EggXpert

Hi all,

 Just built a new system and I'm not sure what the source of my problem is. I have a LiveCD of Fedora Core 11 and it won't boot properly. It starts to load and returns some cryptic looking trace dump and ends with "Kernel  panic - Not Syncing: Attempted to kill the idle task!"

Another fairly old livecd I have won't load either.

I ran the memtest (v2.11) provided with the FC11 LiveCD and it is failing miserably. 175,000 Errors and climbing. I just wanted to confirm that the memory is bad, or that this isn't possibly a problem with the CPU or Mobo? I'll be running the memtest on each stick individually and in different slots later tonight to try and isolate the source. 

 Thanks for the time!

System:

Gigabyte GA-EP45T-UD3LR

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400

Mushkin DDR3 1333 (10666) 2x2GB

Mushkin 580W PSU

MSI GeForce 8400 GS

Samsung 750G SataII x3

You need to manually set the memory to 1.8v.. I have this exact memory and it runs fine, but it's possible you got some bad sticks.. Again, this memory runs VERY high voltage for DDR3 memory, but it's got some of the best timings and price around..

Thank you for the suggestion, that was a big help. I should note that I am running all default BIOS values (ie auto detect) for everything besides DRAM @ 1.8v (it was at 1.5v)

 That still didn't do the trick, but I went single stick, and tried swapping out the stick, and neither would even begin to load the LiveCD. I went back to both sticks, and had to get them in the right order and the right sockets to load the liveCD, my first success at seeing the liveCD boot to the desktop.... however I read to me a kernel failure error on the desktop. I'm running the memtest now on that configuration and getting much less errors, 300 and climbing after 1.5hrs, however... still some errors. Now these inconsistencies with what slot and having both sticks in... would this be a sign of mobo problems or memory?

Could be a motherboard incompatibility with the memory..

I'd send Mushkin an e-mail and let them know about it. They might recommend you try boosting the voltage even further or they might recommend you RMA the RAM, or they might recommend you buy something different due to possible compatibility problems..

 That's some bad luck you've got there You might have to buy memory that's on the motherboard vendor's QVL list of compatible memory for that motherboard and then try updating the BIOS.. And then maybe the Mushkin sticks might work.. Or they might be bad..

Whatever you do, don't try to update your BIOS with unstable memory or you'll ruin your motherboard..

It could be your RAM or it could just be a compatibility problem between your motherboard and your RAM.

Using a set up found in a newegg member's review of this mobo, I was able to pass the memtest. I'll be contacting Gigabyte about whether a BIOS patch will allow me to run proper specs, or if I'd need different ram. So far, not thrilled with the support on this board.

Note that so far, I have only tried the lower 1.05v MCH core level. I'll try 1.24v later, I just wanted to get this stupid thing working. 

--MB Intelligent Tweaker(M.I.T.)--

PCI express Frequency (mhz): 100

--DRAM Performance control
Performance enhance: Standard
System memory multiplier: 4.00B
Dram timing selectable: Manual

--Advanced Timing control
tRRD: 4
tWTR: 8
tWR: 14
tRFC: 82
tRPT: 5
Command Rate: 2

--Channel A & B
Static tRead Value: 10

--MCH
MCH Core: 1.24 (Try 1.05 if this does not work for you)