FAO mdzcpa

[Player0]

I know you use Corsair PC3000 just like me. I was reading HardOCP and found this:

"ABIT has been notorious in the past for sporadically having flaky DIMM slots on their boards. I thought I was experiencing the same thing again with our AT7, until I got an expert explanation directly from VIA. The problem I had was that I couldn't get the board to operate at 183MHz FSB with DIMMs in slots 1 and 2. We were using heavily overvolted DIMMs at 2.8 volts.

The guys over at VIA gave me an explanation on this subject. The problem ends ends up not really being anyone's fault, and certainly not ABIT's, as we are running the memory way outside the power and bus specifications. The first and second DIMM slots are controlled by one "voltage controller" while the second and third slots are controlled by another separate unit. Moving our DIMMs to slots one and three puts the sticks on separate channels as far as power delivery is concerned on VIA's current chipset. This information relates to KT266A chipsets as well. The moral of the story here is don't expect to utilize all slots if your RAM needs a high voltage to operate at highly overclocked memory bus speeds."

So basically, using slots 1 and 3 will allow you to provide better signals to your RAM. I certainly buy that, it makes alot of sense. I'd try it, but im down for the count for a week or two. Why dont you try this Mike and see if you get any more stability like this? Have you done the Vmem mod yet?

[dicki]

good info player, that wouldn't even have occured to me

[mdzcpa]

Player0:

Thanks for the tip:) I had already tried this and I believe there is definitely an advantage to running the sticks in DIMMs in 1 and 3 (or even 2 and 4).

In fact, in the past I've always found moving my memory around in the various DIMMs always led to a configuration which was "more stable" at higher speeds and settings, or just more overclockable in general. This is espeically true on the newer Abit mobos which have an "extra" DIMM beyond most of the competition's offerings. On the KR7A I found that DIMMs 2 and 4 worked best for me. The KG7 was best with DIMMS 2 and 4 filled, and the KT7A was 1 and 3.

Running 1 and 3 on the KX7, although it did not increase my maximum bootable FSB limit, did allow me to get away with running slightly more aggressive timings. In fact, I must confess it was switching to DIMMS 1 and 3 which allowed me to get over 3000 on that Sandra bench:) (My secret is out:D ) For me it was not quite the "night and day" difference HardOCP made it out to be, but there is a difference for sure.

BTW, I also found the same small increase in stability when running the stocks in DIMMS 2 and 4.

Try it when you get your rig back together. There is a definite improvement:)

PS Sorry I didn't get this tid bit of info back to you sooner. I never had a chance to finish my testing completely before the HSF units arrived for testing and I got sidetracked:) For the same reasons I have not had a chance to do the Vmem mod yet either. I will hopefully get to it after the HSF shootout is done.

[Player0]

So your using 2 and 4 now eh? Ill have to try that :)

Yeah, I know that people were trying different ram slots to try and get more stability, i was thinking of trying it before, but didnt put much stock in to it until now :)

[Amd Man]

Wow what a diff on my Asus board, I had my single stick of 512 samsung in dimm #2, that is where is was most stable and where I could clock it the highest. But I also had 2 sticks of 256 Corsair pc2700 just layin around, I tried to use them before and never got anywhere, since i slaped them into dimms' 1 and 3 I am running at 182 right now, before I could only get about 175-180 if I was lucky. I will try for more:D

[mdzcpa]

Schweet AMD Man:D! Let us know how far you get things along.