Legit Reviews

Sigh, I got new ram because I was tired of seeing that old "det dram" over and over again, but just a few weeks later its back even though I have a different type of ram now... I was getting alota BSOD so I lowered FSB by 10 or 15 can't remember, then it wouldn't boot and all it said was "det dram" damn lcd monitor thingy mocking me , I have two sticks of ram, lets call the 1st stick stick #1 and 2nd stick stick #2, I have tried pretty much every config, and the only one that gets past det dram is if i have stick #2 in the fourth DIMM slot, anything else will give me detdram and it will refuse to boot (even if i put stick #1 in the fourth slot by itself it won't work only stick #2 in fourth slot)

the board could be dead(RAM slots specifically) have you tried the ram in another pc?

skierkid450 wrote:the board could be dead(RAM slots specifically) have you tried the ram in another pc?

yes I have tried the ram in other PC and they work perfectly, I had the same problem with my p5w dh and thats why I sold it, but the person who bought it off me said it works perfectly, I'm sure if I got new ram it would work.. until the next time this thing happened(can't really keep on buying ram every few weeks lol), but I also sold the ballistix and they work perfectly too, but for some reason it still gives me det dram, and even if the board was dead, why would that mean that stick #1 wouldn't work in slot #4 if stick # 2 does?

ok, i don't know, it could just be touchy, is it all nice and clean in the slots

yep its all clean, I find it to be very random, for example, I was about to take the comp in for repair because I just couldn't solve the det dram problem after 3days, so I just go plug it back in in the same config it died in and it worked perfectly and even OC ed like a charm, until the next time it happened about a week later lol, well im just gunna go try out diff configs until i can get it to work I guess , but weird thing ive noticed... they seem to like the 2nd white slot, even with the p5w dh when this crap happened If i put one stick into the 2nd white slot it would work, and the same thing is true for the maximus(with both the mushkin and ballistix)

Probably doesn't apply here, but I had read that some highend asus mobo's overvoltage the memory without this showing up in bios etc. Actually the user had 3!! dead ram kits (he was running them at 2.3) because of that. After working for 4-5 months they would die!
The kits that died were:
1-teamgroup 1200
2-teamgroup 800
3-supertalent 1000
I could link it here but its in greek. So ram voltage should be 2.2 max.

Are you using the latest BIOS? What about the northbridge, have you checked the temps?
I had some completely random bsods with a p35 gigabyte board in the hot days of the summer. It seems it was either the northbridge getting too hot or the ram sticks. Next thing i did,i lowered ram voltage a tiny bit and added a fan over the northbridge (got a wide open case, no side panels) and the problem was gone.

It's happened across multiple ram sets, have you set the ram timings and voltage manually? Also check to make sure it's set to a 2T command rate. I wouldn't really suspect the ram as the culprit. A lot of the Asus boards have a 3 year replacement policy. When I sent in my M2N-E recently to Asus, they didn't ask for packaging, manuals or any thing just the bare board and replaced it without the receipt. It's easier if you call them, they take the info and you get an RMA number in email right away.

Methious wrote:When I sent in my M2N-E recently to Asus, they didn't ask for packaging, manuals or any thing just the bare board and replaced it without the receipt. It's easier if you call them, they take the info and you get an RMA number in email right away.

Good to know, thanks for the info. If your ram works perfectly in other boards, then I would suggest an RMA on the board. Just go into the bios first and reset everything to DEFAULT to make sure it isn't a setting keeping the ram from working. Most, if not all ram should work at default. Also as suggested above, check the voltage your motherboard is applying to the ram, and cross reference that with the manufacturers suggested voltage to make sure they match. If not, change it manually in your bios.

I have had ram and other parts that won't work in my system, but does work in my test system...it happens...Last resort is RMA.

it may seem like the board is dead, but its not, because i just restarted it 35x and it just worked, but now it won't OC at all, this happened with all my other Asus boards as well...just some sort of glitch they have I guess :-/( I thought my p5w dh was broken or something, but I tested it out in another config and it worked perfectly, so I sold it and got maximus and it worked fine until now) right now everything is stock but at least i got the 2nd stick in finally

Okay well I read somewhere how to get outa the det dram loop and it works. First I shut down/pull the plug then remove battery then hold power button then start up again. However, my comp now refuses to even budge when it comes to BIOS. Even if I touch a single setting in BIOS not even related to OCing(as soon as I hit save) it will shut down and go into the det dram loop of doom until I do the battery reset thing... Anyone have any ideas?

I still think you should RMA the board. I think there is something wrong with 1 or more of your ram slots. Is the ram tight in the slots? I've seen loose ram be a problem.

Either that or your bios is somehow corrupted. Have you flashed to the most current bios?

The bios was recently flashed, and I've had this problem every time with Asus boards.. I somehow don't think this is a strictly one board problem, I think if i RMA it I will just end up with the exact same board with the exact same problems... the odd thing is, it kinda just falls into loops, if it falls into a good one, I can change any setting and let the FSB fly and it will perform flawlessly, but once it falls back into the crappy loop there doesn't seem to be anything I can do to get it back, last time it just randomly went back on like the 8th restart try after resetting the battery(wasn't changing anything it just somehow switched "on" and worked). This time I've had no such luck, if it posts after the first change of the bios settings/restart than it will perform perfectly, but I can't seem to get past the 1st setting change.

Any chance its software or drivers related? I've seen conflicting software cause some major havoc in systems. Especially multiple software that access sensors on the motherboard. If you're dead set on keeping the board and you're certain the ram is good, then you're running out of options. I would consider backing up my data and doing a reformat to be sure.

Sorry but I'm running out of ideas and just thinking out loud. Call me crazy, but I still think the board is faulty.

Well after another 7 battery resets it got into the "good loop" ... however, there seems to be an FSB wall @ 472-473 right, it used to be able to go up to 505fsb stable and I've never had this 473fsb wall issuse(no matter how high i crank up the voltages it won't budge) at 473fsb it posts, but it really laggsss and doesn't seem to be able to startup but at 472(which im on right now) it works flawlessly...

is your chipset cooling on right?(ie, not making complete contact with the chipset) or have you turned off(or down) any other fans?

Well I have taken the case door off, and I have a few 80mm fans blowing air into the case... but would chipset temps really make that big of a difference for 1MHz on the fsb?

Did the error occur on Asus boards designed for Intel cpus? I've never seen it on the AMD boards. I've had problems with the motherboard sensor programs wreaking havoc too, Core Temp jacked my startup files hard twice. Doesn't sound like your getting that far before you encounter the error. How many bios revisions have they gone through on the board? Might get better as bios matures.

I'll just chime in here.............

ASUS are one of the only mobo makers who keep updating their BIOS.
There is currently an issue with ASUS boards when using very high speed ram, either DDR2 or 3.

If you clock the ram (ddr2) to <1GHz, you need to set the Trfc timing to greater than 52. The highest option you can select for this timing is only 42.
If you set Trfc to AUTO then the board will increase this to <52 for you and you can clock higher.

With DDR3, it's the same but Trfc should be <130 for very high clocks.

ASUS boards do overvolt the memory by ~0.06v ---> this shouldn't be an issue unless you're using ~2.3v or more.
This voltage issue is well known, and IMO it's one of those things you must know before attampting to OC with an ASUS board.
If you're RAM dies from this issue, IMO it's your fault.
Before you start to OC anything, it's imperative you do the required research on your hardware first.
Not knowing your hardware before OC'in is only asking for problems.

IMO ASUS makes the best motherboards period..........

They do make a heck of a board, I've gone through a lot of brands, but on my personal machine it's always Asus.

kenc51 wrote:I'll just chime in here.............

ASUS are one of the only mobo makers who keep updating their BIOS.
There is currently an issue with ASUS boards when using very high speed ram, either DDR2 or 3.

If you clock the ram (ddr2) to <1GHz, you need to set the Trfc timing to greater than 52. The highest option you can select for this timing is only 42.
If you set Trfc to AUTO then the board will increase this to <52 for you and you can clock higher.

With DDR3, it's the same but Trfc should be <130 for very high clocks.

ASUS boards do overvolt the memory by ~0.06v ---> this shouldn't be an issue unless you're using ~2.3v or more.
This voltage issue is well known, and IMO it's one of those things you must know before attampting to OC with an ASUS board.
If you're RAM dies from this issue, IMO it's your fault.
Before you start to OC anything, it's imperative you do the required research on your hardware first.
Not knowing your hardware before OC'in is only asking for problems.

IMO ASUS makes the best motherboards period..........

Yes I've known about the overvolt issue with the maximus for quite some time, just couldn't find anything relating the my specific problem, it seemed to have a very irregular pattern, well ill try the trfc thing now ty.