GA-MA790X-UD3P F7a failing 8 GB RAM

[Glaucous]

I've used BIOS F6 with my Gigabyte card, and I've also always used 8 GB RAM Corsair (4 sticks).

As soon as I installed F7a I started to get memory errors, and memtest showed a bunch of errors when using four sticks, but none when using two. I do realize that using four sticks often comes with stability problems, but it worked great in F6 (and previous).

I'd just like to say that this problem exists. Since I don't have a AMD Phenom x6 processor the F7a BIOS is quite useless to me, so I just flashed back to F6 and it all worked fine.

[Dark Mantis]

For future reference when you fill all the ram slots it is often necessary to increase the northbridge voltage a little to compensate for the extra loading.

[Glaucous]

I did increase it to 1.2v without any luck.

Edit: Did you mean Northbridge or CPU-Northbridge?

I think I need to try to get this BIOS working, what should I try increasing and what maximum voltage? CPU-NB or Northbridge?
AMD Phenom 2 x4 940

[absic]

Hi,

I think I need to try to get this BIOS working

First question, Why do you need to get F7A BIOS working if everything was fine with F6? You really don't need to update the BIOS unless there is a known hardware issue (support of new CPU) or something being added that you need, such as the Core Control Option.

Another thing that is puzzling me is the BIOS version. Normally a letter after the first 2 characters would indicate that it is a beta version but, checking the Gigabyte site there is no indication of it being so, with BIOS versions being identified from F1 - F6 then suddenly F7A! It could well be a beta version, although it doesn't say so.

You don't actually state the specification for your Corsair RAM. If you could post back with this info it might help to understand what could be wrong. Also, are you Overclocking? I have a Phenom ii X6 1090T and 8 Gig of Corsair Dominator 2 kits of CMD4GX3MB1600C8 1.65 V running OK (on a different board GA-790XTA-UD4) but it was very glitchy and I had real problems getting it stable.

(after posting this I noticed glaucous had started another thread.....

I recently installed BIOS version F7a, however this version made my four sticks of RAM very unstable, no I installed F6 again. But now I can't get my onboard Realtek LAN to work at all, the drivers aren't able to be installed (again) and it won't show up in Device Manager (with hidden devices shown).

Another problem which might be related is that my Windows 7 (and Ubuntu Live CD and Wubi) boots are very slow.

Load Optimized BIOS -> Restart -> Install F5 BIOS -> Restart -> Load Optimized -> Restart. No luck.

Next step is to remove two RAM sticks and try out F7a and see if the LAN is working there.
And yes, the LAN cable is working with other computers.

As the problems are linked and to save confusion, I have directed users to post answers and advice to this thread only)

[Glaucous]

Thank you, let me clarify why I (thought) needed to get this to work again. When I rolled back to F6 the problem was that the LAN card stopped working, but apparently it wasn't the BIOS update itself, but that I have had the computer unplugged for a while.
 I read around on the internet and noticed that some people had problems with their onboard LAN after unplugging the computer. So when I unplugged and plugged in the computer again, the LAN started working again.

Not sure of the reason why I installed the F7A in the first place, but it's working anyhow.
And I'm also quite curious of the "A" in F7A BIOS.

Reason behind the two threads is that I thought the problems weren't connected, and therefor would be easier to keep the threads separated.

Anyhow, the problem is solved, and it wasn't a BIOS problem. Now the only odd problem I have is the slow Windows and Ubuntu loading times, which seems to decrease A LOT when only using two sticks of RAM, although I didn't have the problem before. I could try flashing back to F6 again.

[absic]

I have to agree that it does seem strange that loading times are increasing when you add more memory and this could still be a BIOS issue.

Does the PC seem to take longer to POST when you first switch it on or does that seem OK and it takes longer to actually get the OS loaded and running with the extra RAM?

When you flashed BIOS and went through Load Optimized Defaults, did you disable floppy drives and other Integrated Hardware that you are not using? This can sometimes cause an issue, especially the floppy drive.

Flashing back to F6 would give a clearer indication if the problem is due to the F7A BIOS and I have had some strange issues with BIOS updates which actually cause more problems than they solve and have had to roll back to an earlier version that was more stable.

[Glaucous]

I have already turned off every unused feature. Now I tried rolling back to F6 (again again) and turning tweaking every setting as they should be. The loading times are however still slow in both Ubuntu and Windows.

Please note that the slow loading doesn't occur in POST, but when Windows/Ubuntu is actually loading, thus it might seem like a driver problem. But since it didn't exist before this BIOS update/downgrade, and especially since it occurs in BOTH Ubuntu (Ubuntu Live CD as well) and Windows, it seems odd.
And the slow loading did disappear when using two sticks.

Edit: Okay problem solved. I had apparently forgotten to remove a 2048 MB RAM Disk from "RamDisk Plus" software, which loaded this RAM Disk at every boot, therefor it took a while to load into Windows with 8 GB RAM. But with 4 GB RAM there wasn't enough RAM, and the RAM Disk was skipped. I'm not sure why Ubuntu took a while, but I'm hardly using it anyhow.

[Dark Mantis]

I did increase it to 1.2v without any luck.

Edit: Did you mean Northbridge or CPU-Northbridge?

I think I need to try to get this BIOS working, what should I try increasing and what maximum voltage? CPU-NB or Northbridge?
AMD Phenom 2 x4 940

It is in the MIT section of the BIOS and set System Voltage Control to Manual which will then alow you to set the Northbridge voltage. Just go up in small steps, if you go too far the setting will flash red so put it back down.

[Glaucous]

I do know where I change it, but more than often there's confusion between the motherboard's Northbridge and CPU-Northbridge.
But right now it seems stable and I shouldn't need to change it.

[Dark Mantis]

Ok, well that's good news and at least you have some more info for the future.

[absic]

Edit: Okay problem solved. I had apparently forgotten to remove a 2048 MB RAM Disk from "RamDisk Plus" software, which loaded this RAM Disk at every boot, therefor it took a while to load into Windows with 8 GB RAM. But with 4 GB RAM there wasn't enough RAM, and the RAM Disk was skipped.

Ah, it's simple when you know isn't it!  To be honest, I would have been struggling to come up with that as an answer so it's good that you discovered the problem yourself.

For future reference, if you do need to increase the voltage to the Northbridge you can do so in M.I.T. under System Voltage Control. Once you set it to manual the items can be altered (they are locked when it is set to AUTO). You need to increase the heading that reads: NB/PCIe/PLL Voltage Control.

ATB

[Glaucous]

Starting to get some odd problems with my RAM. Now I can't boot (loop restart) with four sticks at all, only when using two.

Corsair XMS2 Xtreme TwinX DDR2 PC8500/1066MHz CL5 2x2GB (TWIN2X4096-8500C5)  two sticks
and
Corsair XMS2 Dominator TwinX DDR2 PC8500/1066MHz CL5 2x2GB (TWIN2X4096-8500C5D)
pretty much the same except the cooler.

I've tried bumping the Northbridge (not CPU-NB) to 1.4 volt (maximum), no luck there. The RAM voltage is at 2.1 which is the spec for the RAM. I'm using 5-5-5-15 (18 made no difference) and 800 MHz (4.00x). I also tried bumping the CPU-NB by 0.1v but it didn't help.

Should I try tweaking the CPU-NB voltage, or perhaps try lowering the MHz of the RAM?

[Dark Mantis]

Does your Dominators have an XMP setting? If so try using that.

[Glaucous]

I'll try that.

Other things I've tried:
- 667 MHz
- 1.4v CPU-NB
- 1.4v NB

Back in 5 minutes.

Edit: Tried it and it did not help.

[Dark Mantis]

It might help to drop the speed of the ram. I thiink it's a case of try it and see.