# ASUS P4S800D-X Memory Configuration Problem



## marcbkk (Feb 2, 2006)

I just installed a new ASUS P4S800D-X motherboard and I am experiencing some problems with the memory which are affecting boot ability of the machine.

I have two 512MB 400MHz DDR Ram chips and one 1GB 400MHz chip installed. All chips are PC3200.

The motherboard has 4 memory slots and they are color coded, two blue and two black. I have installed the two 512MB chips onto the two blue slots and the 1GB chips onto one of the black slots as you are supposed to.

When the machine boots I get the boot error beep and can't get all the way through the BIOS boot. If I shut down and reboot or press the restart button a few times I can eventually get a boot that gets as far as a BIOS error message that says "Overclocking failed! Please enter setup to reconfigure your system. CPU Fan Error! Press F1 to Run Setup. Press F2 to load default values and continue."

I normally proceed by pressing F1 because I don't want to erase all my BIOS settings. Then I click the "Exit and Discard Changes" option from the BIOS menu and exit out of the BIOS. 

Then the machine will complete the boot through the BIOS and into Windows XP and all 2GB of RAM runs no problem.

Obviously though something is wrong if I have to power up and down 2-3 times before I can get a boot up that brings me as far as an error message from the BIOS. 

Also, getting a BIOS error message on every boot is obviously not right.

I am thinking hopefully there are some settings in the BIOS I can make to get the Motherboard to accept the RAM configuration as such on the first go without pause or error.

I checked the ASUS web site to be sure and I am already running the latest BIOS.

I checked the CMOS jumper and it is not in the reset position.

I am running a 400 watt power supply so I think I have enough power.

I have tried setting the CPU speed and RAM speed manually, but it seems to have no effect.

I have also tried various different RAM configurations using the 4 RAM slots. If I run either the two 512MB chips or the one 1GB chip alone it boots fine on the first go without any problems. Any other configuration of either 2 or 3 of the chips together placed in the RAM slots in configuraiton it doesn't work properly.

What is odd is that prior to installing this new motherboard I was running a ASUS P4P800S-X motherboard, which has only two RAM slots. On that board I had installed the 1GIG chip and one of the 512MB chips together for a 1.5GB RAM configuration and it worked perfectly. It would seem this more elaborate board with 4 RAM slots should be able to handle at least a 1.5GB RAM configuration.

Anyway, thank you for reading about my troubles. At the moment I am back to running only 1GB of RAM since it boots that way without any error. 

If you have troubleshooting thoughts or BIOS settings ideas you think I might try in order to get these 3 RAM chips to get along together so I can run the 2GB of RAM without any BIOS boot errors I would appreciate hearing from you.

Best wishes,

marc


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## lekidos (Oct 30, 2006)

*Bios*

The problem is your PC3200 RAM isnt at 400 Mhz,  ( its called ddr400 because its dual-dat-rate of 200 mhz)  which you probably set at in the BIOS, whic is why it says overclocking failed.  Set it back to either Auto or 200 mhz.  I've got a P4 520 northwood overclocked to 3.43ghz  with fsb at 245 and dram at 200.  If you want to overclock fsb, keep the dram set to 200mhz, (Not AUTO) unless you upgrade to ddr533 (266mhz)     It says cPU fan error probably  because you have your CPU fan either plugged into the 'wrong' power outlet on the mobo,  or it has a 4pin molex adaptor.   in either case,  so to  advanced>hardware monitor> set cpu fan to ignored.


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## Agility (Oct 30, 2006)

Does the motherboard comes with a D-Bracket with 4LEDS?


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## Pinchy (Oct 30, 2006)

I assume that the BIOS is the same as my mobo, seeing as they are both ASUS and roughly the same model.

If im correct, go into the BIOS menu, with the voltages and FSB speeds, etc, (JumperFree configuration under advanced), set it to "manual" and tell me (on the forum or PM me) what every value is. Ive been doing a lot of mucking around with RAM/CPU over the past couple of days and im getting the hang of it, + ive got a lot of those OC messages 

Also, make sure the last option is set to standard, not turbo, b/c turbo causes a lot of probs 

hopefully i can help


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