Getting 4 sticks of RAM Stable...
I've had my IP35 Pro + Q6600 G0 combo now for 2 weeks, and this is my 3rd build ever. It's been both the most joyous and frustrating build ever for me. I love the board, its layout, and its straight-forward BIOS setup that puts the Gigabyte DS3 and Intel Bad Axe 2 from my previous builds to shame.
That said, I'm having major difficulty getting my 4 sticks of 1GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800 stable. I'll lay out my hardware setup and what I've tried.
IP35 Pro Rev. 1.1, BIOS 14
CPU: Q6600 G0 (VID: 1.2875v, below par overclocker)
H/S: Tuniq Tower 120 (not lapped :mad: )
RAM: 4x1GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800
Power Supply: Seasonic S12 650W
VGA: eVGA 8800GT
OS: Vista Home Premium x64
I loaded Vista up and ran the first week with just 2 sticks installed. I found that my Q6600 started to run into a wall around 3.6 Ghz, but can stay completely stable with decent temps (70 degrees small-fft load in Prime95) at up to 3.5 Ghz, regardless of whether it's doing 440x8 or 390x9. So I had it 12 hour small-fft Prime95 stable at 3.52Ghz (440x8) 1.4575 in BIOS (1.39v in HWMonitor under max load) and I'm happy with that considering what seems to be a sub-par G0.
Anyway... to the problem: I can't get the system stable with all 4 sticks being used at the same time. I've done extensive stress testing over the course of 4 days with them in pairs of 2, and in both sets of the IP35's DIMM slots, and so I know that the sticks and DIMM slots are all good. I doubt Vista is the problem in this case either, as it's a fresh install of x64 SP1, which shouldn't have the same 4GB RAM problem that had to be patched out of x64 RC.
Here are my BIOS voltages and and timings:
FSB/multi: Trying both 390x9 and 440x8
RAM Divider: 1:1 (so 780 Mhz or 880 Mhz depending on the configuration, both seem to be equally stable/unstable)
vCore: 1.4575v
MCH: 1.48v
CPU VTT: 1.31v
ICH10: 1.7v
ICH: 1.09v
DDR2: 2.20v
DDR2 REF: +2%
CPU GTLREF: 70% on both
RAM Timings: 5-5-5-18
C1E & EIST disabled
This is my first attempt at running 4 DIMM's in a motherboard. This is frustrating to the point where I'm considering just dropping the Ballistix and going for a 2x2GB set of Corsair or G.SKILL's, but I'd really prefer to get these Crucial's working and call it a day.
P.S. As I type this I'm actually stable for 50 mins now on the blend test at 440x8. My only new change was setting DDR2 REF to +2%. Could that have been the key? Anything else I might try from those of you with experience pushing 4 DIMM's on this board?