1066 ram registering at 800

[diluzio91]

Ok so heres the deal, i just built my rig, and am not very up do snuff on the Motherboard bios stuff. My MOBO is a gigabyte MATX board (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128394) and my ram is Patriot Viper (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220426). In the bios i changed the clock from 4X to 5.33X thinking that would fix the issue, but it BSOD as soon as i tried to change it... Please Help!!

[x88x]

I've had that happen a few times where the MBB misread the RAM ...also had it become unstable when I corrected it once or twice... First thing you want to do is check the markings on the RAM to find out what exactly the ideal voltage/clock/timings are, then go into the BIOS and manually set those. DDR2-1066 is really just factory overclocked DDR2-800 anyways, so it's not entirely surprising.

When you changed the clock multiplier, what clock multiplier did you change? Make sure you didn't change the one for the CPU; that'll mess you up bad. Also, check the base clock settings for the RAM and make sure there's not a different base/multiplier combination that gets you closer to your target.

EDIT:
Actually, come to think of it, I believe the base/multiplier pair is printed usually on the stickers on the RAM stick as well, and if you use the wrong combination I think you'll get unstable RAM.

[diluzio91]

Umm... the timings for the ram are 5 5 5 15 and 2.1 Volts. In bios im in DRAM configuration, im assuming the 55515 are for Cas Latency (5T) Ras to Cas R/W delay (5T) Row precharge Time (5t) Minimum RAS active Time (15). is this right?

thanks. =))

Tried changing the timings and voltages to the recommended and it BSOD'd again. =( not a happy day, although when i undid everything it started right up again

[x88x]

Yes, that would be correct. It's explained in more detail here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_timings) if you're interested.

[nevermind1534]

If you change the clock speed in the bios, that's probably also overclocking your CPU, which would cause it to crash.

[diluzio91]

If you change the clock speed in the bios, that's probably also overclocking your CPU, which would cause it to crash.

So if i underclocked the CPU do you think that would help? :?

[Trace]

You needto keep the CPU at spec speed, and change the DRAM divider. On most boards (at least the ones I have used) it has the option such as DDR2-800, DDR2-1066 in a dropdown menu box.

[NightrainSrt4]

You didn't state it, that I saw anyway, but make sure you are only using 2 dimms (1 Dimm per channel). That board only supports 2 dimms when speeds 1066 or above are used when using an AM2+/AM3 cpu.

The setting you are looking for on that board should be "Set Memory Clock". Turn that to manual, and then under "Memory Clock" you can set it to 1066Mhz if using an AM2 cpu, or a 5.33x multiplier if you are using a 200Mhz base clock for the cpu and using an AM2+/AM3 cpu. You'll have to do the math if you are using a different base clock but should be [Base Clock x Memory Clock (divider) = Memory Speed].

Example : 200Mhz base clock x 5.33x multiplier = 1066Mhz Ram.

[diluzio91]

So after mucking around, i just decided to overclock the whole thing with the FSB clock, i got the ram up to 900 and tweaked the voltage a little to stablize it, so i lose 166 mhz, but the overall system speed increase is very noticeable