GA-890GPA-UD3H Gskill memory

[Senios]

My build is this
Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H rev 2.0 bios FC
AMD Phenom II x4 965 BE
G.Skill F3-10666CL9D-4GBECO

i have a lot of different bsod but these seem to happen only when i turn on my pc in the morning (after >6hours of being turned off).
Then i have to recover the system so it can work again. After some time it works fine until the next time it stays off for 6 hours.
I have the same result with ram volts set to 1,35 and 1,5.
I run a memtest in the beginning and i didnt have any errors but once i run one exactly after a cold boot followed by a bsod, errors popped up.
I read that there are some problems with gigabyte/gskill. is that the case with me too or it's just faulty ram?

[Dark Mantis]

It sounds like faulty RAM but it could also be caused by a failing memory controller. Are you running the latest BIOS version? Can you list exactly what your system spec is rather than just an abridged version? Also make a note of the actual wording of the BSODs they are important and give an insight into the problem more precisely.

[absic]

Can you list exactly what your system spec is rather than just an abridged version? Also make a note of the actual wording of the BSODs they are important and give an insight into the problem more precisely.

Also it would really help if you could state if the problem occurs with the system set to Optimised Defaults or if you are trying to Overclock. Is your CPU C2 or C3 Stepping? The more information that you can provide the easier it can be to offer practical help and advice.

Having done a quick check you are running the latest BIOS Version for your board and the RAM doesn't appear on the QV List and a glance at the GSkill website seems to recommend your memory for Intel rather than AMD. Although this shouldn't really be an issue it might be causing the problems as some memory modules can be very temperamental and fussy on most of the newer AMD boards.

[Senios]

The phenom is c3 stepping, i am not trying to overclock, it's just that the ram is meant to be run at 1,35V so in the beginning i left it to auto (meaning 1,5 for the mobo) then i changed it to 1,35 and then set it maually to 1,5.
I tried that with both the memories in slots 3,4 and after that l only left one stick to slot 3.

Firstly i thought bios update would solve the bsod i was getting, i did that and then the pc was on for >5 hours and didnt show any errors, but next morning when i turned it on i had bsod again.
I found that samsung had a firmware update concerning f3 hdd's with sb850 chipsets http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/faqView.do?b2b_bbs_msg_id=308
so even though i read that the problem was the drive not being recognised, which wasnt my case, i applied that firmware. System was steady again.
Next morning though bsod happened again.
There were many different bsod so i dont remember them all and since i recover every time to make the pc usable it only saves the last dmp. One time every rar i was downloading was corrupted.

As i mentioned i had checked the set while being on slots 3,4 with memtest for 7 passes and it had no errors. also i checked the stick on slot 3 for 5 passes and this was also ok, but when i tested the same one after a cold boot followed by bsod, it had 10000 errors.
Yesterday i put the stick, that i had removed, to slot 2 and removed the one that was in slot 3. It's been 20 minutes now and it seems fine.
So am i right to assume that it was that stick's problem or it may be slot's problem too?
I am running windows 7 prof x64.

Also what do you think should be the settings i apply to the ram? let the volt/timings to auto?  or set them manually according to ram specs? (the only difference between those two is that in default mode ram volts are 1,5V, timings are the same)
Btw i have another question, what does spd ext. mean in cpu-z? if that means the profile that is applied, why atm it says xmp even though i have set ram volts manually to 1,5V? (and timings to auto)


Thank you for your help, and if you want more info let me know

[absic]

Hi,

My suggestion would be to try both sticks in DDR3 Sockets 1&2 and to leave your BIOS settings at Optimized Defaults. As a general rule, if you are using 1 or 2 sticks of RAM they should be placed into DDR3 Sockets 1&2 on the Mobo. (See manual Pg. 16)

If the system runs OK at default settings then you can tackle the problem of voltages, timings etc. If you are still having Memory issues with the RAM in Sockets 1&2 and at default settings then I would be looking to change the RAM as it is a fair bet that the problem lies there.

Btw i have another question, what does spd ext. mean in cpu-z? if that means the profile that is applied, why atm it says xmp even though i have set ram volts manually to 1,5V? (and timings to auto)

In CPU-Z SPD stands for Serial Presence Detect which shows the vendor, serial number, timings table. The SPD ext. shows that your memory has an XMP profile

[Senios]

i will try them together in slot 1,2 even though i think that the one that showed the errors must be faulty.
Also in manuals page 16 it says that it can either go to 1,2 or 3,4 without saying anything about preferring the one over the other.

In CPU-Z SPD stands for Serial Presence Detect which shows the vendor, serial number, timings table. The SPD ext. shows that your memory has an XMP profile

concerning spd ext (what does ext mean?) It just means that this profile is available or that that is the profile being used?

[absic]

Hi

Also in manuals page 16 it says that it can either go to 1,2 or 3,4 without saying anything about preferring the one over the other.

Check underneath the Dual Channel Memory Configurations Table next to the Diagram showing the Memory slots. There is a little icon showing a note. It states it there. (I have just received a message from Senios and this part is actually missing from his manual but it is clearly there in the PDFversion available on the Gigabyte site which I downloaded!)

concerning spd ext (what does ext mean?) It just means that this profile is available or that that is the profile being used?

It means that it is available.

[Senios]

Problem solved! One of the two memory sticks from Gskill was faulty, i am working with the other one right now and everything is fine. (when i plugged in the other memory, programs where corrupted, the moment i removed it the same programs were running).

Now i am gonna reinstall windows in case something didnt install properly with the faulty ram. I have some questions
both vga driver and chipset driver, have an "asetup", "setup" executables, why are there two, and which should i use?
Also should i download anything more/instead from here? http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx cause i see it was updated more recently (6/16/2010)

What is the GIGABYTE SATA2 Preinstall driver for? I get AMD SATA RAID Driver is for raid, AMD AHCI RAID Driver is for ahci (both need to be installed before installing windows right?) but what is the sata2 for? isnt this driver preinstalled since it can see my sata2 drive?

Thanks for your help with solving the problem.

[absic]

Hi,
pleased to see that you have managed to locate the faulty RAM and I hope that you have no issues when RMA'ing it.

It's a good idea to re-install Windows, just to make sure that everything is clean. To answer your question what I tend to do is download the Board drivers from Gigabyte (you can get them here: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3420&dl=1#dl ) for the Chipset. They maybe dated a little older than the ones on AMD's site but once they are installed they will update to the latest ones when you update Windows. And, it safeguards against the possibility of downloading wrong versions.

For the VGA Drivers I would use the latest version from AMD's site which, at the moment are 10.6. once you have downloaded these all you need to do is double-click the AMD icon to start the install.

but what is the sata2 for? isnt this driver preinstalled since it can see my sata2 drive?

These do the same job as the AMD drivers but for the 2 GSATA2 ports (the ones numbered 6 & 7 on the Mobo) which can be configured independently from the other SATA ports. By default these ports work in Native IDE mode if you want to use these in AHCI or RAID mode you need to install the drivers.

ATB