Dual Channel Failure

Hello again geeks

My computer has developed another annoying issue, recently the fan controller on my mobo fried, pop, smoke the whole lot. I knew it was the fan controller because what else stops all the 3 & 4 pin fans but not the ones connected via molex converters right? So I took it back to the shop I got it at in the first place under warranty, they replaced it with another one that had been "re-conditioned" either by them or RMA'd back to ASUS I don't know.

This one has a new problem now, dual channel does not work at all. The RAM slots are as you'd expect A1,B1 & A2,B2 except if I put identical RAM in either A1 & B1 or A2 & B2 I get a beep & no POST, but if I put 1 RAM stick in either A1 or A2 it works fine. I can however put both sticks in A1 & A2 at the same time however this isn't in dual channel.

The mobo is: http://uk.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=149&l3=592&l4=0&model=1934&modelmenu=1

The RAM is: http://www.valueram.com/datasheets/KHX8500D2_1G.pdf

The reason it's bugging me so much is because with my old motherboard dual channel worked fine :confused Could it be a faulty board? Is it possible that A2 & B2 are fried?

Any ideas to get it working, I will try putting the RAM sticks in A2 & B2 to see if the actual slots are broken.

EDIT: I forgot to say, since getting this new (same as old) mobo I have noticed that my CPU idle temp has gone from 46C to 52C. The worry thing is this time instead of Akasa thermal compound I used Arctic Silver 5 & my temps have gone up :eek How is that?

:major2-Bit-Geek:major

 

Strange that one of the big selling points for your mobo is "This motherboard is the 1st AMD platform with native DDR2 1066 support" according to the link you provided, but there is no DDR2-1066 memory listed on the QVL (Qualified Vendor List). I checked. If interested, click this link, unzip and open with Adobe Reader or your favorite PDF reader. Anyway- I think the motherboard should be returned (again) but for a refund, or a NEW board. I guess it's possible that flashing the BIOS could fix the issue, there's a new beta BIOS for this board that came out about a week ago; the newest non-beta BIOS came out in early Nov 2008.

 

I noticed that actually, the manual has no QVL for 1066MHz DDR2 either :-D

Unfortunately a refund would be out of the question as the mobo was originally purchased back in July 2008 LOL So asking for a refund now wouldn't work :confused Even if I could get a refund it was only £46.50 then which was great value for a mobo with all the features it had. They would find it difficult replacing it with an equal mobo take a look at what they stock: http://www.computerorbit.co.uk/items.asp?Cc=AM2&iTpStatus=1&Tp=&Bc=&sTitle=components

Basically the replacement needs to have certain fetures to be of any use to me:

*DDR2 1066MHz support
*Dual channel
*AMD chipset no older than 770 + SB600
*At least 3 SATA 3.0GBPs ports
*At least 1 PCI-E X16 ver 2
*Hyper Transport 3.0
*Onboard Audio
*AM2 & AM2+ support

Unfortunately I am using that BETA BIOS, it's the first thing I try'd :confused other than shouting at it for being broken LOL

I might try rolling back to the 1001 BIOS as I'm not sure what was on the mobo when I got it, I know that I had 1001 installed with my old mobo & dual channel worked fine with the KHX 1066MHz.

Any Ideas why my CPU temp has shot up from 46C to 50+C? I applied the Arctic Silver 5 as best I could (thin & evenly spread).

Thanks for you're help so far

:major2-Bit-Geek:major