Gigabyte GA-7MA90FX-DS5 Dual Channel Problems

[DanishDevil]

No matter what slots I put my two 1GB modules in, I can't seem to get them to work in Dual Channel. The manual says that modules in both 1&3 and 2&4 will work for dual channel for both single and double-sided modules. This was purchased open box, though so maybe that was why it was returned.

Anyone know if there's a setting in the BIOS or a jumper to help me out?

[Kursah]

It should just work...have you tried slot's 1/2, 3/4 just to verify? I've never seen a mobo not enter dual channel mode like this...ever...AMD or Intel side. This is an oddity for sure!

Could you post CPU-Z screenies of your results so for?

[WarEagleAU]

Im thinking you may be right. Or maybe its finicky with ram? Did you update to the latest bios?

[DanishDevil]

No, I have not tried matching colored slots. I'll try it after a reboot.

CPU-Z:
http://img.techpowerup.org/080317/CPU-Z.jpg

And yes, I know I'm not running them at their specified timings. When I go into the DRAM settings in this BIOS, and manually set them to 4-4-4-12, I don't boot. When I go from Auto to Manual, it unlocks like 12 memory timings, and there's no auto options for the others. I'm gonna have to play a bit more before I'll get there.

I did however break 10K in 3DMark06 for the first time on this board. Same OC as the old board and PSU, and this time it's single channel. Makes me think I was running single when it said dual on my old board.

And yes, I just updated to the latest BIOS. I thought that would fix it, but apparently no.

[Kursah]

Hmm..well see what matched color dimms do for ya...I think that's where it's at for that board...could be a misprint in the manual or something. Did you google and see if others caught this or noticed this as a problem?

I know Dual Channel isn't a massive increase, but every little bit helps, so I don't blame ya for chasing it.

If you have Everest would you mind posting single channel scores and dual channel scores once you get it figured out? Just kinda curious how much more modern systems are affected...I know my older rigs really didn't see a whole lot even in syn bench tests.

:toast:

[DanishDevil]

I don't have Everest, and I'm off to school and leaving my system here very soon, so I'll do some sort of comparison test like 3DMark06 at least this weekend (if I get this board to do DC that is).

[DanishDevil]

Well, you were right. If you put the memory in adjacent slots, it comes up as Dual Channel.

However, when I ran 3DMark06, I went from 10,300 to 10,135. Not really sure what to say about that...

Downloading Everest Home 2.20 Free Edition now.

[Kursah]

A small difference like that is totally phesable in 3DM06...I don't take it more than with a grain of salt. It's how the rest of your system runs with things that you would normally be doing, or games that you normally play that should matter the most. It could be anything from something running in windows that wasn't there the last time..hard saying..maybe you lost a little performance? I wouldn't really waste any sleep over that score difference if I was you man. :D

Glad to see your in DC mode! :toast:

[DanishDevil]

Thanks. What benchmarks do you want me to run? Memory Read/Write/Latency? Or all?

[DanishDevil]

Benchmark Results:

Dual Channel:

Memory Read: 5344MB/s
Memory Write: 2760MB/s
Memory Latency: 50.8ns

Single Channel:
Memory Read: 4697MB/s
Memory Write: 2500MB/s
Memory Latency: 49.9ns

Seems like Dual Channel mode boosts read and write speeds pretty nicely. Almost a 14% increase in read speeds and a 10% boost in write speed.

[Kursah]

Yeah..there's a deal in the menu under Tools called Cache and Memory Benchmark...gives you those tests and a couple of others, and a nice deal to take a screeny of with results and info included. I included one of my recent pics from that benchmark..pretty damn convenient. Not sure of it's relativity to actual performance, but it's pretty cool none-the-less!


:toast:

[DanishDevil]

Oh, I got the free edition. Which edition are you using?

Running single channel benches now.

[Kursah]

I got Everest Ultimate Beta 4.2...it's got some decent things in it, but I'm kinda bummed they don't update the Free/Home edition anymore...

[DanishDevil]

Well, I updated with single channel benchmarks. Is the beta free or is it trial-based like the regular Ultimate?

[Kursah]

You gotta pay to get beta...unless you go the torrent route. I've paid to be in their little program, but I'm done with it as I'll just go to the next ultimate and call it good. It's a good program, but they update so often in beta stuff...it gets old after a while.

Seems like Dual Channel makes a nice increase for your bandwidth, seems more worth it now than it has in years' past. Nice results! Do you plan to push it any further?

[DanishDevil]

I'm currently at 265x13. Just messing now before I go to school. I'll mess a little more this weekend.

Thanks again for your suggestion. I was gonna try that eventually, but trusted the manual. WHY did I trust the manual? :D

[Kursah]

Because YOU'RE SUPPOSED to trust it hehe! :P

But typos are always going to happen...maybe they just rebadged the manual from another board or something too. That happens when they go for multi-boards in one chipset.

I've found in newer boards, same color dimms are almost always same channel for dual-channel mode...I generally do that first before even reading the manual. The last few boards I've had were like this (when colored). But I know sometimes a company wants to go away from the trend and really getcha with 1 channel being 2 colors lol! There should be more universal restrictions on things like this as to avoid confusion...granted it's not a massively huge issue, it can be annoying to deal with when things aren't working as expected for sure.

:toast:

Well keep us posted on your results, nice work so far!

[DanishDevil]

Thanks. I just realized that these Geil DDR2 modules are rated form 1.9-2.3V under warranty, so I might just have to play around with them a bit more. They get DAMN hot at anything above 2.1, though, so I gotta look into some active cooling for them...probably gonna get the OCZ ram fan when I go water soon :D Then we'll see what this system can do!
:toast: