FOXCONN 965X7AA - will not POST with OCZ 2P800 PC2 6400

[davidjwbailey]

hope someone can help.

Have novatech PC with Foxconn 965X7AA mobo which claims to support dual channel DDR2 800 and 800 FSB. So, I slap in 2Gb of OCZ 2P800 PC2 6400 and .. it will not post. Not with any combination of channels, etc.

Ok, here is the weird bit: If I leave 2 Gb of old 667GHz DDR2 in place ALONGSIDE another 2Gb of the OCZ DDR2 6400 then I can get it to post and access the BIOS. It then runs fine and shows 3.6Gb of Ram etc and flies along in Bioshock!

However no settings in Bios appear to allow it to POST with only the OCZ PC2 6400 memory in the slots alone.

Tearing hair out, and little left now. Any clues?

Bios settings tried and failed:

all combos of

smooth overclock on/off
speed auto / 533/667/800
ram timings
performance auto / gaming / office / low power

[Coops]

I assume you mean Foxconn P9657AA. I do not recognise the model you out down as a board we have ever sold.

Please can you confirm that you have the latest BIOS for your board.

On the POST Screen if you look towards the top of the screen you will see about 3 or 4 lines down from the top

It will look something like 638F1P47 followed by a Date.

Could you confirm what your one says. You may need to disable the Power on splash screen to see this information.

Could you also provided some other details on your build setup

[anthonygriff]

message deleted

[davidjwbailey]

or I could read it from the FoxOne application that you bundled :-)

Mainboard type: 965X7AA
BIOS version: 638F1P46
ROM Part: PMC Pm49FL004T LPC/FWH
Release Date: 05/30/2007

Defintely a Novatech PC - even has a Novatech Vista Ultimate sticker on the side :lol:

Have found that I *can* get it to POST and get into BIOS if I only have 1Gb of OCZ PC6400 4-4-4-15 memory loaded, but then Windows will not start and after a few seconds I get "beeeep - beeeeeep - beeeeep - beeeeep - beeeeep" and fade to black :-(

Not really your problem (as I am upgrading at my own risk) but I *really* appreciate your help with this.

For the record, Bioshock and Crysis and Team Fortress 2 are MORE than worth the PAIN of upgrading my PC!

[Coops]

I have spoke with Foxconn.

They believe that either there mainboard is not able to support the timings the OCZ is trying to use. This would require a BIOS rework.

They have also said to check the RAM voltage. Some of the High performance memory needs the voltage increased in order to work. Therefore they have said to check what the voltage requirement of your model ram is and then set the correct voltage in the BIOS if it is wrong.

Standard DDR2 is 1.8volts but some RAM go as high as needing 2.2v

[system7]

I always read Coops stuff with interest. And learn. :D

CPU-Z (http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php) is the essential tool to examine memory timings. The memory tab tells you what timings the motherboard is actually running, based on the slowest modules timings usually, the SPD tab gives you the timings of the individual modules.

This is new to me, but there is a workaround to get the OCZ memory working on it's own. You put one module in slot 4, boot into bios and adjust voltage and maybe timings. Then reboot with the second module installed. Clever, huh?

Wish I could take the credit for that. I found it here:
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=31182&highlight=ip35-e

[davidjwbailey]

:-) that is exactly what they suggested to me!

will try it, but not in a week when i have a major business plan to type at home on the same PC ... so back next week with news.

CPUZ reports 1.8v and OCZ say that it need 2.0V, so will get onto it.

and Rep for Coop - nice answer and much appreciated.

[davidjwbailey]

it is never as simple as you expect.

the trick was to put one strip in "4" and kick up the voltage in +0.05v increments with the other DRAM setting all set (4-4-4-15, 800MHz)

it took over 40 reboots to get it all to work, including lots of BIOS checksum errors and failed windows boots.

finally it does work, with 2Gb in place.

the other problem was that one strip of RAM had failed, so that is going back "RMA" to the nice people who sold it to me

motto: overclock ONLY after checking everything

anyway, kudos to Novatech, this really flies and has loads more o/c potential built in - so will recommend novatech to anyone who asks