GA-EP45-UD3P and Mushkin Memory problems

[Maafeekee]

I just received my GA-EP45-UD3P last night and I'm afraid the BIOS options are a bit over my head. The board first entered a reboot loop with two sticks in dual channel configuration. I bought 4 sticks for 8Gb and was immediately worried that I couldn't get two to work.

(Mushkin 996587 Newegg.com - mushkin 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory )

With one stick in I was able to get into BIOS and noticed that the board had under clocked my chip or misidentified it. I forget the exact settings but the clock speed was 2.83Ghz, forget the exact multiplier, 8.5?. I changed that to the 3.0Ghz (E8400) it is supposed to be and thought that was the problem, but it was still a no go. Unless the board was correct and I messed that up.

I've spent most of the morning trying to figure this out and that eventually led me here.

I had no plans to overclock this system (which is why I went with the cheap ram) and I see now this is a bit of a tweakers board. It was highly recommended to me since my previous system and its replacement were plagued by bad caps. I hope those days are behind me.

Any assistance on getting this up and running with 4Gbs in dual channel?

Thanks!

[Nickel020]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P and Mushkin Memory problems

Are you sure you have an E8400 and not an E8300 (this one has 2.83Ghz stock)?

Try each stick seperately and run Prime 95 in Windows for at least one hour. If you get an error, then the stick is defective.

The board is indeed a tweaker's board and by many considered to be the best board 24/7 use.

[Maafeekee]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P and Mushkin Memory problems

Unless Intel messed up and put an E8300 in the box. I didn't check the numbers on the chip to the box. I guess I should have that. Any way to make sure? Would a cpuid program verify or do they just pull numbers from BIOS?

The retail box says, E8400 Prod code: BX80570E8400. Box was sealed and purchased from Newegg.

I have 2 sticks in now, but they're side by side meaning they're both in single channel operation(?). I didn't know that was possible. I did run memtest on these two. It was an older version off a linux USB pendrive, if that matters.

It has been about three years since I've built a system and that was an AMD box. So I'm sorry if I sound like a complete noob. Three years probably means I am.

[Nickel020]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P and Mushkin Memory problems

The RAM is supposed to be in same color slots. But do try each RAM stick seperately in Windows in Prime 95. Old memtest versions tend to not find errors sometimes and run fine while Prime 95 finds the error, that's why I recommend it.

Use load optimized defaults in BIOS to see if that gets you the correct CPU speed. Looks like your BIOS wasn't set to stock settings when the board shipped for some reason.

[Maafeekee]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P and Mushkin Memory problems

Ok, I'll be back in a couple of hours. Just going to test two and will be happy with 4Gb in dual channel mode. I'll worry about the other 4 when I'm sure there isn't a serious problem with the board or the memory.

I did flash the BIOS and I did load optimized defaults after the flash. Speed was detected correctly and the fine (.5) cpu optimizer was disabled. Before I could adjust it.

Thanks so much for the help.

[Maafeekee]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P and Mushkin Memory problems

I ran two sticks separately for an hour and I'm guessing they passed. No errors or anything. I hope I wasn't suppose to run a log because I did not see an option for it.

I'm a bit worried about my temps. 68C during Prime 95. I might have to reseat the heatsink. Temp is fine now 28-45C depending on what I'm doing.

Ok, so assuming my memory is good, why can't I get two sticks to run in dual channel?

[clo007]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P and Mushkin Memory problems

It seems these UD3P/UD3R are having memory controller issues with certain ram. I have a UD3R and can't run in dual channel either. I have bought a rev 1.0 and rev 1.1 boards and both had the same issue.
I tried 5 different sets of ram on both boards, and none of them will run in dual channel. i contacted Gigabyte tech support and they are not helping at all, as they are saying this is not a known issue.

[Nickel020]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P and Mushkin Memory problems

@clo007
If you tried 5 sets of RAM then it's not a RAM compatbility issue, either something is wrong with the board or some BIOS settings need adjusting.

68C for the CPU is still Ok as long as it's stable btw. Nd you don't need to log anything, when you stop Prime 95 it will report whether there were any errors or it will stop by itself if there are any errors. The fact that it's stable with each stick by itself means that the RAM itself is OK and that the issue is the board or most likely some RAM timings in the BIOS. Download and run Memset from tweakers.fr and post a screenshot please.

PS: Have you used "load optimized defaults" in BIOS and did the CPU speed appear correctly after that?

[Maafeekee]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P and Mushkin Memory problems



I hope I did that correctly.

After a "Load Default Settings", it did have the correct CPU speed.

[Nickel020]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P and Mushkin Memory problems

If load default settings fixed the CPU speed then other settings might have been off before. Have you tried it with 2 RAM sticks after loading them?

There are several other people here in the forum and elsewhere who for a yet unknown reason also can't run dual channel. Could you try putting two RAM sticks in different color slots to see if it works in single channel mode?

I have something else to try for you which I think may fix it but try the above first please.

[Maafeekee]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P and Mushkin Memory problems

Two ram sticks in different color slots is working. I am running 4Gb in single channel mode. They only work in slots DDR2_1 and DDR2_2. Not in slots DDR2_3 or DDR2_4. Still no dual channel.

[Nickel020]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P and Mushkin Memory problems

I think I'm getting on to the problem, which obviously has to do with dual channel mode.

Go into the BIOS, and go to advanced timinigs. There go to channel A and B timings and set DIMM 1 and 2 Clock Skew to +100 for and the same to -100 for B. Try this the other way around as well.

I think the problem has to do with the different memory channels not being in sync and this is the setting that adjusts that.

[Maafeekee]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P and Mushkin Memory problems

That did not seem to fix it.

Very frustrating. The system is working very stable except for the dual channel problem.

[Nickel020]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P and Mushkin Memory problems

Try out more of these settings, like setting only one to +100 and leaving the other one at auto or one at +200 and the other at -100. Always try it both ways though.

This could really be the seetting that's causing the problem, it may only be a matter of finding the correct combination.

[Maafeekee]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P and Mushkin Memory problems

I'd tried and still isn't working. Was very time consuming as there are a lot of settings. I may have missed a setting or two, but I certainly hit the majority.

Any other tips or am I at the point where I have to decide to return something?