*avoid* gskill 2GBZX with DS3

[Lestat]

ok well got my gskill 2gb kit of ZX today and just like people have reported it doesnt boot.

reason ?

1) the DS3 auto defualts the ram to 1.9v <-- dum since it limits you to cheap low voltage ram.
2) the gskill requires a minimum of 2.0v to boot properly. <-- the ram should be telling the board this and its not
3) after testing i am finding the DS3 auto boots the drma speed at 400mhz, even at 400mhz the ZX ram STILL requires 2.1v to boot.
and at 800mhz it requires 2.2v or higher.
4) for ME 800mhz 4-4-4-12 even at 2.2v will not boot. i have to set it to auto. but at auto its 4-4-4-12. this seems to be an issue with the motherboard.
5) If at anytime your system fails an overclock and does not auto reset its FSB to defaults... your s.o.l. you have reset the bios with the cmos jumper. This will force the vdimm back down to 1.9v and guess what that means ? you have to pull out the gskill and put in an old set that will boot. change the
vdimm to 2.2v. reboot power down change the ram back . then power on and hope it works.
6) this ram get warm and quickly too.
you NEED active cooling on this ram to make it run properly.


if you ahve the DS3 i would avoid this ram your system wont even boot unless you have some low voltage backup ram.

im pretty disappointed in all this. i expected more from gskill.

overclocking isnt that great either. not considering its the HZ's little brother.

[Kunaak]

I have 6 sets of DDR2 here, and only 2 are from the same company (corsair) and 3 conroe boards.

no board or ram I have, will boot at any higher then the lowest available voltage...

as far as I know, ram does not control what voltage its suppose to run at...

[Brahmzy]

That sucks...hope my Plat EL OCZ 800 stuff has better luck...

[Richard Dower]

Bad news then, guess this effects the DS4 and DQ6 also...appears to be a pure bios issue. Lestat...can you email Gigabyte techincal support with your thoughts and observations?

Perhaps we can qucikly get bios updates if people email and make enough fuss.

[Richard Dower]

G.SKILL techs were saying it's an issue with the CL being set to 3 by SPD, and 800MHz DDR2 will not boot with CL3.

I'm confused...i think G.SKILL need to consult with Gigabyte about this as people will read all this and not purchase their products if they don't work on these boards.

[Lestat]

i made a correction to one of my statements.
i made a mistake.
the board doesnt default the ram to 667 it defaults it to 400mhz. which is correct according to the ram's mhz freq.
so its reading the type of ram correctly it just can boot at such a low voltage.

[Lestat]

I have 6 sets of DDR2 here, and only 2 are from the same company (corsair) and 3 conroe boards.

no board or ram I have, will boot at any higher then the lowest available voltage...

as far as I know, ram does not control what voltage its suppose to run at...

i have super duper el cheapo Samsung DDR667 that is 1.9v by default. it boots fine at defualt.
it will also overclock to 800 @ 2.1v
i can cold boot hot boot and boot over and over at 2.1v vdimm and never have an issue.

this is a mixed bag of the the board and the ram.


and gskill is saying WHAT!?? your saying CL do you mean CAS Latency meaning CAS ? if thats so then gskill is lieing their a$$es off to keep themselves out of hot water.

there are tons of ddr II modules that boot at cas 3. wth....

[Richard Dower]

If that's the case then it HAS to be the CAS Latency...if it's setting it to CL3 by default or SPD it won't boot. It's not rated to run CL3 even at 1.9V and DDR2 400.

Thoughts?

[Lestat]

If that's the case then it HAS to be the CAS Latency...if it's setting it to CL3 by default or SPD it won't boot. It's not rated to run CL3 even at 1.9V and DDR2 400.

Thoughts?

i mis-misread my cpu-z reading.

its not booting at 400mhz ie DDRII 400 its booting at the spd which is DDRII 800. cpu-z 400 i just got mixed up as im runnig a million numbers thru my head right now.

it is auto defaulting to it desired speed. and at 1.9v yes it cant boot.

[Richard Dower]

So it's DDR2 800MHz by SPD, what is the voltage by SPD?

If it's 1.9V at SPD it won't boot...as you say it need to be 2.1-2.2V
What the SPD memory timings?..also, is it 1T or 2T, that could also be the issue...it may need 2T.

[Lestat]

and just so you all know

here is the ram set to 533 memory and auto SPD.

its not booting at CAS 3 its 100% booting at CAS 4

[bobdelt]

G.skill is putting the blame on gigabyte, but the problem seems to be only with g.skill ram. So I think its G.skill's fault for memory not being properly identified by the board, otherwise it would be a problem with all ddr2 800 ram.

[Donnie27]

i have super duper el cheapo Samsung DDR667 that is 1.9v by default. it boots fine at defualt.
it will also overclock to 800 @ 2.1v
i can cold boot hot boot and boot over and over at 2.1v vdimm and never have an issue.

this is a mixed bag of the the board and the ram.


and gskill is saying WHAT!?? your saying CL do you mean CAS Latency meaning CAS ? if thats so then gskill is lieing their a$$es off to keep themselves out of hot water.

there are tons of ddr II modules that boot at cas 3. wth....

I knew that price was too good to be true!

[Lestat]

i got gskills answer to "no DDRII will boot at cas 3"
right friggin here.

im gunna call them and see what kinda poo they try and talk.


my system booted right up at cas 3 so take that gskill!! *edit* this is with my elcheapo ram.

[Richard Dower]

Lestat..show the next screen, where it shows SPD values.
That window suggests manually set timings, it dosen't seem right. It should be 4-4-4-12, not 4-3-3-9.

[Lestat]

Lestat..show the next screen, where it shows SPD values.
That window suggests manually set timings, it dosen't seem right. It should be 4-4-4-12, not 4-3-3-9.

why should it be 4-4-4-12 ? there's nothing saying any ram should be 12.

and no its 100% auto. im not even using the ctrl F1 feature to change anything. just the vanilla bios settings.

[realsmasher]

That sucks...hope my Plat EL OCZ 800 stuff has better luck...

plz tell me if you know more.

and Lestat, are you sure it's only g.skill that makes such problems and not ANY 800mhz/cl4 ram ?

[Richard Dower]

If it's booting at CAS 4 then what is the problem???????
I'm confused.....if SPD boots at CAS4 then what is the issue, you said the memory would not boot at all.

[Lestat]

richard you need to read my original thread post.
please dont skim thru things.

[Lestat]

plz tell me if you know more.

and Lestat, are you sure it's only g.skill that makes such problems and not ANY 800mhz/cl4 ram ?

i have no idea im not making any claims other than this gskill just like the thread title says.
no where do i make any claims to the contrary.

the gskill does say right on it 2.0-2.1v DDR800 BUT BUT BUT
it wont even boot at 2.1v you must set 2.2v

[Richard Dower]

why should it be 4-4-4-12 ? there's nothing saying any ram should be 12.

and no its 100% auto. im not even using the ctrl F1 feature to change anything. just the vanilla bios settings.

G.SKILL have rated the memory to run 4-4-4-12 at 2.0-2.1V @ DDR2 800MHz.
You can manually set lower timgs to see what is the best values you can get, BUT...G.SKILL recomend the values i stated above.

But if you are booting the memory with default SPD values and everything works then what is the problem?

[Richard Dower]

Let's start again, you install the memory and power on the PC, it won't boot...yes?

So you take the memory out and use some generic brand to get the PC to boot, yes?...you then enter bios and manually set timings and voltage, correct?

You set voltage to what 2.1V?, and change timings to 4-3-3-9?

So at 266FSB = 533MHz memory she's up and running with 2.1V....but if you try set timings to 4-4-4-12 and 2.2V and increase the memory speed to 800MHz...it won't boot?
If yes then that makes things clearer.

[Lestat]

dude wtf. i mean seriously wtf.
are you not reading anything i have said.

omg....

read my ORIGINAL POST and that will tell you EVERYTHING.


the whole fvking point is kid, if you dont have any friggin extra ram laying around your fooked. you are up crap creek without a paddle.

I HAVE extra,, not everyone does.

so the ram is 100% worthless to anyone who doesnt have extra ram laying around to raise the vdimm.

so why dont you tell me what the problem is?


not to mention the fact that if you dont set +.04v in the bios it wont boot.

the ram wont even friggin boot at gskills set voltage, it has to be higher.

so whats the problem ? you tell me.


the problem is no matter if you are running higher than stock ram or lower than stock ram if you friggin fail on an overclock you MUST remove the ram, and redo the whole ram swapping b.s. to get the system to boot again.

the retarded ram wont even boot at lower volts and lower mhz than the stock DDR800
it wont even boot at DDR 667 @ 2.1v you must set 2.2v or your screwed.
so you tell me what the problem is.

im NOT sorry for the attitude. i clearly stated the problem and you didnt even listen. not to mention i backed up the claims over and over.

[Richard Dower]

I'm just trying to get to grips with the issue, as i have a DQ6 and the ZX kit myself. I understand the main issue...if you don't have any spare DDR2 memory you are screwed, as you can't boot and manually change the voltage.

I am surprised to hear the memory needs more the 2.1V to even boot at 800MHz, G.SKILL have said, and i emailed them the link to this thread, that the issue is with the CAS Latency being set by SPD to 3, but apparently in your case this is not the problem.

I'm not fighting with you and i do understand your postings..i'm just trying to gain as much insight so as when i build my PC i can anticipate what the problems might be and how to resolve the issue.

[Lestat]

good results on the high side of things..

this is with 2.3v