P5KR crashes a lot w/GB & XP 32 bit

[jbraner]

Hi,

I'm running a P5KR with a Q6600 and it works great with 2GB (2 x 1GB) Crucial ballistix (gold) PC8500. I have all the BIOS settings on "auto" except for the memory speed which I set to 1066.

When I added 2GB (2 x 1GB) more of identical Ballistix RAM, I got about 4 - 5 crashes within 20 minutes! All the memory is good, as the first 2GB ran fine all week, and now the second 2GB is also running fine alone.

I saw another poster mention increasing northbridge voltage (to 1.45 V) to get his Ballistix RAM to run at 5 5 5 15. I set mine at 1.40 V and the SDRAM voltage to 2.25 (which he was also doing). My CPU got real hot real fast!

It normally runs 45-50 degrees, but it started at 62 and quickly went up to around 70. I've got everythignset back to auto again but - are there any safe settings that might help me run 4GB with this board?

I know I can only address about 3.3GB (there are loads of threads about that) but I use this PC for music, and the extra GB will let me load huge sample libraries into RAM. If it's going to crash all the time it is of no use ;-)

I don't mind playing with BIOS settings, but I don't want to fry anything either.

Is anyone running 4GB with this board and XP 32 bit?

Thanks

[SRTDodge05]

Set your Q6600 to 1.3V in the bios and try 1.8 or a little more for memoy voltage.

[jbraner]

Hi SRT - thanks for your reply. I tried this and it was better, but I got one crash, so I raised the memory voltage to 1.85, but it was worse.

I now have it on "auto" and no crashes yet. So
CPU voltage = 1.3 - do you know what it was defaulted to?
mem voltage = auto - do you know what that is? Is it better to be higher or lower?

NOTE - I was running an app called "foldermatch" during my crashes, and I think this was stressing the CPU, as the temp really went up over 65 C when it was doing it's thing, and then came right down. I changed the fans in BIOS and turned off Q control (so hopefully they're always on full now). Everything is fine now without that app (I guess it was a good stress test, but it never crashed anything before today)

EDIT - the vcore voltage is sitting at 1.25 V so that's lower than the 1.3 that I set (I guess that's good?)

[SRTDodge05]

If you have a G0 setting Q6600 vcore will be around 1.225-1.250v a B3 is 1.315-1.350v. Normal its better to set the voltages manually then leave it on auto. I believe the default voltage for DDR3 is 1.5v so if you leave the voltage to auto it will be around 1.5v. When you run 4 sticks of memory you want to raise the voltag on memory and on the northbridge. Download memtest and let that run for a few to see what happens.

[jbraner]

Thanks SRT - that has been very helpful.
I'm not running DDR3, this is DDR2 (don't know if that makes a difference - I'll google...)

[jbraner]

FYI - I've been running with the nb voltage @ 1.55 V and the memory @ 2.2 and it seems to be fine now. The CPU voltage is set to "auto".

Thanks for your help...

[jbraner]

Hi,

I'm going to resurrect this thread. My PC is running a *lot* better and thanks to SRTDodge (and some misc stuff I found on the web) - but it still crashes (BSOD) once in a while. I have noticed that it's more likely to crash when it's powering on (if I don't wait for it to "settle down" - ie everything loads up) or today it crashed when powering down.

I'm running my 4 x 1GB Crucial gold sticks at
NB 1.55 V
memory voltage 2.2 (recommended by the guy at Crucial)
CPU core = AUTO

The core voltage runs between 1.13 and 2.23 volts - should I raise this a little?
Or can I raise the NB to 1.7? (the P5KR goes in 1.5V increments)
Or is there anything else I can tinker with?

Memtest ran fine for 6 hours as it is (there were a couple of ECC errors, but this isn't ECC memory!) - but something may be "on the borderline".
Then again it could just be XP - but I never had BSODs with just the 2GB.

I'm aware that only 3.3GB are available to XP 32 bit - is there any way to make *less* (ie 3GB) available - so it has more room to play with PCI drivers etc?

Any more tips would be greatly appreciated. I will watch temps etc after tweaking - but don't want to fry anything on the motherboard if possible ;-)

Thanks.

[jbraner]

I can see on the Asus forums, that other people are having the same problem, so I think this just isn't going to work at 1066 MHz. I have also tried disabling the transaction booster, but that didn't help either.

I think my choices are to:
- run with 2GB @ 1066 MHz
- run with 4GB @ 890 MHz

On DDR890, I ran memtest for 12 hours without any errors, and also Prime95 has been running all afternoon (5 hours or so) without any errors.

So, I think I'll stick to running at DDR890. This way I can actually use my computer to make some music, rather than test it all day and night

[Baud]

Originally Posted by jbraner

Thanks SRT - that has been very helpful.
I'm not running DDR3, this is DDR2 (don't know if that makes a difference - I'll google...)

DDR3 defaults to 1.5, and DDR2 to 1.8

[jbraner]

I've been running at 2.2V - a guy at Crucial recommended it...