Abit IC7-Max3: Can't run 4 sticks of ram!

M

minameismud

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 30, 2001
Messages
237
System specs in the sig. The specific ram is this. I built this system just less than a year ago. I just bought another pack of the exact same ram from zipzoomfly.com. With all four sticks of ram (totalling 1 gig for those who don't want to do math - board's max is 4 gig), the system gets to the point where the xp boot screen fades in and hangs. Sometimes. Other times, it hangs just before that, right after listing all the IRQs before "Verifying DMI pool data................Done". And twice it said "Windows cannot start. Error loading requested DLL. Please contact your hardware vendor." (probably not the exact message, but you get the idea.) Once I take out either pair of sticks, Windows loads up just fine (running on new ram right now).

Conventions: RAM slots 1,2,3,4. 1&3 are paired and 2&4 are paired.

nearly a year:
old ram, 1&3

all ram:
old ram, 1&3
new ram: 2&4
## no boot

test 1:
old ram, 1&3
boots fine

test 2:
old ram, 2&4
boots fine

test 3: all ram, round 2
old ram, 2&4
new ram, 1&3
## no boot

test 4:
new ram, 1&3
boots fine

test 5:
new ram, 2&4
boots fine

I've tried everything. By process of elimination, my board won't allow XP to load properly with 4 sticks of ram. Then again, I could have buggered a setting in the registry and XP doesn't know what to do with a gig of ram.

HELP!!! :confused:
 
Try relaxing your memory timings a bit. With all four slots populated, the board can be less forgiving of aggresive memory settings. One other thing is that with all four slots populated, the chipset will automatically disable PAT...
 
i'd thought of that before, but i don't overclock (haven't found time to see what works...evil school), and the timings were set to the advertised ones...2-3-3-6. upped to 2.5-3-3-8 and it boots. might play with it later. thx *bows to lord thunder*
 
For some odd reason alot of Abit motherboards have that same issue. I've had the problem too with previous Abit boards and never the same with other brands.
 
Someone was telling me of a similar thing the other day as I have just experiened this too.

Basically I have the IC7-G, last week it had 1gb (2x512mb sticks) of PC2700 DDR 333 in it. Felt like a bit of an upgrade so on the advice of the local PC shop I was told to go for the two pairs of RAM. So I went for 2 pairs of 2x512mb matched PC3200 DDR400. On installing them to start with they were not allowing the system to boot...

Eventually the PC seemed to start lasting a little longer each time once in windows before crashing and rebooting ( well trying ). I have also tried several combinations and have come to the same conclusion as above and this is with the latest version 28 BIOS update too.

Has anyone got anymore ideas on this as it seems harsh that I have an extra gig of RAM I can't use and will struggle to RMA it as it aint mine or the PC shops fault - Im kinda pointing a finger over at ABIT !!!!


Answers this way please....

Thanks
 
Palendrone said:
Someone was telling me of a similar thing the other day as I have just experiened this too.

Basically I have the IC7-G, last week it had 1gb (2x512mb sticks) of PC2700 DDR 333 in it. Felt like a bit of an upgrade so on the advice of the local PC shop I was told to go for the two pairs of RAM. So I went for 2 pairs of 2x512mb matched PC3200 DDR400. On installing them to start with they were not allowing the system to boot...

Eventually the PC seemed to start lasting a little longer each time once in windows before crashing and rebooting ( well trying ). I have also tried several combinations and have come to the same conclusion as above and this is with the latest version 28 BIOS update too.

Has anyone got anymore ideas on this as it seems harsh that I have an extra gig of RAM I can't use and will struggle to RMA it as it aint mine or the PC shops fault - Im kinda pointing a finger over at ABIT !!!!


Answers this way please....

Thanks
Click to expand...

I've got the same board and I'm runniing 4 sticks of the memory in my sig. I had to relax the timings to 3-4-4-8 and set the set the game accelerator options to Auto - Auto - Auto -Disabled - Disabled to get a modest but stable overclock.
 
My IC7-max3 will run 4x512MB sticks at 2.5-3-3-7 well into the 230's with TCCD, am gonna try some UTT soon just for kicks.

When OCing, less gear will almost always = higher OC - whether we're talking number of PCI cards or sticks of RAM.

:cool:
 
will try the above setting and post back my results later in the week...

Thanks for the info there folks

*Pulls out MOBO manual as never seen the Game accelerator settings before...*

P.S. I have none OC'd system with a P4 2.66 533 FSB will these mem timings be ok on a none OC'd system?
 
ok tried some of the above and am quite confused by the ram timings !!!

my settings olny allow me to go upto:

CAS
2 / 2.5 / 3

Act Precahrge Delay
5 / 6 / 7 / 8

DRAM RAS# to CAS# Delay
2 / 3 / 4

DRAM RAS# to Precharge
2 / 3 / 4

why is this when others have lower stated number sequences above ?

Please help... I want my 2gb of RAM working :)
 
hi,

i'm having a very similar problem. I have the Abit IC7 motherboard and 4x 512MB OCZ Ram (4001024ELDCPE-K). I used to have 2 sticks and i recently bought 2 more, making 4 in total. Using a bit of problem solving i figured out that all 4 sticks are fully functional and each memory slot on my motherboard is functional (by testing each slot with only 1 stick).

No matter the memory slot configuration, I can not start windows with more than 3 sticks of ram. I can arrange 1,2, or 3 sticks of ram in any way and windows will boot and runs fine. In fact i'm running on 3 sticks right now.

Does anyone have any ideas about how i can get the 4th stick working too?

I have tried:

- upping the memory voltage to 2.8V
- relaxing timings (a bit first and then all the way to 3-3-3-8, with no success)
- Game accelerator set to Auto as in above posts.

So far no success, does anyone have any ideas.

Thank you.
 
I used that mobo in my first build. I kind of forgot about it.

Do you have the latest bios for that board? I remember it being kind of picky with memory. I think I used corsair when I had it 4 slots filled. Try maybe setting the command rate to 2t, just a thought.
 
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