Memory puzzle

Hi guys, can anyone make head or tail of this? Wanting to increase my RAM up from 768MB I bought 3 x 512MB DDR cards that are compatible with my MSI motherboard. Dropped them in the slots and rebooted. On the first boot I got into the desktop but couldn't open any windows or apps, so I had to warm boot but after that the machine just kept rebooting itself over and over.
I took the new cards out and tried them one at a time and they all worked ok, but as soon as I tried installing more than one of them the same problem started to occur.
I increased the virtual memory swap properties, but still the same thing.

What I've now done is keep one of the new cards and replace two of the old ones ( giving me 1023MB ), but I'd really like to sort this one out.

Any ideas ( especially sane ones 'cos I'm running out of those ) would be greatly appreciated.

 

What motherboard and RAM do you have?

I've had similar problems before, a long time ago and I'm pretty sure it was one of the ram slots on the board, have you tried different slot combinations?

Reccomended if I remember correctly are :

2 x sticks

1A and 1B slots

3 sticks

1A, 2A, 1B slots

Bt this can be changed, the recomended as far as I know simply make the RAM work more efficiently.
I could be wrong on that but thats my experience anyway.

 

Never heard about something like this. To be honest the only thing i advice i could give you is , Give the new Ram one more try. ( I'm going to do some Quick Research if i find something, I will Let you know)

 

even tho the bios should sort it out automatically, you might want to reset the bios by choosing an option to set default values or something similar to that. also, what is the model motherboard?

 

Check that all the memory slots are working properly , and check if you reached the maximum capacity of memory.

 

The motherboard is MSI KT4V and I won't say who I bought the memory from, but they are a reputable company and what I've bought is supposed to be compatible with it.
All three slots work... if I put the three old cards back in they all function.

... it gets weirder I managed to get two of the new ones working with one of the old ones, but when I tried to introduce the third new one it all went pear shaped again. So I put one of the old ones back and although that is being recognised as being there by Aida32, it is only showing total memory as 1023MB ( and not 1279 which it should be :cry ).

I can't find that 'thanks' icon????

 

Have you tried switching the two new ones that worked in different combinations- like change one of the two for the third one, to see if that one is faulty- Obvious, but worth asking.
Are the ram EEC, or, non EEC, as your board only supportd non EEC.
Have you checked the voltage used by the ram you purchased-
Is this your spec?
CPU
Supports Socket A (Socket 462) for AMD® Athlon™ XP/Athlon™/Duron™ processor
CPU
Supports up to Athlon™ XP 2800+ processor
Main Memory
Supports six memory banks using three 184-pin DDR SDRAMs.
Main Memory
Supports up to 3GB memory size.
Main Memory
Supports
Main Memory
No support ECC Function.
Slots
One AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) 1.5V 8x/4x slot

 

Ok your board supports Max RAM:

3GB
400mhz (PC3200)
DDR 184 pin

Are you sure all the RAM you bought is the same?

Please post the Brand and Model of the new RAM.

Also, have you ascertained if ALL 3 new sticks actually work?

 

Have a look at the MSI page, and scroll down to see compatable memory, just to check with the one' you are trying to instal, in case the one's you have have a compatability problem
http://eu.msi.com/index.php?func=proddesc&maincat_no=1&cat2_no=&cat3_no=&prod_no=505

 

FROM MSI PAGE:
Ram with 200MHz fsb, 266mhz, ARE O.K -BUT NOT 400mhz fsb

266MHz mhz may run in all three cases but MSI don't warrent them
333MHz fsb will run at 333mhz, but again, you need to scroll down to the list.
MSI say " User may try this combination, but MSI will not guarantee its functionality".

As I said look at the list on MSI site- might save time, if all else does not solve it.

 

All knowledgeable pc builders will know that mobos can be fussy as to which make / model of ram is used. Personally, my reference point for ram being compatible with a particular mobo are user opinions/confirmations.

As regards your paticular mobo, I may be able to help. I have a KT3 Ultra2 (basically the same board).

1. Your mobo has 3 ram slots ram slots 1&2 (closest to cpu) operate on one channel and ram 3 operates on a seperate channel.

The configuration which works best ram wise is to populate slots 1 & 3 ONLY.

2. In the bios you will need to set Fast Command to Normal and ensure that SDRam 1T Command is set to Disabled.

3. This board could get fussy if PC3200 (ie 400) ram was used. Indeed, Via never officially stated that this board could / would run PC3200 stably. PC2700 (ie 333) seemed to elliminate this occurance.

I appreciate that your comment may be well that you can use all 3 ram slots in the configuration which you have described.

At the end of the day, I would suggest that you try slots 1 & 3 with your 2 new 512Mb and see whether that works (with appropriate bios changes). At the time when I bought my KT3 Ultra2, I read many posts from users and what I have stated to you above is the path of least resistance which was shown to work.

Good Luck with your endeavour

 

Risk_reversal,s post probably says it--"3. This board could get fussy if PC3200 (ie 400) ram was used. Indeed, Via never officially stated that this board could / would run PC3200 stably. PC2700 (ie 333) seemed to elliminate this occurance."
As he has a similar board, I would listen to him.
From my perusals, this board looks to have been originally for PC2100, nad most know that usually PC2700 will run in a PC2100 board, and the difficulty seems to be with the 400fsb (PC3200)

 

I've made a note of this, but at the moment I've managed to get back to having two of the new ones, and one of the old ones working together... so with 1273MB I'm half a gig better off than before I set out on this hair tearing adventure. At the moment I'm thinking it might be best to let sleeping dogs lie.

I had a look at the MSI page baklogic linked to and can't see the particular model listed there, but they all work when placed into the slots individually, just not all three together.
http://i415.photobucket.com/albums/pp233/thatmickeblue/Clipboard01-1.gif

 

All gone boobs up again... after about an hour my machine just started rebooting itself over and over. I ended up replacing the old hardware and it now works fine.

risk-reversal, I can't find either of the properties you mention in my bios (???).

 

Link to you manual (top one for download).

http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=downloaddetail&type=manual&maincat_no=1&prod_no=505

Got to page 3-13 ie Advanced Chipset Features>DRam Timing Control-->towards the bottom.

Let me say that half measures will not likely work. The ram and ram configurations on this board got a bit trickier and more unstable with higher rated ram. This was a hotly debated topic at the time.

If you need more help over and above the solution which I provided to you here and in my post above, I will need to know the speed of the ram modules ie pc2700, pc3200, confirm what fsb speed you are running and what type of cpu ie Athlon XP2600 and version ie Palomino, Thorougbred 'A' / 'B', Barton.

Once an apparent stable outcome is acheived, run memtest for at 24 hrs to confirm ram stability.

Good Luck

 

Thanks for that, useful reference to have.

Found that the Fast Command and SDRam 1T settings were already set as you suggested so I went ahead and put two of the new sticks in 1 & 3, and it is currently running as sweet as a nut ~ though I haven't run Memtest yet as I'm still going to 'phone the vendor tomorrow and see if I can exchange the 3200's for 2700's.

 

PC2700 rated ram works best. If you get pc3200 ram and run it at pc2700 ie fsb 166 then sometimes issues can occur.

Personally, I have a KT3 Ultra2 R & I build a KT3 Utra2 for my mum. Both use PC2700 ram and I have never had memory issues. They both use slots 1 & 3.

If you need more ram, you can use 1gb modules. I know they are a little more expensive but it will work.

The KT3 Ultra2 much like the KT4 are wonderfully solid and reliable boards.

Good Luck