Oops

[Daniel ~]

The first guys through the door always catch what's trying to get out!

[danrok]

I have tried relaxing the timings, too. But, the system does become unstable. I am just going to stick with a slight overclock of 210mhz at auto settings for now.

[warp11]

mine was fine at SPD too. What memory are you running?

I'm using 512MB x 2 Samsung PC3200 TCCC memory. I bought it because it is on every motherboard's "compatability" list. It works very well, but only when detected by SPD.

I'm a little surprised that although the memory controller is built into the CPU, there are still settings for the memory in the motherboard BIOS. Hmmm, seems tricky...I'm sure they will get it worked out.

[danrok]

It does seem that some fine tuning of BIOS programs is needed to increase memory compatibility and stability on these A64 boards. Updates are being released all the time so things can only improve.

[Áedán]

That's because the memory controller itself doesn't know what settings to use!

When you start the machine up, one of the first jobs of the BIOS is to talk to the I/O hub, in order to fetch the SPD settings from the memory. From the I2C EEPROM on the memory, the BIOS fetches:

• tCL (CAS latency)
• tRC (Active-to-Active/AutoRefresh command period)
• tRFC (AutoRefresh to Active command period)
• tRCD (Active to Read/Write delay)
• tRRD (Active Bank A to Active Bank B delay)
• tRAS (Active to Precharge delay)
• tRP (Precharge time)
• tREF (Refresh interval)

Now, generally, when you set the BIOS timings up, you only have control over a few of these, so the BIOS still uses some of the settings via SPD. There's also a bunch of settings that aren't stored in SPD, but are typically hardcoded into the BIOS. They include

• Twr (Write Recovery time)
• Twtr (Write to Read delay)
• Trwt (Read to Write databus turnaround)
• Twcl (Write CAS Latency)
• Maximum Async Latency
• Read Preamble Time
• Memory Clock Enable

So, you can see that the settings that most BIOSes actually give you are pretty limited!

[Áedán]

Originally Posted by Daniel ~

A little bird told me that the on CPU memory controller is not on par with Nvidia or VIA.

Actually, I think the opposite might well be true. As the memory controller is on the CPU itself, the integration between CPU and memory is much tighter. This could well mean that the memory controller pushes the memory much harder, as there's none of the FSB interface to cross (and slow things down). The memory being pushed harder would make it more sensitive to slight discrepences in the timings, that you might be able to get away with on a standard system.

After all, it takes time for a request to go from the CPU across the FSB, be processed by the Northbridge and then make its way to the RAM. We've just chopped some of that out, so the turn-around time will be shorter.

[Daniel ~]

My Bad! What the little bird ACTUALLY said was less "memory controller compatibility". Which would make sense of both our experiences here and your current insight that:

"The memory being pushed harder would make it more sensitive to slight discrepancies in the timings, that you might be able to get away with on a standard system."

[bradmax57]

Originally Posted by Daniel ~

My Bad! What the little bird ACTUALLY said was less "memory controller compatibility". Which would make sense of both our experiences here and your current insight that:

"The memory being pushed harder would make it more sensitive to slight discrepancies in the timings, that you might be able to get away with on a standard system."

for everyone ive now tried 3 different types of ram:

2 x 256mb of kingston Hyper x PC3500 @ 230 OK
2 x 256mb of Twinmos Twister PC4000 @ 215 OK
2 x 512 of infinion PC3200 @ 220 OK

For me the Kingston is obviously the best but I sold it with my P4 sytem so I know what i will get next

[Daniel ~]

Recomenned ram is Samsung TCCC

[danrok]

Originally Posted by Daniel ~

Recomenned ram is Samsung TCCC

Yes, the PC3200 variant.

[dod]

Originally Posted by danrok

Yes, the PC3200 variant.

and guess what I'm ordering in about 5 minutes

[bradmax57]

Originally Posted by Daniel ~

Recomenned ram is Samsung TCCC

yes so we have been told but didnt you say you had trouble hittle high mhz with your ram (samsung?) so far i could not, go against my kingston that had bh5 chips

[Daniel ~]

Nope, I bought the HIGH PERFORMANCE RAM, under misapprehension, you want the TCCC.

It was the Corsair 3500 and PC 4000 I had the most trouble with. The 3700 Samsung was just OK. "My" best results were with my old Crucial PC 2700.

[danrok]

I did have Crucial PC2700 in mine which worked fine.

The latest BIOS for my MSI board has fixes specifically for Corsair. The notes which come with it:

K8T Neo (MS-6702) V1.2 BIOS Release
----------------------------------

1. This is AMI BIOS release

2. This BIOS fixes the following problems of the previous version:
- Update VIA SATA ROM to version 2.31
- Fixed CPU vcore selection item.
- Fixed Corsair DDR466/500 stability issue.
- Support Athlon64 CG version CPU.
- Add RealTek LAN Boot ROM
- Update VT8237 SATA ROM

[dod]

Originally Posted by danrok

The latest BIOS for my MSI board has fixes specifically for Corsair. The notes which come with it:

Hmm. I wonder what that's all about. As if I didn't know

[bradmax57]

eeer oops to me

luckily i downloaded the included drivers and uploaded them here, my stupid fault really trying to combine these with the 4.3's I knew it would not work but didnt have a lot to loose apart from a reformat

[dod]

Well, got notification of my RMA this morning, the board was actually faulty and that's what was killing the cpu's. Replacement on it's way.

Keep a space at the table guys, I'm coming back

[bradmax57]

Originally Posted by dod

Well, got notification of my RMA this morning, the board was actually faulty and that's what was killing the cpu's. Replacement on it's way.

Keep a space at the table guys, I'm coming back

Excellent

[Daniel ~]

Good news!

[Gizmo]

Outstanding!