GA-MA790GP-DS4H won't run Corsair DominatorDDR2 at 1066

[ImperialSun]

Hi Driz,

first off you have your memory in Dual channel mode it's just that you have an error where you describe slots DDR2_1 & DDR2_2 as Channel 0

Channel 0 is actually DDR2_1 & DDR2_3

Looking through your timings nothing is jumping out as being wrong.
Are you overclocking the CPU?
Have you tried running your RAM in the RED slots DDR2_3 & DDR2_4? This shouldn't make a difference but it might, so worth a try.
As I mentioned earlier, not sure if the 9850BE CPU has this feature but can you adjust the Memory Controller Frequency?

EDIT: Just another thought. Have you tried running just 1 stick of the new RAM at the rated speed? It could be that you have a bad stick, although they ran fine at 800 Mhz they might be falling over at the higher frequency.
Another thing might be to try running at 1066 with slightly loser timings as this can sometimes help.

Hi there

Running the RAM in the red slots makes no difference to stability so I will give it a shot at 1066 with slightly looser timings and see if that works. I will also try with just one DIMM at 1066...

Just out of interest, is there any tangible difference between DDR2 800 @ 4-4-4-12 and DDR2 1066 @ 5-5-5-15? If I am stressing over pure maths and not a noticeable difference in the real world I may just leave it as it is...

Obviously 4Gb DDR2 800 @ 4-4-4-12 is better than the 2Gb DDR2 1066 @ 5-5-5-15 I started with...

[absic]

Hi there,

To be honest the difference isn't really that great and, as you have a BE CPU I'm surprised you don't run your RAM at 800 Mhz and up the speed of the CPU which will, in real terms, give you a much bigger system boost.

Also, if you are running a 64 bit system, you could actually re-install the 2 older sticks (fill all RAM slots) and run with 6 Gig of RAM which would also help, although you would have to stick at 800 Mhz.

[ImperialSun]

Hi there,

To be honest the difference isn't really that great and, as you have a BE CPU I'm surprised you don't run your RAM at 800 Mhz and up the speed of the CPU which will, in real terms, give you a much bigger system boost.

Also, if you are running a 64 bit system, you could actually re-install the 2 older sticks (fill all RAM slots) and run with 6 Gig of RAM which would also help, although you would have to stick at 800 Mhz.

To be honest I have just thought about doing that as I am running Win 7 Ult 64-bit, if I am going to have to stay at 800 (4-4-4-12) I may as well run 6Gb at those settings rather than 4Gb...

How do I overclock the CPU? The multipliers etc are all set to AUTO currently giving me a CPU frequency of 200 which I assume is 2Ghz?

Any pointers on how to increase?

Driz

[absic]

With a BE CPU like you have it is actually very easy to adjust the speed of it.

In M.I.T. you need to switch the CPU Clock Ratio from AUTO to MANUAL. When you do this you will get a pop-up list of values and increasing this will increase the overall speed of the CPU. You will need to bear in mind that if you are still using the stock cooler be careful of adjusting this too high without keeping an eye on core temps as the CPU will get hot. It is much better to invest in a good quality 3rd party cooler before O/C'ing your CPU.

Basically that is all you should have to do, you can leave all of the other settings on AUTO and there shouldn't be too many problems. One of the great advantages of Black Edition Processor. But remember, if you do overclock your system the warranties for both the Motherboard and the CPU will probably be voided and neither Gigabyte or AMD officially support overclocking. 

[ImperialSun]

With a BE CPU like you have it is actually very easy to adjust the speed of it.

In M.I.T. you need to switch the CPU Clock Ratio from AUTO to MANUAL. When you do this you will get a pop-up list of values and increasing this will increase the overall speed of the CPU. You will need to bear in mind that if you are still using the stock cooler be careful of adjusting this too high without keeping an eye on core temps as the CPU will get hot. It is much better to invest in a good quality 3rd party cooler before O/C'ing your CPU.

Basically that is all you should have to do, you can leave all of the other settings on AUTO and there shouldn't be too many problems. One of the great advantages of Black Edition Processor. But remember, if you do overclock your system the warranties for both the Motherboard and the CPU will probably be voided and neither Gigabyte or AMD officially support overclocking.  

Thanks for the tip, I have dabbled a little and understand the risks involved in OCing, I've overclocked my old CPU and my current GPU a little in the past but always reverted to stock settings as I lacked a decent TP cooler. The good news is I now have one, a CM V8 which has knocked about 9 degrees off my stock temps

I'll install the other 2Gb of RAM and get that running sweet at 6Gb DDR2 800 but I will use slightly more tight timings of 4-4-4-12 as I have increasd the RAAM and NB voltage to balance out the increase. The RAM defaults to 5-5-5-18 at 800. Once done I'll have a play with the CPU itself. I have all the usual progs like Memtest and CPUz / GPUz, Everest and Sandra but can you recommend any decent stress testing progs? Think I've heard Prime95 is most widely used??

Thanks for all the help, really appreciated

Thanks for the tip, I have dabbled a little and understand the risks involved in OCing, I've overclocked my old CPU and my current GPU a little in the past but always reverted to stock settings as I lacked a decent TP cooler. The good news is I now have one, a CM V8 which has knocked about 9 degrees off my stock temps

I'll install the other 2Gb of RAM and get that running sweet at 6Gb DDR2 800 but I will use slightly more tight timings of 4-4-4-12 as I have increased the RAM and NB voltage to balance out the tighter timings. The RAM defaults to 5-5-5-18 at 800. Once done I'll have a play with the CPU itself. I have all the usual progs like Memtest and CPUz / GPUz, Everest and Sandra but can you recommend any decent stress testing progs? Think I've heard Prime95 is most widely used??

Thanks for all the help, really appreciated

[Dark Mantis]

Yes Prime95 is the most common stress test program and if you really want to stress your system run it alongside 3D Mark Vantage or something similar.

[ImperialSun]

Thanks to everyone who has offered me some help in this thread.

I've settled on running with 6Gb DDR2 800 @ 4-4-4-12 and have overclocked my 9850 BE to 3.1Ghz. The system runs for eight hours plus in Prime95 and handles OCCTs burn tests fine as well so I am happy that the setup is stable.

Anyone gotten much higher than 3Ghz with this chip?

Driz

[absic]

Hi, pleased you have managed to get a result, even if it wasn't what you were originally after.

Have you actually found that the system is running faster with the O/C'd CPU and the RAM running at 800 MHz or do you feel that you have lost out due to the slower RAM speed?

Not sure how high your CPU will go as I don't actually have one to play with these days.

[ImperialSun]

Hi, pleased you have managed to get a result, even if it wasn't what you were originally after.

Have you actually found that the system is running faster with the O/C'd CPU and the RAM running at 800 MHz or do you feel that you have lost out due to the slower RAM speed?

Not sure how high your CPU will go as I don't actually have one to play with these days.

Hi there

Sorry for not replying sooner, been on my holidays w00t!

I would definitely say I have noticed no discernable difference at all between running the memory at 1066 or 800...as I said I have set the timings slightly more aggressive at 4-4-4-12 in order to balance the drop to 800 and this combined with the CPU over clock has the system running superbly.

If anything I would say the memory "feels" faster at DDR2 800 (4-4-4-12) than my old memory felt at DDR2 1066 (5-5-5-15)....

Thanks for allyour help!!

[absic]

Hi there, thanks for the feedback, it's always nice to know how things work out and I hope you enjoyed your holiday.