I recently bought the following to upgrade my rig:
ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard
AMD Athlon X2 3800+ CPU
2 x 1GB Apacer Vitesa 800Mhz RAM Sticks
ASUS NVidia 7950GT VGA Card
Cooler Master 550W Power Supply (SLI Ready)
Before I start, I am asking here because ASUS Technical Support are almost impossible to contact. Their lines are busy 100% of the time I call.
Now for the problem. Everything on installation worked fine. I added all components, with one RAM stick at first. Worked like a dream. high frame rates, beautiful video. Then I added the second RAM stick and the problems started. The system wouldn’t even post to let me into BIOS. I took the RAM back and was told the RAM sticks weren’t identical, so they exchanged them for 2 that were (the ones listed above), showed me - on the exact same motherboard and processor that I have - that they worked. Then I went home and installed each stick alone to check functionaliy. All OK. Then I put both in together, same problem. One long beep followed by two short beeps. The BIOS is Phoenix, and the beeps indicate a memory error. Took out both sticks of memory and check individually again. Both OK. Changed RAM settings to run at 667Mhz and tried to instal together. Same beeps. Downloaded latest BIOS and flashed using ASUS flash utility, still wouldn’t work. I am at a loss. The RAM must be OK because it works with single sticks, so this seems to point to the DDR2 function on the motherboard. I have checked all over the internet and seen lots of people with the same problem but it is nearly OCZ RAM that they refer to. So, I have no idea what to do. ASUS must have about two people on Technical Support because I just cannot contact them. Can anyone offer any advice? Or suggest a technical professional I can call to check my PC?
Have you checked the manual properly?
The thing is, these days all motherboard use dual-channel technology and you should use two sticks at a time. But you need to put them in the right slots to reap the benefit of this.
However, it doesn’t seem like you’re new at this, the only thing I can think of is that there’s some kind of compatibility problem between that motherboard and the A-data memory and that the new BIOS didn’t fix this.
I’d suggest that you enter the BIOS and try lowering the memory speed settings or at least set it to run by SPD (this is the information programmed into a small chip on the memory modules) or maybe relax the memory timings to something like 5-5-5-15 (if you know what that means).
You should also check what voltage those memory modules are supposed to operate at, as sometimes high-performance memory like that needs more than 1.8V which is the default setting if I remember right.
I have some Kingston modules and they need 2.1V to work properly in my board at 800MHz. I guess that might be your problem as well, so check the specs for the A-data modules and set the voltage to 1.9-2.1V and it might solve your problem.
Oh, one other thing, what kind of PSU do you have? If the PSU is flakey this might be an issue as you’ve added one component too many, but unlikely in this case.
I would suggest doing a ‘reset settings to default’ in your BIOS and try again. If it still doesn’t work, return the motherboard to where you bought it, or take the whole kit in and make them find a configuration that works. It could also be a power supply problem.
Yea, dont you just love computers? you buy some hardware to gain better performance instead it gives you problems… I dont know why I had problems like that before, where 2 sticks caused problems. I even had an instance where I put in an AGP Geforce 6600 in an older Asus Athalon based motherboard and Windows wouldnt start in any resolution other than 640x480x256 colors. Other resolutions just caused the windows to completely freeze at the black screen. Still to this day can’t figure out why it did that, took the thing back and got a PCI express motherboard and video card and no more problem.
Oh and thats another thing about computer shops… since alot of them are owned by small family based business their return policy generally sucks (no return and/or exchange unless it is confirmed to be defective and even then it’s the manufacturer’s business to get you a new one) so check the return policy before buying… even though everyone does the same thing some shops are nicer than others in order to get your business since their pay is based on commission. You might get better return policy from bigger firms like 3C or whatever…