GA-EP35-DS3L & Kingston PC-8500 Memory issue

[Rjay]

Hi all,

I am new to this forum and I have gone through all the posts to see if I can find a solution to my problem but I can't so I'll post this and hope someone can help.

I have the GA-EP35-DS3L Rev1.0 motherboard with the latest BIOS (F6). I am running an Intel Core 2 quad Q8400 CPU at stock settings. I recently upgraded my memory to 4GB via a Kingston PC2-8500 KHX8500D2K2/4G kit.

The data sheet for this memory states timings of 5-5-5-18 1.8v for 800MHz and 5-5-5-15 2.2v for 1066MHz. When I installed the memory the BIOS set the timings at 5-5-5-18 and I beleive the standard DDR voltage for this board is 1.8v. I manually set the timings in the BIOS to 5-5-5-15 and set the DDR2 OverVoltage to +0.4v raising the voltage to 2.2v. The PC boots and runs fine at these settings but when I run CPU-Z and System Information For Windows, they both report the memory as PC2-6400 with supported frequencies of 200.0MHz, 266.7MHz, 400MHz.

I have tried installing each stick seperately just in case I had a bad stick but they both show as PC2-6400.

According to the Gigabyte site my board supports DDR2 1200/1066/800/667 memory.

I have contacted Kingston Support about this but as yet they have not responded.

Has anyone managed to get this ram to work with this board or can someone suggest any other settings I may need to change in the BIOS? Appart from the changes I have listed all the other BIOS settings are as the BIOS set them.

The data sheet for this ram can be seen here: http://www.valueram.com/datasheets/KHX8500D2K2_4G.pdf

[Dark Mantis]

Well everything looks fine to me. The PC6400 equates to 800Mhz RAM because it is 400Mhz and is DDR which means that it is double data rate to 800. That is the JEDEC specification and you are running it above that to get the 1066 speed. That is why you have to overvoltage it.

[Rjay]

Thanks for your reply. The memeory is meant to be PC2-8500 not PC2-6400 that is what is on the packaging, its whats on the sticker on the heatsink and how it is listed on the site where I bought it, also it is listed under their PC2-8500 section not PC2-6400 section. Also System Information & CPU-Z shows exacly the same settings regardless of if I have the timings set at 5-5-5-18 1.8v (800MHz) or 5-5-5-15 2.2v (1066MHz), Also CPU-Z reports the voltage as 1.8v even when I have set the voltage to 2.2v in the BIOS, which is why I thought maybe I was doing something wrong in the BIOS or there was some other problem.

The System Information screen shot on my original post was taken with the timings set at 5-5-5-15 and OverVoltage set at +0.4v to get 2.2v, the screen shot below was taken with the timings set at 5-5-5-18 1.8v and you will see it is exacly the same as the other screen shot. Is this correct or is something wrong here? I would have thought running at 1066MHz would produce different results in System Information and CPU-Z then when running at 800MHz.

Why would the memory show as PC2-6400 when it is meant to be PC2-8500? My Corsair sticks where PC2-5300 and that is what they showed up as in CPU-Z and Sysmtem Information. Is it simply just a compatibility problem with this memory and my Motherboard model?

Thanks for your help.

[Dark Mantis]

OK. What is yopur memory multiplier set to? If it is 3x it need s to be increased to 4x to give you 266.7 x 4 =1066. So you will have to adjust your timings to suit.

[Rjay]

Hi Thanks. No my memory multiplyer is set to auto. If I change it to 4 do I just change the timings to 5-5-5-15 and overvoltage to +0.4 as before or do they need to be different, I know it is related to the FSB. I did change the multiplyer to 4 before but the system would not boot, it just switched off and I had to pull the battery to clear the CMOS and I left the multiplyer on auto ever since then.

thanks again for your help.

[Dark Mantis]

Yes you seem to have the idea. As long as you increase the voltage on the FSB a touch to help it should work fine.

[Rjay]

OK thanks Im at work at the moment but I'll give it a try when I get home. Can you suggest  an ammount I should raise the FSB voltage by? Is there a rule of thumb I should work to? By that I mean if I increase the DDR2 Overvoltage by +0.4v as required to run the ram at 1066MHz do I need to increase the FSB voltage by the same amount, or increase it by a certain percentage of the DDR2 overvoltage or is it just trial and error? I dont wont to cook anything.

Thanks again for you help.

[Dark Mantis]

No, just tweak it a little bit and if that doesn't seem to do the trick then up it another notch.

[Rjay]

OK right I had to set the multiplyer to 3.20 to get 1066MHz. I set the timings to 5-5-5-15 and voltage to 2.2v by setting ddr overvoltage to +0.2v and I increased the FSB voltage by +0.2v and it booted up ok but I am still getting the same readings as before. Please see screen shot. I then increased the multiplyer to 4 as you said  which actually gave 1333, and it rebooted a couple of times before it would go into Windows and I still got the same readings. I went back into the BIOS and it had reset the multiplyer to auto. Have to any other suggestions?

Thamks.

[Dark Mantis]

I think maybe we should test the memory to make sure it is all perfect then.

I would suggest that you download and run Memtest86+ to check your RAM first.

Memtest86+        http://www.memtest.org/

Insert one stick of memory in slot 1 and run Memtest on it for at least 10 loops and if there are no errors then swap it over with the next one and continue untill you have checked all  modules.

If you have any errors the module is faulty.

If you have any faulty modules you will have to return the whole kit as they are matched.

Post back when you have done that with the results.

[Rjay]

OK thanks I will try that tonight, I did read that this board along with other P35 chip boards have problems with 1066MHz memory so it may be just that but I will do the tests tonight as you suggest.

Thanks.

[Rjay]

Further to my comment about compatibility in my last post, please see the opening paragraph of the attached overclocking guide for the GA-P35-DS3L board.

[Dark Mantis]

Maybe if that is the case you will have to settle for underclocking them then. But it is worth checking the modules anyway.

[Rjay]

I will do the memory test tonight and report back but I think it is a compatibility issue coz SiSoft Sandra reports my memory as being able to run at 1066MHz.

[Dark Mantis]

Sandra is just reading the data from the SPD attached to the module. It doesn't mean that it is ok just tells what the memory is supposed to be.