X48 Rampage Formula Preview.

[mikeyakame]

The good news: The new G.Skill RAM has arrived. I like them. Nice heat sink design!

The bad news: I get twice as many errors in Memtest86+ with the G.Skill RAM than with the OCZ Reaper RAM. How come everybody can run the G.Skill in Memtest86+ and get no errors for hours except me?

It looks like I'll be trying the new 0410 BIOS since it says "improved memory compatability" as the tag line.



__________________
Asus X48 Rampage Formula / Intel Q9450 / 2 x 2GB OCZ Reaper HPC PC2 8500 / VisionTek Radeon HD3870X2 OverClocked Edition /
Western Digital Raptor X Hard Drive / Two Western Digital Caviar RE2 WD5001ABYS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drives /
Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Elite Pro 7.1 / Creative Gigaworks S750 7.1 Speaker System /
Lian Li 343B cube case / PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Crossfire Edition

have you tried manually setting the primary memory timings and vdimm correctly?

[traveler]

have you tried manually setting the primary memory timings and vdimm correctly?

Thanks for your reply mikeyakame.

I finally flashed to the 0410 BIOS. Big changes in a good direction. Before with the 0407 BIOS I was getting lots and lots of errors on a pass of MemTest86+ with the GSkill RAM. Now I get about a dozen errors on a pass. But still, there should be zero errors when one runs MemTest86+.

My settings ATM are-

Ai Overclock Tuner ...............Manual
FSB freq ............................333
PCIE .................................101
DRAM freq ..........................DDR2 1066
DRAM command rate ............ 2N
DRAM Timing Control ..............Manual
CAS ................................... 5
RAS to CAS ......................... 5
RAS pre time ....................... 5
RAS ACT time ...................... 15

Ai Clock Twister .................... Lighter

CPU voltage ........................ 1.1375
NB voltage .......................... 1.37
DRAM voltage ...................... 2.1

All other items are on auto or default settings


I have not yet tried the OCZ Reaper RAM I have.


__________________
Asus X48 Rampage Formula / Intel Q9450 / 2 x 2GB OCZ Reaper HPC PC2 8500 / VisionTek Radeon HD3870X2 OverClocked Edition /
Western Digital Raptor X Hard Drive / Two Western Digital Caviar RE2 WD5001ABYS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drives /
Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Elite Pro 7.1 / Creative Gigaworks S750 7.1 Speaker System /
Lian Li 343B cube case / PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Crossfire Edition

[traveler]

Oh, ...

I forgot to say ...

The failing address of the memory according to the MemTest86+ error list is always 00000000000. No matter which test; no matter what pattern; whether I used the OCZ RAM or the GSkill RAM ... the failing address would always be 00000000000.

Hope that gives a clue.



__________________
Asus X48 Rampage Formula / Intel Q9450 / 2 x 2GB OCZ Reaper HPC PC2 8500 / VisionTek Radeon HD3870X2 OverClocked Edition /
Western Digital Raptor X Hard Drive / Two Western Digital Caviar RE2 WD5001ABYS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drives /
Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Elite Pro 7.1 / Creative Gigaworks S750 7.1 Speaker System /
Lian Li 343B cube case / PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Crossfire Edition

[flylow]

Oh, ...

I forgot to say ...

The failing address of the memory according to the MemTest86+ error list is always 00000000000. No matter which test; no matter what pattern; whether I used the OCZ RAM or the GSkill RAM ... the failing address would always be 00000000000.

Hope that gives a clue.

Did you try to disable USB legacy in the BIOS and check whether you still have those errors?

I hope this helps you, I have read some of your posts and know you have been jumping through hoops to get up and running. I had no problems with my Rampage Formula at all, except for being too poor to come up with the cash to buy everything all at once. I ended up with the G.Skill PC28000 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231145 simply to save money so I could finally get my system up and running. Going from a P4 3.2, Visiontek 850XT PE AGP to an E8600 with a Visiontek 4870 was quite a jump for me.

Good luck, hopefully all will come together and you will be up and running soon!

From:
http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?...Language=en-us

"Asus uses some of the system RAM to cache data for the code to handle legacy USB devices, while memtest is running some of that day may change or be moved by the BIOS, which in turn causes it to be different than when memtest is expecting to see hence the error. This isn't a real error though, the system has simply moved the data to a different part of RAM and re-pointed the memory address to that location, however memtest needs complete control of all the RAM to be accurate so it sees the change as corrupt data.

As AL said, disable legacy USB support (don't leave it on auto, disable it) while you run memtest. Once memtest has completed if you're all clear you can enable legacy USB again and go on with things. If legacy USB is disabled and you still get errors, well then you've got an issue and we'll help you solve it."

"It's just easier for most people to turn it off and test instead of running a few passes over a number of hours to see it fail because they forgot one of their devices was USB 1.1."

From:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/FORUMS/...=184503&page=5

"For everyone to know.
I had multiple errors with memtest86+, always at address '00000000000 - 0.0MB'.
I disabled USB Legacy in BIOS and the errors vanished.
It seems to be a known trick but I think its great to mention it again in this thread.
I run bios (0401) btw."

[traveler]

Did you try to disable USB legacy in the BIOS and check whether you still have those errors?

I hope this helps you, I have read some of your posts and know you have been jumping through hoops to get up and running. I had no problems with my Rampage Formula at all, except for being too poor to come up with the cash to buy everything all at once. I ended up with the G.Skill PC28000 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231145 simply to save money so I could finally get my system up and running. Going from a P4 3.2, Visiontek 850XT PE AGP to an E8600 with a Visiontek 4870 was quite a jump for me.

Good luck, hopefully all will come together and you will be up and running soon!

From:
http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?...Language=en-us

"Asus uses some of the system RAM to cache data for the code to handle legacy USB devices, while memtest is running some of that day may change or be moved by the BIOS, which in turn causes it to be different than when memtest is expecting to see hence the error. This isn't a real error though, the system has simply moved the data to a different part of RAM and re-pointed the memory address to that location, however memtest needs complete control of all the RAM to be accurate so it sees the change as corrupt data.

As AL said, disable legacy USB support (don't leave it on auto, disable it) while you run memtest. Once memtest has completed if you're all clear you can enable legacy USB again and go on with things. If legacy USB is disabled and you still get errors, well then you've got an issue and we'll help you solve it."

"It's just easier for most people to turn it off and test instead of running a few passes over a number of hours to see it fail because they forgot one of their devices was USB 1.1."

From:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/FORUMS/...=184503&page=5

"For everyone to know.
I had multiple errors with memtest86+, always at address '00000000000 - 0.0MB'.
I disabled USB Legacy in BIOS and the errors vanished.
It seems to be a known trick but I think its great to mention it again in this thread.
I run bios (0401) btw."

I owe you a six pack flylow!!!!!!! Thanks heaps Bud!!! Yours was the post that did it!!!!!

This was it: "....disable legacy USB support (don't leave it on auto, disable it) while you run memtest. Once memtest has completed if you're all clear you can enable legacy USB again and go on with things." Plus, of course, the explanation as to why.

I now have the OCZ Reaper PC2 8500 RAM in the slots. And I now keep turning down the voltage on the RAM, the voltage on the Northbridge, and the voltage on the CPU now ... And I now keep getting zero errors each time !!!!!!! I'm lovin' it!





__________________
Asus X48 Rampage Formula / Intel Q9450 / 2 x 2GB OCZ Reaper HPC PC2 8500 / VisionTek Radeon HD3870X2 OverClocked Edition /
Western Digital Raptor X Hard Drive / Two Western Digital Caviar RE2 WD5001ABYS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drives /
Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Elite Pro 7.1 / Creative Gigaworks S750 7.1 Speaker System /
Lian Li 343B cube case / PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Crossfire Edition

[flylow]

I owe you a six pack flylow!!!!!!! Thanks heaps Bud!!! Yours was the post that did it!!!!!

This was it: "....disable legacy USB support (don't leave it on auto, disable it) while you run memtest. Once memtest has completed if you're all clear you can enable legacy USB again and go on with things." Plus, of course, the explanation as to why.

I now have the OCZ Reaper PC2 8500 RAM in the slots. And I now keep turning down the voltage on the RAM, the voltage on the Northbridge, and the voltage on the CPU now ... And I now keep getting zero errors each time !!!!!!! I'm lovin' it!

Awesome!! Glad it worked. Luckily I only had USB 2.0 devices running otherwise I would have been dealing with the same issue. Thank google, a search for "MemTest86 error 00000000000" provided the answer. I did not have clue one but definately will remember about USB 1.1 on Asus motherboards messing with memtest.

My system is not in a case yet, been running it on a table, still researching cases for next month. I just cannot quite squeeze it in my old case with the Radeon 4870. Then a new monitor in a another month or two. Somewhere in there I will probably buy some G.Skill or Mushkin PC2-8500 to replace my G.Skill PC2-8000. Still using my old Audigy 2 soundcard, sounds better than the almost soundcard that Asus gives with the Rampage Formula, IMO.

Anyway glad that you seem to finally be up and running. Have fun.