Why do my MSI K7N2 Delta2 doesn't accept pc2100 or 2700ddr ram

[EricB]

I have a 512ddr pc2700 stick and a 512pc2100 stick. I want to add at least one of them to my my 2 256 pc3200 sticks, but whenever I seem to put these type of ram on this K7N2 Delta2 mobo that is lower than pc3200 ram, when I run my memory test from my ontrack's fix it ultilities software, the memory (2700 and 2100 ram) will fails the test plus , I will get the blue screen of death with these rams after they ran for awhile, and I know for a fact that these are good ram. I also will set my bios to the setup defaults and still have these problems. this even happen if I put each 512 stick in by itselfs with no other ram

does this so called high end board incompatible with lesser ram? do I need to manually set the ram setting?

 

[Nubius]

it's because you're mixing and matching some odd combinations of RAM there. There's no point in putting in that PC2100 since it'll just severly slow down the PC3200 sticks.

I know with the MSI boards you have to put the sticks in certain slots and depending on if the ram is a double module makes a difference in where it goes too.

If you fill up all 3 slots it can only run it at PC2700 speeds so there might be some conflict being that you're trying to put in 3 different speeds of different sizes of probably different manufacturers....

The board might be trying to run dual channel with the two PC3200's and then you throwin in another stick is throwing it off or something along those lines.

You should put the 2 256mb sticks in slot one and two and the 512mb of PC2700 in slot 3 and see if that works.

BTW: What brands are you using? Have you visited MSI's website to see their compatibility list and their RAM tables that tell you what combinations give you what speeds and whether it's dual channel or not.

http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=K7N2_Delta2-LSR&class=mb

 

[rasputeena]

the pc2100/2700 ram probably runs at a lower FSB speed than your current ram and cpu. your cpu has to run at the same fsb speed as your ram ...

 

[Nubius]

your cpu has to run at the same fsb speed as your ram ...

This is incorrect. Your system runs better when the CPU and RAM run at the same FSB but they don't HAVE to.

When your CPU is say 400FSB and all you have is PC2700 RAM your CPU isn't going to slow down to 333FSB because that would inturn make your overall CPU Clockspeed lower. You'll simply have a bottleneck in your system because the RAM can't communicate to the CPU at the same speed. So it'll work just not efficiently.

Also Eric, I shoulda said this above and forgot but you should download memtest86+ (just google that name and you'll find it) and put it on a bootable CD or floppy and test each RAM stick by themselves to see if one simply is a bad stick

 

[rasputeena]

oh, my bad! sorry

 

[EricB]

You should put the 2 256mb sticks in slot one and two and the 512mb of PC2700 in slot 3 and see if that works.

http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=K7N2_Delta2-LSR&class=mb

I have put the sticks like you describe of the mobo. for some reason the bios will read dual channel like this with 3 stick. now the funny thing is the pc2100 actually works in this mode. I just got one screen of death and reboot with this setup. with the pc2700 i get a lot of errors, I can't receive email, some programs won't load and I will get a few screens of death.

I will put the 512 sticks in by themselves and I haven't had any issue with the 2100 but i have plenty of the same issues with the 2700.

my ontrack software for testing is pretty good. but with the 2700 (it is probably is defective) everything just fails in the test. with the 2100 (i know this ram is good) some stuff pass and some stuff fail and the stuff that fails say possible cause is probably improper wait settings.

my 3200 alway pass, and I had a 256 stick of 2700 ram that has also failed before

what does improper wait settings mean?