POST issues with 1090T on 890FXA-UD5 v2.1 - many beeps

[absic]

You can try bumping the voltages a little but you shouldn't really need to do this to get your system running if everything else is OK.

@BIOS, although it seems good, can cause a lot of problems and it is better to avoid using it if possible. Re-flashing BIOS won't cause a problem but could help if there was a slight glitch with the previous update.

[ap42]

10 passes of MemTest completed with no errors on the second stick of memory in slot1. So Memtest liked both sticks by themselves, and together. The problem only seems to be when doing a cold boot.

I reflashed my BIOS using the BIOS qflash utility this time (as opposed to the windows-based @BIOS), did not have it save settings when doing so, and then loaded the optimzed defaults in the BIOS. Then I shut down & put both sticks of ram back in, using slots 1 & 3. Then I reset optimized defaults again & set all my general settings: disabled floppy, turned off cool&quiet, turned off C1E, etc.

Timing is now 1333 9-9-9-24 2T

It booted right into windows, and I have Prime95 running.

I'll shut down later & try a cold boot test in the morning.

[Christoph]

do you have soft like ET6 or AMD overdrive installed in your machine?

or do you have DQS test in bios enabled? it is in the RAM settings tab, all the way down,

[absic]

I reflashed my BIOS using the BIOS qflash utility this time (as opposed to the windows-based @BIOS), did not have it save settings when doing so, and then loaded the optimzed defaults in the BIOS. Then I shut down & put both sticks of ram back in, using slots 1 & 3. Then I reset optimized defaults again & set all my general settings: disabled floppy, turned off cool&quiet, turned off C1E, etc.

Timing is now 1333 9-9-9-24 2T

It booted right into windows, and I have Prime95 running.

I'll shut down later & try a cold boot test in the morning.

Hopefully flashing BIOS has helped stabilise the system and you can now move forward. I'll keep my fingers crossed that you can cold boot successfully. 

[ap42]

I reflashed, reset bios, and booted up with both sticks in banks 1 & 3.  Running with default 9-9-9-24-2t timing. Did work & played on the computer for 4 hours or so.  Shut it down & went to bed.

Did a cold boot this morning and it beeped like crazy.   I took a video of it this time that I'll put up later today. 
The sequence was:   cold boot, beeps.  Reset, beeps.  Power down & try to boot a few times in a row & it beeps each time.  Take one stick out (bank3) and it boots up fine.   It seems if I do anything to the memory sticks, it will boot up fine.  If I remove one, swap them, probably even if I pull one & stick it back in.

Now it is booted up on one stick & running fine. 

So I turned it off, put the 2nd stick back in, and now it beeps again?   Odd, blows away a bit of my theory.  Took out the 2nd stick & it booted up fine again.

I do have ET6 & AMD overdrive installed, but they are not running.  Plus they wouldn't come into play until the machine is booted into windows, right?  Shouldn't affect POST?

DQS Training Control is set to "Perform DQS".  I don't remember setting it, so must have been a default?  What does that do, and should I turn it off?
I will turn it off for now.

Turned it off, powered off, put second stick back in.  Still beeps.

Took it out.  Boots up fine.  Argh.

I will post pics of all my BIOS settings later as well as the video.  It looks like I'll be making the run to compUSA today that I've been putting off to look for whatever corsair ram they have.  Looks like 4Gigs will be about $60 (I want to make sure it's 2 sticks of 2GB for dual channel mode).

I really want it to be the ram.  I hate the thought of having to rma the board or the cpu just to try to chase this down.  I specifically went with this top-of-the-line board & cpu to avoid this stuff. 

[absic]

The only way of knowing for certain if it is the RAM is to actually try a different set of modules.

[Christoph]

set DQS to skip

my computer does the same, once boots up just fine and the next it won't

start from there, set it to skip, and see how it does

BTW, you should set TRFC to at least 110 or even 160, but this is another thing that has to do with stability, like I said start from setting DQS to SKIP

[ap42]

Here is a link to a photobucket album that has pics of all my BIOS settings, and a video of my cold boot errors this morning. 

Maybe somebody will see something amiss with my settings? They look safe to me.

That cold boot was with 2 sticks in slots 1&3.  When I removed the stick in slot3 it boots right up. 

It is sitting off at home now so I can do a cold boot test with the one stick.


DQS is set to skip.
It auto-sets trfc to 160 for the banks that have ram in them.  Sets it to 90 for the empty banks.

[absic]

If your having trouble with the above link try this one: http://s68.photobucket.com/albums/i15/blk98gt2/computer%202/

Nothing in your BIOS looks wrong, the only thing I would suggest is that you try increasing the CPU VCore Voltage (image 10 of your screen shots). I am currently running my 1090T at 1.40V and it is a problem with the BIOS that for some reason, when you start making alterations to the settings it drops the VCore to 1.35V.

If you check here: http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php/topic,3637.msg27519.html#msg27519 I mention some of the problems with CPU Voltage when I started O/C'ing this board and CPU.

[ap42]

Whoops - thanks for correcting the photobucket link.  Cut&paste malfunction on my part.

I just cold-booted with that 1 stick left in slot1, and it booted up just fine.  First cold-boot I've done in a while that was successful!  W00t!

I bumped up my cpu voltage to 1.4V & am doing a quick prime95 run to see where my temp maxes out - just for my own interest.  Then I'll stick the other ram in & see if it reboots.

[ap42]

Bumped my ddr voltage from 1.51 to 1.53.
Bumped CPU voltage from 1.35 to 1.4V.

Booted fine on the one stick.  We'll call this the 'good' stick.

Put in the 2nd stick.  Would not boot.  Didn't beep, but would not boot.  Powered off/on & it hung at memory detection in POST. 
Took out the 2nd stick.   Booted fine.

Shut it down, put in 2 sticks of patriot cheapo crap-ram (2x2GB).  Booted up fine.
Let it sit overnight.  Booted up fine. 

On a side note, one of the patriot sticks has to go back to compusa - it's a non-patriot rebranded stick of some spektek brand that fails memtest & causes prime95 errors.  Doh.  Live & learn : look at the chips on the memory & check to see that they have "patriot" on them & not a big "S".
Guess that's why it was $22. 

Thanks for the help.  I'll start the RMA process with G.Skill & hope that the new sticks they send me have no cold-boot issues.
Then I can start following your OC guide & take advantage of this machine!

[absic]

Pleased you seem to have located the problem finally. There does seem to be a lot of problems attributable to RAM at the moment and I have to say that I'm not sure if it is because the CPU/Motherboard combinations are being fussier or if the RAM modules themselves are not good quality.

Good luck with the RMA and don't forget to let us know how you get on.

[ap42]

My replacement ram arrived yesterday.  I popped it in (slots 1 & 3) and booted up.  It gave me 3 beeps then showed some message about "blah blah ram settings are overclocked & prevent system boot" and then it beeped once and booted into bios. 

I took this to be normal & related to the differences between the ram settings detected by BIOS for the patriot cheapo ram I had in there.

I reset the BIOS to defaults, then set up all the standard BIOS settings as before, still using 1.53v for DDR & 1.4v for CPU.  Then set the ram to be 7-7-7-21-2T.

Booted into windows fine.  Ran an hour of prime95 fine.  Shut it off & let it sit for an hour, booted back up fine.   Let it power down into sleep mode (have windows set to go to sleep after 3 hours) overnight & rebooted it this morning fine.   Powered it off & will let it sit all day & see if it cold-boots tonight.

I'm crossing my fingers & hoping this ram is good.   If I can get a week's worth of cold boots with no issues I'll be satisfied.  Still, I think I should have been upgraded to DDR3-1600 ram for my trouble/time/money wasted.

[absic]

Hi again,

Looks promising and I'll keep my fingers crossed for you. 

[ap42]

Booted up fine when I got home.  Put it into sleep & it booted up fine an hour later.   Had it sleep over night & it booted up fine this morning.

I'm going to consider it resolved for now.  Still, I'll probably be nervous every time I boot up or come out of sleep for the next couple months. 

Hopefully this ram is rock solid & will never have the cold boot issues I had with the first set.

Thanks for all the help.