Re: [CentOS] Memory vs. Display Card (solved)

2009-04-02 Thread Rick
In article m3vdqkeflz@luke.xen.prgmr.com,
Luke S Crawford  centos@centos.org wrote:

Have you tried memtest86?  

No, but if that was the problem it wouldn't have failed the same
way each time.

I finally got some time to deal with this today. I tried several
more things and finally made it work by installing a BIOS update.

Sure feals nice to have that memory installed. ;)

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Re: [CentOS] Memory vs. Display Card

2009-03-09 Thread Sorin Srbu
-Original Message-
From: centos-boun...@centos.org [mailto:centos-boun...@centos.org] On Behalf
Of MHR
Sent: Monday, March 09, 2009 6:20 AM
To: CentOS mailing list
Subject: Re: [CentOS] Memory vs. Display Card

3) Some motherboards (many) will not accept different size DIMMs at
the same time.  If yours works with the 2GB alone and the 4GB alone
but not both together, that's probably the problem and you can't do it
at all on your present hardware.

If the motherboard supports dual-channel configs, one might want to take care 
how one distributes the different mem-sticks in the banks. Eg the 2GB-sticks 
in bank 1 and 3 and the 4GB-sticks in banks 2 and 4.

YMMV.
-- 
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Re: [CentOS] Memory vs. Display Card

2009-03-09 Thread Rick
In article f4e013870903082220s772af2d7o22c9686d6f134...@mail.gmail.com,
MHR  centos@centos.org wrote:

2) Your answer above was not clear: did the 4GB work by itself without
the other 2GB?  If so, the above is your problem.  If not, you're in
deeper guano that you think, BUT:

The 4GB had the same problem with and without the 2GB.

Also, by running in 64-bit mode (previous reply), do you mean that
your are running the 32-bit PAE kernel or the x86_64 kernel?

It's x86_64.


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Re: [CentOS] Memory vs. Display Card

2009-03-09 Thread Rick
In article 12768.4492654682$1236586...@news.gmane.org,
Sorin Srbu centos@centos.org wrote:

If the motherboard supports dual-channel configs, one might want to take care 
how one distributes the different mem-sticks in the banks. Eg the 2GB-sticks 
in bank 1 and 3 and the 4GB-sticks in banks 2 and 4.

Well, yeah, of course. But even if I got that wrong, the 4GB alone did not
work in the same slots the 2GB sticks were in.

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Re: [CentOS] Memory vs. Display Card

2009-03-09 Thread Morten Torstensen
On 09.03.2009 11:09, Rick wrote:
 Well, yeah, of course. But even if I got that wrong, the 4GB alone did not
 work in the same slots the 2GB sticks were in.

So, either the memory sticks are bad (one or two of them), or the memory 
have bad timing in some way making them not compatible with the mobo.

-- 

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Re: [CentOS] Memory vs. Display Card

2009-03-09 Thread Sorin Srbu
-Original Message-
From: centos-boun...@centos.org [mailto:centos-boun...@centos.org] On
Behalf
Of Rick
Sent: Monday, March 09, 2009 11:10 AM
To: centos@centos.org
Subject: Re: [CentOS] Memory vs. Display Card

If the motherboard supports dual-channel configs, one might want to take
care
how one distributes the different mem-sticks in the banks. Eg the
2GB-sticks
in bank 1 and 3 and the 4GB-sticks in banks 2 and 4.

Well, yeah, of course. But even if I got that wrong, the 4GB alone did not
work in the same slots the 2GB sticks were in.

Well, in that case you may be SOL. 8-/
-- 
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Re: [CentOS] Memory vs. Display Card

2009-03-09 Thread Sorin Srbu
-Original Message-
From: centos-boun...@centos.org [mailto:centos-boun...@centos.org] On Behalf
Of Morten Torstensen
Sent: Monday, March 09, 2009 12:14 PM
To: CentOS mailing list
Subject: Re: [CentOS] Memory vs. Display Card

 Well, yeah, of course. But even if I got that wrong, the 4GB alone did not
 work in the same slots the 2GB sticks were in.

So, either the memory sticks are bad (one or two of them), or the memory
have bad timing in some way making them not compatible with the mobo.

That reminds me; some mobos have a default fail-safe settings option with 
timings and stuff using very conservative numbers. If you haven't already 
tried that, you might want to give that one a go as well.

NB! This default setting is usually not optimal (turbo), but rather settles 
for stability. A working baseline kinda' thing, if you know what I mean.

If this doesn't work either, you're mem-sticks are as most here have pointed 
out, bad in some way.
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Re: [CentOS] Memory vs. Display Card

2009-03-09 Thread William L. Maltby

On Mon, 2009-03-09 at 12:14 +0100, Morten Torstensen wrote:
 On 09.03.2009 11:09, Rick wrote:
  Well, yeah, of course. But even if I got that wrong, the 4GB alone did not
  work in the same slots the 2GB sticks were in.
 
 So, either the memory sticks are bad (one or two of them), or the memory 
 have bad timing in some way making them not compatible with the mobo.

I have to jump in here. A few months back, I tried replace some memory
sticks with much larger ones. No go. But the specs said they should be
compatible. After puttzing around with all sorts of things, I decided
the only thing left was the voltage settings for the sticks. More memory
has a greater draw. Not wanting to void the warranty, I didn't dink with
it on my own. I carried the unit to my local dealer and said you do it
if you think it is safe.

Bumped the voltage a couple tenths and all worked. The reason is
obvious. Why the auto setting didn't work, I can't say. Have been
running successfully for many months now.

So, if you've got the leeway, try manually bumping the voltage for the
unit a couple of tenths. Risk is low, but it is there.

HTH
-- 
Bill

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Re: [CentOS] Memory vs. Display Card

2009-03-09 Thread John R Pierce
Rick wrote:
 In article f4e013870903082220s772af2d7o22c9686d6f134...@mail.gmail.com,
 MHR  centos@centos.org wrote:

   
 2) Your answer above was not clear: did the 4GB work by itself without
 the other 2GB?  If so, the above is your problem.  If not, you're in
 deeper guano that you think, BUT:
 

 The 4GB had the same problem with and without the 2GB.
   


ok, then you have the wrong 4GB (2x2GB?) sticks.   You might review the 
memory specs for your motherboard, not all DDR2 is the same.
http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/d975xbx/sb/CS-026567.htm

specifically, you need 1.8-1.9V DDR2 unbuffered DIMMs, requires SPD, 667 
and 533Mhz.  2GB dimms must be organized as 8 128Mx8 dimms on each side.

personally, I'd pick my ram from this page
http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.aspx?model=D975XBX

the stuff you buy through their guaranteed compatability program WILL work.


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Re: [CentOS] Memory vs. Display Card

2009-03-09 Thread John R Pierce
William L. Maltby wrote:
 So, if you've got the leeway, try manually bumping the voltage for the
 unit a couple of tenths. Risk is low, but it is there.
   


The OP said earlier he has an Intel D975XBX motherboard.  Intel boards 
are very conservatively engineered, and don't have tweaks for 
overclocking, out of spec memory voltages, or any of the rest of that.   
They just work, if the parts meet their spec.  If the parts don't meet 
the spec, then all bets are off.




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Re: [CentOS] Memory vs. Display Card

2009-03-09 Thread Bill Campbell
On Mon, Mar 09, 2009, John R Pierce wrote:
...
ok, then you have the wrong 4GB (2x2GB?) sticks.   You might review the 
memory specs for your motherboard, not all DDR2 is the same.
http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/d975xbx/sb/CS-026567.htm

I usually go to the Kingston site to find the proper memory for
specific main boards, and get most of our RAM from newegg.com.

http://www.kingston.com

http://www.newegg.com

Bill
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URL: http://www.celestial.com/  PO Box 820; 6641 E. Mercer Way
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Re: [CentOS] Memory vs. Display Card

2009-03-09 Thread Robert Nichols
Rick wrote:
 In article 12768.4492654682$1236586...@news.gmane.org,
 Sorin Srbu centos@centos.org wrote:
 
 If the motherboard supports dual-channel configs, one might want to take 
 care 
 how one distributes the different mem-sticks in the banks. Eg the 2GB-sticks 
 in bank 1 and 3 and the 4GB-sticks in banks 2 and 4.
 
 Well, yeah, of course. But even if I got that wrong, the 4GB alone did not
 work in the same slots the 2GB sticks were in.

What was the result of running memtest86 from the CentOS install DVD (or
any of various other sources)?

-- 
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 Do NOT delete it.

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Re: [CentOS] Memory vs. Display Card

2009-03-09 Thread Luke S Crawford
Bill Campbell cen...@celestial.com writes:
 I usually go to the Kingston site to find the proper memory for
 specific main boards, and get most of our RAM from newegg.com.
 
   http://www.kingston.com
 
   http://www.newegg.com

I second this, except that I find Kingston often has the best price for
ram, as well as a decent compatability wizard.  make sure to click all the
way through to 'add to cart'  or whatever.  Kingston puts a higher price
on the 'price comparison' page for some reason.  

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Re: [CentOS] Memory vs. Display Card

2009-03-09 Thread Louis Lagendijk
On Sun, 2009-03-08 at 19:27 -0700, John R Pierce wrote:
 Rick wrote:
  In article 20090308031754.ga11...@bludgeon.org,
  Ray Van Dolson  centos@centos.org wrote:
 

  That sounds pretty strange.  Have you confirmed that removing the new
  memory allows you to run in runlevel 5 again?
  
 
  Yes, that's how I'm running right now.

 
 now, try taking out the OLD memory and putting in just the NEW memory.  
 see how it runs that way.   if this works, try with the new 4GB as the 0 
 bank, and the old 2GB as the 1 bank.
 
 also, in the BIOS, check the memory timings, I'd leave them all on 
 'automatic' or 'default' or whatever the limited choices are in the 
 Intel BIOS, trying to squeeze an extra clock out of CAS or whatever 
 doesn't really help much under the best of conditions and it can 
 destabilize a system under suboptimal conditions.  
 
When you use 4 banks of memory, some boards require slower settings.
Tweaking the voltage may help there I guess, but I would opt for the
slower settings. I recall that my BIOS chose a slower memory setting
when I added 4G to my small server at home that already had 2G That
system has been rock stable (except for my Sun quad ethernet that had
problems with the Xen kernel due to MMIO issues. I solved that by
ditching the Sun card and using a vlan capable switch with vlan trunking
so that I no longer need so may ethernet interfaces)

Louis

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Re: [CentOS] Memory vs. Display Card

2009-03-09 Thread Rob Townley
On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 3:39 PM, Victor Padro vpa...@gmail.com wrote:


 On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 1:18 PM, Louis Lagendijk lo...@lagendijk.xs4all.nl
 wrote:

 On Sun, 2009-03-08 at 19:27 -0700, John R Pierce wrote:
  Rick wrote:
   In article 20090308031754.ga11...@bludgeon.org,
   Ray Van Dolson  centos@centos.org wrote:
  
  
   That sounds pretty strange.  Have you confirmed that removing the
   new
   memory allows you to run in runlevel 5 again?
  
  
   Yes, that's how I'm running right now.
  
 
  now, try taking out the OLD memory and putting in just the NEW memory.
  see how it runs that way.   if this works, try with the new 4GB as the 0
  bank, and the old 2GB as the 1 bank.
 
  also, in the BIOS, check the memory timings, I'd leave them all on
  'automatic' or 'default' or whatever the limited choices are in the
  Intel BIOS, trying to squeeze an extra clock out of CAS or whatever
  doesn't really help much under the best of conditions and it can
  destabilize a system under suboptimal conditions.
 
 When you use 4 banks of memory, some boards require slower settings.
 Tweaking the voltage may help there I guess, but I would opt for the
 slower settings. I recall that my BIOS chose a slower memory setting
 when I added 4G to my small server at home that already had 2G That
 system has been rock stable (except for my Sun quad ethernet that had
 problems with the Xen kernel due to MMIO issues. I solved that by
 ditching the Sun card and using a vlan capable switch with vlan trunking
 so that I no longer need so may ethernet interfaces)

 Louis

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 have you read your technical product specifications?
 http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/d975xbx2/sb/CS-029346.htm
 it states that the supported memory modules are only 2GB top

 Table 4 lists the supported DIMM configurations.
 Table 4. Supported Memory Configurations
 DIMM
 Capacity
 Configuration
 (Note 1)
 SDRAM
 Density
 SDRAM Organization
 Front-side/Back-side
 Number of SDRAM
 Devices (Note 2)
 128 MB SS 256 Mbit 16 M x 16/empty 4 [5]
 256 MB SS 256 Mbit 32 M x 8/empty 8 [9]
 256 MB SS 512 Mbit 32 M x 16/empty 4 [5]
 512 MB DS 256 Mbit 32 M x 8/32 M x 8 16 [18]
 512 MB SS 512 Mbit 64 M x 8/empty 8 [9]
 512 MB SS 1 Gbit 64 M x 16/empty 4 [5]
 1024 MB DS 512 Mbit 64 M x 8/64 M x 8 16 [18]
 1024 MB SS 1 Gbit 128 M x 8/empty 8 [9]
 2048 MB DS 1 Gbit 128 M x 8/128 M x 8 16 [18]
 Notes:
 1. In the second column, “DS” refers to double-sided memory modules
 (containing two rows of SDRAM)
 and “SS” refers to single-sided memory modules (containing one row of
 SDRAM).
 2. In the fifth column, the number in brackets specifies the number of SDRAM
 devices on an ECC DIMM

  So your 4GB module is not supported... you should use 4x2GB modules in
 order to see an improvement(always using pairs, remember it's dual channel).

 cheers


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Victor seems to have found your problem.  But you might want to verify
there isn't a BIOS / firmware update for your motherboard.

memtest distributed with most systems is old.  One of the memtests was
recently updated to for the latest intel chipsets.
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Re: [CentOS] Memory vs. Display Card

2009-03-08 Thread Richard Karhuse
On Sat, Mar 7, 2009 at 10:00 PM, Rick el...@spinics.net wrote:
 Since memory has become quite cheap lately I decided to move from 2 GB
 to 6. When I installed the memory every thing was fine until I went to
 run level 5. At that point the screen turned to garbage and the system
 froze. Is there a way to fix this so I can use the memory I bought? Do
 I need a new display card?

 Current hardware:

  Intel D975XBX2 Motherboard
  VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV505 [Radeon X1550 64-bit]


First of all, lots and lots of data missing here .

Secondly, I agree with other posters -- make sure that memtest86+ runs
successfully and finds all your memory.  Let it run *at least* overnight before
accepting the new memory.  [Note:  Three explicit things that you need to
check and report the results of here -- if you'd like more help.]

Third, check your BIOS settings -- particularly w.r.t. VGA memory, memory-hole
re-mapping, etc.  I'd do this before I'd run the memtests, btw.  Does the BIOS
see the memory?  Is the BIOS configured to map the VGA + PCI + ... (typically
up to 1 GB) memory to higher space?  Is your MTTR set to Discrete or
Continuous?  I'd run the Intel Linux Firmware BIOS test to see if the BIOS /
Memory are configured and compatible at this point.

Forth, what (precisely) CentOS kernel are you booting??  Does it support
greater than 4 GB of RAM??  Does it see all the memory -- both the 6 GB
of physical RAM plus the VGA + PCI re-mapped -- e.g., does it see almost
7 GB of memory??  How does the kernel see the memory (e.g., the MTTR
block -- which is one of the first things the system reports when it boots up)??

Fifth, after the GUI scrambles the screen, did you kill the session and/or
switch to an alternate Virtual Console and review both /var/log/messages
and X.org logfiles??

Once, you've got that, you might have a better idea of what's going on ...
(and maybe where your problem is ...)

HTH

   -rak-
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Re: [CentOS] Memory vs. Display Card

2009-03-08 Thread Phil Schaffner
On Sun, 2009-03-08 at 09:16 -0400, Richard Karhuse wrote:
 On Sat, Mar 7, 2009 at 10:00 PM, Rick el...@spinics.net wrote:
  Since memory has become quite cheap lately I decided to move from 2
  GB
...
 Forth, what (precisely) CentOS kernel are you booting??  Does it
 support greater than 4 GB of RAM?? 

Lots of good suggestions, but this would seem to be a likely cause, and
easiest to check. If you are running i386 you need a PAE kernel.

http://wiki.centos.org/FAQ/CentOS5#head-d70935212ce3b7b072b0075c1807a4bd3ea175b7

Phil


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Re: [CentOS] Memory vs. Display Card

2009-03-08 Thread Rick
In article 20090308031754.ga11...@bludgeon.org,
Ray Van Dolson  centos@centos.org wrote:

That sounds pretty strange.  Have you confirmed that removing the new
memory allows you to run in runlevel 5 again?

Yes, that's how I'm running right now.


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Re: [CentOS] Memory vs. Display Card

2009-03-08 Thread John R Pierce
Rick wrote:
 In article 20090308031754.ga11...@bludgeon.org,
 Ray Van Dolson  centos@centos.org wrote:

   
 That sounds pretty strange.  Have you confirmed that removing the new
 memory allows you to run in runlevel 5 again?
 

 Yes, that's how I'm running right now.
   

now, try taking out the OLD memory and putting in just the NEW memory.  
see how it runs that way.   if this works, try with the new 4GB as the 0 
bank, and the old 2GB as the 1 bank.

also, in the BIOS, check the memory timings, I'd leave them all on 
'automatic' or 'default' or whatever the limited choices are in the 
Intel BIOS, trying to squeeze an extra clock out of CAS or whatever 
doesn't really help much under the best of conditions and it can 
destabilize a system under suboptimal conditions.  


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Re: [CentOS] Memory vs. Display Card

2009-03-08 Thread Rick
In article 49b47e99.1090...@hogranch.com,
John R Pierce  centos@centos.org wrote:

now, try taking out the OLD memory and putting in just the NEW memory.  
see how it runs that way.   if this works, try with the new 4GB as the 0 
bank, and the old 2GB as the 1 bank.

Tried that before I posted and got the same results.

also, in the BIOS, check the memory timings, I'd leave them all on 
'automatic' or 'default' or whatever the limited choices are in the 
Intel BIOS, trying to squeeze an extra clock out of CAS or whatever 
doesn't really help much under the best of conditions and it can 
destabilize a system under suboptimal conditions.  

They should all be on their default settings. But I'll take another look
when I get a chance. Thanks.

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Re: [CentOS] Memory vs. Display Card

2009-03-08 Thread MHR
On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 8:39 PM, Rick el...@spinics.net wrote:
 In article 49b47e99.1090...@hogranch.com,
 John R Pierce  centos@centos.org wrote:

now, try taking out the OLD memory and putting in just the NEW memory.
see how it runs that way.   if this works, try with the new 4GB as the 0
bank, and the old 2GB as the 1 bank.

 Tried that before I posted and got the same results.


I assume the following in this reply: you are using DIMMs, one (or
two) cards for 2GB and one (or two) cards for the other 4GB.

1) You probably did this, but until the above reply, it was not clear
that this was your memory configuration: make absolutely sure that the
memory timings on all your DIMMs are the same.  If any one is off by
even one in any of the settings, they will not work together.  Period.

2) Your answer above was not clear: did the 4GB work by itself without
the other 2GB?  If so, the above is your problem.  If not, you're in
deeper guano that you think, BUT:

3) Some motherboards (many) will not accept different size DIMMs at
the same time.  If yours works with the 2GB alone and the 4GB alone
but not both together, that's probably the problem and you can't do it
at all on your present hardware.

Also, by running in 64-bit mode (previous reply), do you mean that
your are running the 32-bit PAE kernel or the x86_64 kernel?  Some
hardware doesn't seem to like the former, but that's just what I've
read here before.  (I use the x86_64 kernel)

HTH

mhr
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[CentOS] Memory vs. Display Card

2009-03-07 Thread Rick
Since memory has become quite cheap lately I decided to move from 2 GB
to 6. When I installed the memory every thing was fine until I went to
run level 5. At that point the screen turned to garbage and the system
froze. Is there a way to fix this so I can use the memory I bought? Do
I need a new display card?

Current hardware:

  Intel D975XBX2 Motherboard
  VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV505 [Radeon X1550 64-bit]

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Re: [CentOS] Memory vs. Display Card

2009-03-07 Thread Ray Van Dolson
On Sun, Mar 08, 2009 at 03:00:59AM +, Rick wrote:
 Since memory has become quite cheap lately I decided to move from 2 GB
 to 6. When I installed the memory every thing was fine until I went to
 run level 5. At that point the screen turned to garbage and the system
 froze. Is there a way to fix this so I can use the memory I bought? Do
 I need a new display card?
 
 Current hardware:
 
   Intel D975XBX2 Motherboard
   VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV505 [Radeon X1550 64-bit]

That sounds pretty strange.  Have you confirmed that removing the new
memory allows you to run in runlevel 5 again?

If so, maybe you need to adjust some memory timing settings in BIOS.

Ray
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Re: [CentOS] Memory vs. Display Card

2009-03-07 Thread Luke S Crawford
Rick el...@spinics.net writes:

 Since memory has become quite cheap lately I decided to move from 2 GB
 to 6. When I installed the memory every thing was fine until I went to
 run level 5. At that point the screen turned to garbage and the system
 froze. Is there a way to fix this so I can use the memory I bought? Do
 I need a new display card?


Have you tried memtest86?  

without a serial console, it'd be hard to see if that's the problem, 
but it is a good place to start.

Often if you have bad memory the problem doesn't show until you use something
that actually uses more of your memory (like starting the GUI)
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