680i LT SLI and 8 Gig of RAM

[BMoffa]

Is anyone here using this board with a full 8 gig of RAM? If so, I would like to know if you had to do anything specail to make it work and what type of ram you are using.

[Miker]

You are running 4-sticks now, which is uber rare for it to work, so chances are you are a lucky one that can run 4x 2G sticks. Know you will need a 64bit OS to see all of that RAM, and really, anything over 4G is overkill at the moment.

[BMoffa]

Thanks Miker. I am going Vista 64. I will probably stay with the 4-gig (4x1024) setup for a least several months. If I find that its not enough for some reason I will upgrate to 8 gig.

I'm still waiting for the technical explanation of why there is a problem with 4 sticks of memory in these mother boards. I would hope someone from XFX would give us some input.:confused::confused::confused::confused:

[Miker]

Thanks Miker. I am going Vista 64. I will probably stay with the 4-gig (4x1024) setup for a least several months. If I find that its not enough for some reason I will upgrate to 8 gig.

I'm still waiting for the technical explanation of why there is a problem with 4 sticks of memory in these mother boards. I would hope someone from XFX would give us some input.:confused::confused::confused::confused:

It is not just this mobo, every mobo ever made with 4 DDR sticks has a chance to act up.

[werty316]

And one reason for that is filling all four DIMM slots puts more stress on the memory controller as apposed to only if two DIMM slots were filled.

[IxFxI]

then why did they even bother creating motherboards with 4 slots and saying max memory is 8GB's
gosh companies now days

[BMoffa]

IxFxi, That is exactly my feeling. What's the point of 4 slots if they may or may not work.

I currently have 4 systems stuffed with 4 sticks. Two of them are 680i's that I just built using 4x1024. The other 2 are older Supermicro P4 boards using 4x512 sticks. I've never had any problems with the old systems. I have run the memory torture tests overnight on both 680i systems with zero problems. I've also run MEMTEST86+ for several hours with zero defects.

The only open issues I have right now are these:

1. When using the X-fi Xtreme gamer I get some freeze ups. There is a new beta driver available for the X-fi, but it didn't seem to help. The beta notes indicate that there is/was a 4 Gig issue (not necessarily 4 sticks).

2. When my 680i is powered off long enough to cool down, it may take as many as 3 resets to get a full Windows start. It will aways post and get through the SCSI controller initialization, but Windows will hang just before to login dialog appears. Apparently some component has to heat up before is will be fully operational. Once up, no problems. Also, I am not sure if this is the case on both 680i's. The second one is used by my wife who is not too happy when I mess with her system, so I don't.

[Miker]

You are having less problems because you are not Overclocking. 4 Sticks just stresses the system more and makes more stuff go wrong.

[werty316]

Not sure if you already have this set but when all four DIMM slots are filled you have to set the command rate to 2T.

[BMoffa]

What is the command rate?

[werty316]

In the motherboard's BIOS goto "Advanced Chipset Features" --> "FSB & Memory Config" --> "Memory Timing Setting".

The command rate is as highlighted in the following picture:

http://i28.tinypic.com/21lu3pc.jpg

[Miker]

It is also a new thing, a lot of older DDR Mobos don't have it. (Like mine)

[BMoffa]

AH, I missed the wording on that one. Yes, it is set to 2T.

Thanks all, again.

[IxFxI]

yo dudes, i got one 2GB stick in there right now but when i add the other 2GB stick in slot 2, my computer boots up but i have no video??

WTF???

[flipmode64]

yo dudes, i got one 2GB stick in there right now but when i add the other 2GB stick in slot 2, my computer boots up but i have no video??

WTF???

SAME WITH ME....

only one of my 2 gig sticks works, and other in the far right slot! any other slots nothing works!!

[Miker]

SAME WITH ME....

only one of my 2 gig sticks works, and other in the far right slot! any other slots nothing works!!

Not enough Volts, or to much timing.