M4A87TD EVO / 1090T / G.Skill DDR3-1600

[chimpfury]

Okay, I've had enough messing around on my own and I'm in dire need of some professional help. At this point I would be overjoyed with a stable system. The system freezes almost always when opening a new window/tab in Firefox as well as less notable programs. Sometimes it recovers after a wall of static color blocks that flash on the screen proceeded by windows saying something like my AMD graphics drivers stopped responding. Other times I have to just use the reset button.

I have tried every combination of settings I can figure in the bios for setting the ram timings/voltages according to the main sticky as well as other posts. Currently I am running everything at Auto except DRAM frequency is 1333Mhz, DRAM Voltage is 1.5 and the timings are 8-8-8-24

I have already RMA'd the motherboard hoping that would fix it and yet the exact same problem persists. I am also using the most current firmware (2001).

I have tested each stick individually (in the new MB) with memtest86+ v4.20 in their respective slots (dual channel mode DIMM_A2 & DIMM_B2). One stick was tested for 4.5hrs and the other for 8.5hrs, neither showed any errors. However, whenever either of the sticks are inserted individually in DIMM_B1 or B2 they show that they are running at DDR400. Nothing in the mobo manual mentions this....

Running just one stick in DIMM A2 the system still locks up as before.


System Specs (all new):
ASUS M4A87TD EVO
AMD 1090T X6
8 Gigs G.Skill F3-12800CL9-4GBRL0
XFX Radeon HD 6850
3 SATA HDD
1 IDE HDD
1 IDE DVD-Rom
Seasonic X-650


HELP!

[NemesisChild]

From what you're describing, it sounds like a graphic card problem, not the memory.
Catalyst/AMD graphic card drivers can be finicky, install the latest for your 6850.
Can you test your 6850 in another machine?
Also, return your card to stock frequencies if you're overclocking your 6850.

It's inportant to manually enter the memory timings and voltage in the bios, do not let them run on auto.

[chimpfury]

OMG! I pulled it out and put it in a rig that I know works flawlessly and low and behold the same thing. The video card was actually the first thing I thought of and contacted the manufacture first, they said it was most likely a memory issue. Bah!

Thanks, too bad XFX didn't suggest that the first time, could have saved me a week of my life.

One last thought though, running windows stock video card drivers (which are unusable at the low resolution) the system seems to be fine. Initially when I was troubleshooting the card I tried three different versions of the catyls drivers: the most recent from AMD's site, then the most recent from XFX's site, then the drivers that came on the CD with the card. They all locked up pretty much the same.

[NemesisChild]

I'm not too familiar with ATI/AMD graphic cards and Catalyst drivers, I've always used Nvidia.
I'm a senior member over at the AMD Processor forums, most of my counterparts run AMD graphic cards.
I know from posts over there, some special tweaks are needed with the Catalyst drivers.
I suggest that you post over there, forum members will definitely respond:

http://forums.amd.com/forum/index.cfm?forumid=1