So I made a foolish mistake of taking my memory and motherboard to sub zero temp (with controlled humidity). Two of my 8, 16 GB modules modules started hanging the system, not reporting on SOME of the motherboard UEFI features the main panel reported NONE whereas the UEFI (System Browser actually populated BUT said 0MB and 2MB of GB on each of the defectives) would still report as present. ? I assumed wrongfully that my motherboard was damaged and replaced it. The new board had the old MEI, unmodded BIOS and (SAS controller etc). So I thought I would swap one of the 2 from my old board.
New BIOS : indicated Quad channel all modules properley but MEI version of n/a : the Old BIOS when switched on (if you are still following me this is the modded one which has a new microcode etc.) the old one shows only 48 gb of the 96. Random modules fell to they seemed to be random ?!? Not like a1 b1 but a2 and c1 …
1st of all, I updated of the new bios and MEI now shows the latest version info instead of n/a and all modules in quad channel ((6 of 8) 2 are clearly toast).
Can anyone here perhaps even ‘Fernando the Great’ (meant with honer)… As I really owe a lot to him and this community you are all the upper echelon of knowledge in my world.
1) tell me what this means beyond a doubt.
2) let me know a memory test program to confirm this much memory / processor channels are OK and so I can move forward. I have been running Windows Memory Diagnostic for 24 hours and its stuck on 21%. I have read it only works with 4 GB in older versions. Is this pointless…
3) any further advice regarding confirming the proper functionality of the entire pool of memory maybe even CPU functions. As I can’t imagine why socketing a updated version of the BIOS from my old board would result in such an awful mess of missing modules and providing only dual channel. Where as the new bios (now with UEFI visible MEI) would result in many modules falling off.
IS it the fact that I am using an old microcode or something ?!? I am not as knowledged as to the why of these things. I hope this community can help me figure this out.
Sincerely, Please HELP ME
Futiless
So you have a new board but the old RAM. Update the new board to the latest stock ASRock BIOS without any mods or alterations/updates. That excludes any issues at the BIOS and/or ME firmware. If you still see problems, the memory DIMMs are almost certainly bad. To test you can use memtest86.
Thank you for your response. And the memtest86+ results are most definitely the standard to use. I just wasn’t sure if 2017 testing required more advanced testing protocols as things do change over time.
I still have a lingering question for everyone though. How come the most recent Asrock BIOS could see all memory. Where as the one I had modded here could now only see random slots in no particular order other than it dropped to dual channel because some of the pairs were totally offline. Switching to the Asrock BIOS and everything SEEMS to be OK. Seems to be the operative word… SOO can anyone inform me how the MEI could be the problem or otherwise, I am quiet a novice on its mechanics.
Thank you for the reply sincerely
So did memtest86 show errors? If you miss-configure the ME then it is very possible to see such weird things. Make sure you have the BIOS from ASRock and update the ME using FWUpdate, not by yourself. A properly updated ME won’t cause any such issues, bad hardware can.
Your utility does fall short of allowing my to make LSI adjustment though so then im stuck adding this later. Maybe you can show where to read the right protocol for this? Otherwise my LSI controleller seems far out of date … 4 years ago. and LSI has publicly listed microcode updates… so I made some of my own but how could I do this better ?
Sincerely
What are you talking about? Since when we have been talking about "LSI" cards? There is no utility of "mine" mentioned anywhere above. We were neither discussing raid protocols or external card microcodes. You posted at the wrong thread…
[quote=plutomaniac|p35831 … Make sure you have the BIOS from ASRock and update the ME using FWUpdate, not by yourself… [/quote]
Plutomaniac : THIS is why I needed to put in the LSI microcodes as ASRock’s doesn’t even include the UEFI module, firmware updates etc. …
Could you show me where to go to get this info ?