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Abit IC7-MAX3 intermittent boot issues

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danl

n00b
Joined
Apr 26, 2005
Messages
9
Hello,
I've posted this problem a couple weeks back and didn't get any answers, and I've been scouring the web ever since but still haven't turned up with any solutions.

Symptoms:
1) This only happens about a third of the time. Upon cold boot, the system will fail to POST even though the fan's spin and the hard drives and cdroms spin up and LEDs flicker. Nothing appears on screen and I don't get the single beep I'm waiting for. To fix, I need to power down and power up the system again and then it boots up properly.

2) Most games seem to crash back to the desktop within 10-15 mins. HL2, CoD UO, DS2.

System:
P4 Northwood 1.6 o/ced to 2.4 (150Mhz FSB)
Abit IC7-MAX3
2x Corsair 512 PC3200 running dual channel at 200Mhz (3:4 ratio with the FSB)
Xfx Nvidia 6600GT
Antec Truepower 380W PSU

While the power supply may be low, I do not think thats the problem. I have been running this config on an older giga-byte 8iexp motherboard until I switched over to the IC7-MAX3.

What I've already tried:
Reapply AS5 to all HSFs including the video card
Format and clean install of winxp
Prime95 and SuperPI test for 2+ hours, no errors
3Dmark05 looping stress test for 1-2 hours, no errors

Suspicions:
1. Bad motherboard?
2. Not enough juice from the PSU
3. Memory incompatibility. The 2 corsair sticks, one was bought 3 years ago, but is still PC3200. The newer stick is a Corsair Value Select bought a month ago.

Checked the Abit and Xfx forums for help, but getting nowhere. Does not seem to be a heat related issue. Any suggestions at all will be much appreciated, Thanks
 
Long shot, but do you have any usb stuff hooked up?
I had a bad usb hub causing this kind of problem, once I removed it everything was fine.
 
I dont think so. I have only 3 USB devices connected, a usb MS mouse, dell axim cradle, and a hard drive usb2.0 enclosure. Good advice though, I will disconnect them.
 
Doh turns out to be the memory. Ran memtest86 and after pass 2, a couple failures came up. Weird prime95 shows no errors. It seems that one Corsair XMS 3200 module will not play nice with a Corsair Value Select PC3200.

Any ideas? I really don't want to go back to single channel mode (which I did and confirmed memtest86 returned no errors). I tried upping the voltage to 2.7, got errors. Set the timing from Auto to 2.5-3-3-7, got errors. 2.5-3-3-8, still got errors.

Suggestions? Should I try 2.8v? Or maybe 3-4-4-8? Or will that just be worse for performance than going back to single channel?
 
Well... Glad you figured out your problem. I wouldn't reccommend mixing and matching sticks for dual channel operation. Ideally you would have same make sticks from same batch. From what you are saying, it seems like single channel is the way to go for now if you don't want to buy new RAM. Also, as for your "stability" tests, those are far too short. I wouldn't consider it stable unless you have done a 24hr torture test. More than likely it would have failed prime95 had you let the test run longer. You might want to toy with the timings in dual channel, but I don't think the voltage is going to help, since the ram is running within it's specified clockspeed.
 
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