New P4 Extreme Edition/Abit AS8, Mem Problems

[padgettbri]

Hello guys,

I'm new to this forum, humanbeatbox told me it was a good place to seek some help.

I have a new pentium 4 extreme edition setup. I have some memory problems though. Whenever I use my memory above 205 mhz it will crash in games but I can work in windows.

I ran memtest for 3 hours at 250 mhz at 3-4-4-8 and it passed with flying colors.

If I set the mem ratio to 5:4 I can run 250 mhz fsb and it will work fine in games.

I have tried different timings and ran the memory voltage up to 3.0 but it didn't make any difference.

System Specs:
P4 EE 3.4 Unlocked
Abit AS8 (LGA 775, 865PE)
2x512 Corsair 3200XL
Evga Nvidia 6800 Ultra
Audigy 2
2 Westerndigital 120gig
Antec True Power 550

Anyhow I'm trying to figure out if I need new ram or if there is some setting that I'm not setting right.

Also anyone have any advice for what the highest CPU voltage I should use is?

I have an enourmous heatpipe I'm using for cooling until vapochill releases an LGA 775 kit.

I tried running the ram sticks individually. If I do then they work fine above default.

[Lancelot]

A bit off topic; but why on earth didn't you team up such a processor with i925X chipset and DDR2?!

[nissmo300]

Can you get it over 250 FSB?

[padgettbri]

I didn't get a 925 board because I already have an AGP 6800 Ultra and I don't want to go deal with trying to sell it :confused:

I got it up to 260 FSB.

Right now I'm just running it at 250 FSB 5:4 mem ratio at 3.75 Ghz.

[padgettbri]

Just switched the ram to the other two slots and that lets me go up to 225 1:1 without tearing. Weird thing is the tearing occurs in aquamark, doom3 and sof2 but not in other apps.

In slots 1 and 3 I can only get up to 205 1:1 without tearing.

I think I'm just going to exchange the mobo for a new one tomorrow.

[SPQQKY]

A bit off topic; but why on earth didn't you team up such a processor with i925X chipset and DDR2?!

Because that means $400 for memory.....$500 for new video card......all that for 0 gain in performance, or maybe even a loss using CAS 5 DDR2.

[padgettbri]

Well I replaced it with another AS8 today, still doing the same thing.

I might try the gigabyte version and see if that's any different.

I'm still wondering if my RAM might be the culprit.

[AudiMan]

Try running a 5:4 divider with 2.5-3-3-8 timings, if that won't work, try 2.5-2-2.

i865's and i875's don't like using the 5:4 divider with high latencies.

[chaosdriven]

Well I replaced it with another AS8 today, still doing the same thing.

I might try the gigabyte version and see if that's any different.

I'm still wondering if my RAM might be the culprit.

I've been working with an AS8. Initially bought some ADATA ram which worked fine at relaxed timings (3 4 4 8). Then I decided to get some faster memory and purchased some Crucial Ballistix. Then the machine started to have all sorts of instability problems and random reboots. Went back to the ADATA and all is fine. So, I would suggest that if you have some other memory sticks, switch out the memory and see if it makes any difference for you. I'm not speaking disparagingly of the Ballistix, as it has gotten good reviews, but for some reason it appears to be incompatible teamed with my particular AS8 and 2.8D Prescott...