32GB of RAM or even that the 1100T will work properly with 32GB of RAM. The thing with the Phenom II processors is that the memory controller was not that great. AMD had a very hard time with their implementation of their DDR3 controller. Remember, this was their first series with a DDR3 memory controller, and the first run of Phenom II chips had to have the DDR3 memory controller disabled and sold as AM2+ only because the DDR3 memory controller didn't work properly at all.

It might be possible to get 32GB running stable, but it will probably take a lot of tweaking and downclocking. You can try lowering the memory clock speed to 1066, as well as loosing the timings to CL10 and of course 2T. That might take enough stress off the memory controller to get things stable.

 

[eidairaman1]

The memory controller is on the CPU, so no chipset limitation is involved. Of course that doesn't mean the motherboard will properly support 32GB of RAM or even that the 1100T will work properly with 32GB of RAM. The thing with the Phenom II processors is that the memory controller was not that great. AMD had a very hard time with their implementation of their DDR3 controller. Remember, this was their first series with a DDR3 memory controller, and the first run of Phenom II chips had to have the DDR3 memory controller disabled and sold as AM2+ only because the DDR3 memory controller didn't work properly at all.

It might be possible to get 32GB running stable, but it will probably take a lot of tweaking and downclocking. You can try lowering the memory clock speed to 1066, as well as loosing the timings to CL10 and of course 2T. That might take enough stress off the memory controller to get things stable.

Its weird the board i shared is a Phenom 2 only board and it supports 32GB.

 

[newtekie1]

Its weird the board i shared is a Phenom 2 only board and it supports 32GB.

And that's the thing with spec pages on motherboards. They are often written when the board is released, and then never updated again. Some manufacturers are worse than others about this.

When the 790FX boards came out, 32GB of desktop DDR3 was probably not even possible, 8GB sticks likely didn't even exist yet. Of if they did, they were so expensive and new, no one was worried about them. So at the time, 16GB was listed as their max, because they were likely never tested with 32GB. Heck, even the 890FX board you listed only has one 4GB stick on the memory QVL and no 8GB sticks at all.

 

[Tictank]

Thanks for your insights into this. When booting from PCI the most RAM i got it to boot with successfully was 20GB (2x8GB sticks with 1 4GB stick). With 32GB installed only the SATA hard drive gets detected until I load up windows 7 via the F8 key; I can then see full 32GB available and all PCI SSDs and CD drives can be seen and accessible from the explorer folder. I find it strange that it can at least boot up windows 7 but not in the normal way.

So from a sata port in IDE mode it kinda works with it, but to boot up via PCI in AHCI mode it doesn't get a chance to get listed. I may take out all the PCI storage and try running windows 10 from sata just to test it.

It might be possible to get 32GB running stable, but it will probably take a lot of tweaking and downclocking. You can try lowering the memory clock speed to 1066, as well as loosing the timings to CL10 and of course 2T. That might take enough stress off the memory controller to get things stable.

I'm all up for tweaking and will try what you suggest.

Thanks

 

[dgianstefani]

32GB with your specs is useless. You'll CPU bottleneck before you come close to utilizing that.

 

[Vya Domus]

32GB with your specs is useless. You'll CPU bottleneck before you come close to utilizing that.

As if you know why he needs all that RAM for.

 

[dgianstefani]

He doesn't, just another guy trying to max out a spec just because it sounds cool.

If he was actually a creative professional using the rig to work, he would need significantly better specs to do said work in any reasonable amount of time.

 

[Athlonite]

On Gigabytes own web page for that mobo under specifications it states

1. 4 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 16 GB of system memory (Note 1)
2. Dual channel memory architecture
3. Support for DDR3 1666(OC)/1333/1066 MHz memory modules

so you can use 4 x 4GB Dimms or 2 x 8GB Dimms more than that and you wont boot

 

[newtekie1]

I'm all up for tweaking and will try what you suggest.

Thanks

Good luck, the most I ever got a Phenom II to boot with was 24GB(2x8GB + 2x4GB), and that was with only a GPU plugged into PCI-E and booting off SATA.

An issue you might be running into too when you add the 4th stick is doing that will kick the board into dual-channel mode, which stresses the IMC more. If the board has an IMC voltage adjustment, you might try bumping that up a little bit too, or try bumping the memory voltage up a small amount(since the memory voltage affect the IMC voltage on a lot of platforms). But be careful not to go too high, it can burn out the IMC.

He doesn't, just another guy trying to max out a spec just because it sounds cool.

If he was actually a creative professional using the rig to work, he would need significantly better specs to do said work in any reasonable amount of time.

Or he wants to run a bunch of virutal machines for a test environment. Old machines like the OP's are great for stuffing a bunch of RAM in and using them to set up test labs.

On Gigabytes own web page for that mobo under specifications it states

1. 4 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 16 GB of system memory (Note 1)
2. Dual channel memory architecture
3. Support for DDR3 1666(OC)/1333/1066 MHz memory modules

so you can use 4 x 4GB Dimms or 2 x 8GB Dimms more than that and you wont boot

I already explained why this is in posts above.

 

[Tictank]

I'm trying to get more usable ram to section off for the SSDs as cache to reduce read&writes and processing time, I get a significant read speed boost from that too. So why not max it out?

I also disable page file virtual memory for similar reasons, so programs will generally end up occupying more ram, but I prefer that.

My graphics card does need replacing but I can't justify current GPU pricing yet, so games are also offloading to system ram.
I do use Unreal engine 4 as a hobby and had no noticeable performance issues except for missing features from my gpu.

 

[liyaz]

It is a Chip set limitation, We can use more SSD as to reduce processing time

 

[Tictank]

Good luck, the most I ever got a Phenom II to boot with was 24GB(2x8GB + 2x4GB), and that was with only a GPU plugged into PCI-E and booting off SATA.

An issue you might be running into too when you add the 4th stick is doing that will kick the board into dual-channel mode, which stresses the IMC more. If the board has an IMC voltage adjustment, you might try bumping that up a little bit too, or try bumping the memory voltage up a small amount(since the memory voltage affect the IMC voltage on a lot of platforms). But be careful not to go too high, it can burn out the IMC.

So far I can get it to boot off PCI-E with 20GB RAM with no issue. I tried 24GB(2x8GB + 2x4GB) you mentioned since I didn't test that configuration before but it had the same boot problem as 24GB(3x8GB). Although it would still boot via the F8 key to windows 7 on my sata drive. I get the impression the ram settings/timings might be different when it boots to windows 7, so I think i'll check that and could try copy it if it's different.

What would the IMC voltage be labled as in Bios?
By default I have CPU VID: 1.370V, NB VID: 1.1500V, Memory Core: 1.6V, NB Core: 1.1V, SB Core: 1.2V

 

[itsakjt]

IMC voltage will be labelled as CPU/NB voltage on most boards with Phenom II CPU.
I think the limitation is due to Phenom II but again, I think your objective will be successful.
Try increasing the CPU/NB voltage. That is the IMC voltage.
For your inspiration, I ran 16 GB of DDR3 at 1827 MHz 9-10-9-24 @1.65V and CPU clock at 4.1 GHz for more than 3 years. The IMC was clocked at 2.8 GHz (stock was 2.0 GHz) at 1.25V (stock 1.1V) in spite of a lot of people telling me that Phenom II can handle maximum 1600 MHz. The CPU I had was a Phenom II X4 980 BE. A lot of people told me that my chip will not survive. I would like to tell you not only did it just survive, it used to do 4.6 GHz on my entry level water cooler till the day I used it. I could overclock the RAMs to around 1872 MHz stable. Later on, I sold the CPU, board and RAMs and upgraded to the system I have in specs (The motherboard, RAMs and all the SSDs are from prizes from OC competitions).