Oh. My. God (even more urgent help required!)

[Diabetic]

Ok folks, I discovered a nifty feature in my BIOS recently that allows access to advanced settings..... such as CAS, Tras, etc. RAM latencies. Now, If you've read my other thread you will know that I am having problems with my RAM being at the wrong settings.

So, thinking i was being smart I set the RAM frequency to 200mhz (what the RAM should be set at due to it being PC3200, from 166mhz)

Anyways, now my PC won't start... it loads up and then just emits a looong beep indicating DRAM error. So, I need to reset my CMOS don't I? Well, at first I pulled the battery from my MOBO out, waited a minute, then placed it back in..... no luck.

I have tried again, this time keeping the battery out for about 30mins. Still no luck.

Any suggestions? I'm really desperate here folks, you's gotta help me! It can't be that my PC is just now completely borked can it? Also, is there a chance that my RAM is now ****zored?

my mobo is a Gigabyte KT8V800 Pro if anyone was wondering.

 

[Trifid]

Take out the battery, go out - see a film or something then put it back in. Or take out 2 of the sticks of ram if you got 4. It should boot straight away then.

(Do you have a jumper to clear CMOS?)

 

[Apokalipse]

take out 2 of the sticks of ram if you got 4.

yeah, socket 754 doesn't like 4 RAM sticks

 

[Diabetic]

I just got two sticks of 1gb.

Anyways, I fixed it by removing my PC3200 RAM (2gb) and replacing it with PC2700 (1gb).

Then fitting the PC3200 back (2gb).

Anyways, now that my PC is booting again lets move onto the issue thats plaguing me. My RAM running at 166mhz despite being PC3200. Testing earlier I found that if I have just a 1gb stick of PC3200 running then it runs at 200mhz, thinking maybe one of the RAM sticks was bust I tested 'em both on their own. Both individually ran at 200mhz, yet when paired run at just 166mhz. Why when they are matched TwinX sticks? Is this a defect?

Any help you could shed on the matter would be great, cheers.

 

[Trifid]

Its the memory controller doesn't like more than 1gb of ram or more than 2 ram slots filled. Its a defect with AMD 64 pre Venice cores. I just accept that I have my ram running at 166mhz, but AMD 64's don't lose much performance having a memory divider on.

 

[Diabetic]

so theres no chance of me running at 200mhz with 2gb RAM even if I bought a new set of two sticks?

Also, does the 2gb in 166mhz mode offer more performance than 1gb in 200mhz?

And lastly, how come the PC emits a long BEEEEP at starup with 2gb of RAM, is this normal and too be ignored?

- Cheers

 

[gaara]

To reset the CMOS you need to pull the power cord from your PC, pull out the battery and then press the power button to drain out the capacitators

200MHz will offer much more bandwidth than 166MHz especially considering your processor has to slow down and wait for the RAM to catch up

 

[Diabetic]

So, what should I do, send back my two 1GB TwinX sticks and replace them with just a single 1gb stick? And then use any extra cash to purchase other things, or stick with the 2GB's?

What would you suggest, keeping in mind that I mainly do gaming, with some 3d modeling work spliced in between.

 

[Trifid]

Ram dividers do not affect the performance as much as they used to - some people have said that there is no difference in benchtests. The performance lost is not a big deal. If you play games/use programs that use alot of memory, your better off with tht 2gb's than having to use the hdd page file.

 

[Diabetic]

So you're saying I should stick with 2gb DDR333 over 1gb DDR400?

(whats all this about RAM dividers...)