GA-EP45-UD3P 16gb 2 x Crucial CT2KIT51264AA667

[bigbillyt]

I have been researching this a lot online and for a long time now. I, like many other folks, want to get a system up and running with 16gb using an inexpensive desktop motherboard and, relatively, inexpensive DDR2 memory.

To make a very long story very short, I finally settled on the EP45-Ud3P. Number one, becasue I vowed long ago never to give another dime to Asus, and number two because it has excellent specs for the price.

So, as I said, I have researched this quite a bit, and I finally pulled the trigger on the motherboard. I see folks having a lot of trouble with the various 8 and 16gb kits from OCZ on this board. I also see that availability for the G.Skill and Kingston 2x4gb and 4x4gb kits is really bad. Even the OCZ Gold and Platinum 8 and 16gb kits are on backorder most places that I would consider purchasing from.

So, my question come down to this: Have any of you had any reports of anyone successfully running this motherboard with two of the Crucial CT2KIT51264AA667 kits for a total of 16gb?

Crucial's site seems to insinuate that they have qualified this board with that configuration but I do not get the impression, from everything that I have read, that this is likely to go smoothly for me with this board either way.

Or, should I sit tight and wait for a BIOS revision and maybe better availability and pricing for DDR2 4gb DIMMS?

Alternately, I can swap out the EP45-UD3P for the DQ6 version if that is more likely to yield positive results.

I can make do with 8gb for now if necessary, I just need to get a system up to do some virtualization testing at home.

[kick]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P 16gb 2 x Crucial CT2KIT51264AA667

There is a 16gb post somwhere on the forum.
the mem manufacturers dont guarantee 2 sets of 2 will work the same as one of their tested 4 stick sets as you know,and thats generally for 8g instead of 4g.
Id imagine 16 instead of 8 would be even harder on timings/voltages.
Its probably to do with "binning" etc.

Newegg.com - G.SKILL 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1100 (PC2 8800) Quad Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory
doesnt seem too bad..but I dont feel the urge for 4G + yet

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P 16gb 2 x Crucial CT2KIT51264AA667

Well here is the threads mentioned above >>>

http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69/ga-ep45-ud3p-ocz-16gb-ram-30080/

http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69/ep45-16gb-ram-28408/

Myself, I would contact Crucial directly and ask if it has been tested for sure or not before purchasing.

[bigbillyt]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P 16gb 2 x Crucial CT2KIT51264AA667

Lsdme,

Thanks, I had already read through those threads. That is one of the reasons I had not tried the OCZ memory kits yet ;-)

I went ahead and called Crucial. I got right through to a very good guy in support there. He told me that they did not test each set of memory with each specific motherboard. They simply test with a specific Intel chipset, such as the P45. So, they can't necessarily gaurantee that 2 of the 8gb kits will work in that board. He did say that he could see that they had sold a few of those kits, and some in quantities of 2 and 4 kits, with no returns. I took that as a good sign, but of course it does not speak to the compatability with this particuar motherboard.

The reason I was pursuing this particular avenue was that I saw Amazon had 2 sets of the CT2KIT51264AA667 for $189.94 each. This was too good of a price to pass up. I so regretted missing out on the Kingston 8gb kits when Newegg had them for around $200 that I went ahead and pulled the trigger. At 667 it may not be the fastest thing out there, but at least I will be able to get lots of VMs up and running simultaneously. Which, to me, is more important.

I will have this up and tested this weekend. If I have any problems with the memory running in that board I have one last play left. I will retrun it and try the DQ6 version if necessary. After that I will resign myself to 8gb until there is a decent board for the Core i7 and some 4gb DDR3 DIMMS with proven compatibility.

Thanks for all yor help. I will be sure to report how this goes so anybody else wanting to try this can benefit from my experience.

[bigbillyt]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P 16gb 2 x Crucial CT2KIT51264AA667

Well, I got the memory last night and installed it first thing this morning. So far so good, 16gb RAM running and I did not have to do anything in the BIOS settings. I have spent the better part of the day getting Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise 64 bit set up.

I have not had a chance to run memtest yet, but I wil later this evening.

The only other issue I am having is with an intermittent BSOD that blows out the ICH10 SATA RAID and the Intel Matrix Storage Manager runs a forced verify on the array. This was happening before I got the memory in there. I was initially testing with just 2 generic G.Skill DDR2 800 2gb sticks to just get the board setup and tested before I added the 16gb.

I will continue to set everything up, do some more tests and let you all know how it goes.

[bigbillyt]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P 16gb 2 x Crucial CT2KIT51264AA667

Okay, I tested the 16gb memory with Memtest86+. I did 3 full passes, which took about 12 hours. Everything passed perfectly.

So, the good news is, if anybody is looking for a really simple way to get 16gb up and running on this board, with no special tweaks necessary, the Crucial 667 kits are the way to go.

The bad news is, since I got mine on Amazon, they are no longer available there, and the price on Crucial is exactly twice what I paid.

System: Motherboard: GA-EP45-UD3P, BIOS: f8, CPU: Q6600, RAM Crucial 2 x CT2KIT51264AA667 (16gb total), GPU: EVGA 9600GT 512mb, Hard Drives: 2 x 74gb WD Raptor (Dual Boot W2k3 and W2k8 x64), + 4 x Seagate 320gb in RAID 5 for 894gb storage total.

[bigbillyt]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P 16gb 2 x Crucial CT2KIT51264AA667

Just a quick FYI, they have these on Newegg right now, in stock, for 230 USD.

I highly recommend these for this board, I have my setup tweaked out and working smooth like butta'.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P 16gb 2 x Crucial CT2KIT51264AA667

Very nice to see you got this all setup without issues! Sorry I missed your original post back when you first got the ram! Glad to see it was a simple setup for you

Post back anytime if you need some help, or want to drop in some tips for anyone who may get this ram in the future.

Thanks much for posting back for others!!

*EDIT*

What kind of Everest Ultimate scores do you see with something like that? Mind posting a screenshot of some bench's? If so, and you do not have Everest you can get a trial here >>>

http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69/latest-overclocking-programs-system-info-benchmarking-stability-tools-30530/

To run the test I would like to see a image of go to the "Tools" menu at the top and then in the drop down choose "Cache and Memory Benchmark"

Thanks

[Zombeezy]

GA-EP45-UD3P 16gb 2 x Crucial CT2KIT51264AA667

I hope that somebody else also tries two Crucial 8GB kits and confirms they work in the GA-EP45-UD3P. My wife would flip if I bought them and couldn't get them working!

I'm avoiding the OCZ 8GB kits for 16GB until I see what Toms HW publishes on their investigation/testing on this.

bigbillyt seems to be the only one around with 16GB working, or at least reported working. Oh sure, different variations of the Gigabtye EP-45 mobd's work with 16GB, but the UD3P seems a bit trickier. It's not well known as a problem still in that most everyone else with the UD3P are running less than 16GB.

Motherboards are so capable these days that you'd think part of the boot-up process could run some sort of cpuid code, figure out what you have installed and make it work. Sure, leave all the tweaking capability for OCing, but what about just trying for the barest capable functionality without having to really monkey around so much?

Anyway, Amazon is still OOS on the Crucials 8GB kits, but Newegg has them back. With money a bit tight right now, I bought the 2GB Crucial version of the 8GB kit (CT2KIT12864AA667) just so I can make sure everything else in the system works until I can afford a CT2KIT51264AA667 kit next month. And if that works and I want more, I'll try another one the following month.