pc reboots after installing 512 mb DDR400

[DaDennis]

I currently have 2 chips 256 MB DDR 333 1 single sided, 1 double sided (both Kingston)
i bought a chip (double sided) of 512 MB DDR400 (TwinMos)
my pc boots fine, windows starts, but after like 2 minutes the screen gets black and my pc reboots
i tried different slot but they all dont work.
what is wrong?

some pc specs:

80 GB HDD 7200 rpm (maxtor)
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ processor
128 mb NVIDIA GeForce 5200 videocard
MSI K8T NEO-Platinum motherboard

 

[_xxx_]

Check your BIOS settings, all speeds, RAS to CAS delay etc. must match the SLOWEST RAM you have in there. Otherwise it'll keep crashing.

 

[DaDennis]

it's only 1 chip (the 512 MB DDR400)
and i kept the same settings i used with the 2 DDR333
how do i know what to choose?

 

[mczak]

You have (in total) 5 "sides" of ram. Socket 754 Athlons are a bit restricted how many modules you can use. Officially, they can only support DDR400 speed at up to 4 sides, above that they will drop to DDR200 (!). So the third ram slot is utterly useless. You MIGHT be lucky and it works at higher frequencies with more (if your bios allows it), but maybe not. Also note that iirc c0 steppings are far more sensitive, the chances of 3 modules working at higher frequencies thus should be better with a cg-step a64.
I'd try to get rid of one of the 256MB modules (I'd suggest the double sided one) and see if that works. memtest86 could help find you any memory-related errors.

edit: wait you tested that with only the DDR400 module and it still doesn't work? Looks like either a defective module or an incompatibility to your board to me. Did you try updating the bios? Some of these incompatibilities got fixed in the past (bios may get the ram timings wrong) with bios updates.

 

[DaDennis]

yea, i replaced the old ram with the new 1, i editted some stuff, including my FSB, i now run on 2010 Mhz, and seems to be working fine, if my pc keeps this up the rest of the day (its 1:31 pm here) i will get it back to 2.1 ghz again, step by step

btw, u both thx for the help ^_^

 

[_xxx_]

yea, i replaced the old ram with the new 1, i editted some stuff, including my FSB, i now run on 2010 Mhz, and seems to be working fine, if my pc keeps this up the rest of the day (its 1:31 pm here) i will get it back to 2.1 ghz again, step by step

btw, u both thx for the help ^_^

Your FSB is not the problem, it's the RAM settings. It should be visible somewhere on the sticker, something like 2.5-3-3 or such, whatever the settings are. You have to set these in your BIOS accordingly. Your old RAM was prolly 2-2-2, which most DDR400 don't have. Just try playing with these settings while leaving the FSB as it should be. Also, try looking for the manufacturers own recommended settings on the web.

Also, look here:
http://www.techspot.com/tweaks/bios/bios10.shtml

 

[DaDennis]

they're all 2.5
ill fiddle around, see if i can find out whats wrong, cud still use some help tho

Edit: ok, i changed the settings, see if my pc can stay on now

 

[_xxx_]

they're all 2.5
ill fiddle around, see if i can find out whats wrong, cud still use some help tho

Edit: ok, i changed the settings, see if my pc can stay on now

All 2.5 - never heard of such RAM. It might rather be 2.5-3-3.

 

[DaDennis]

all it says on the sticker:

P/N:M2G9J16A8AMK9F081AADT
MODEL NO: M2G9J16

S/N 506M55M10382872
PC3200(CL2.5) 512 MB DDR-DIMM
Warranty Void If Removed

 

[Gubbi]

I've had a similar problem with some Geil DDR400. Computer kept rebooting (although fairly rarely, like once every other day) even when latencies were set to really slow.

Eventually gave up and clocked all the RAM at 333MHz, but now with über aggressive latencies, which turns out to be quite a bit faster than running at 400MHz.

Cheers
Gubbi

 

[{Sniping}Waste]

The A64 memory controler hate running 3 dimms. Try running only 2 dims, 1 256 and 1 512 and see if this helps.

 

[Guden Oden]

Why keep fiddling with the timing parameters? Just set everything to autodetect in the bios and the computer will read the correct parameters out of the DIMMs' SPD eeproms and use the common denominator settings. If it still doesn't work, then DIMM = borked or you have too many banks of RAM installed or some other hardware issue.

As suggested earlier, run memtest86 to see if your RAM is producing errors...

 

[DaDennis]

ok, i fiddled around a bit, and well, my pc still stands :|
changing back to factory settings does miracles

 

[_xxx_]

Look here for the right settings. And try using Google a bit.

http://www.twinmos.com/dram/dram_p_dt_ddr400.htm

The settings:

DR400 TwinMOS/TwinMOS:

T(RAS, Active to Precharge) - 8
T(RCD, Active to CMD) - 3
T(RP, Precharge to Active) - 3
Cas Latency - 2,5
Voltage: 2,6Vdimm +/- 0,1V

 

[DaDennis]

thx, the last post seems to hae helped, i had a few problems in the beginning, but my pc's working fine now