couple of layman questions

[Largo]

This motherboard i have does this energy saving or some such, where if i just sit on the desktop it puts the multiplier down and only uses a certain % of the CPU, but when i run a program it boots it back up max power etc

Anyway to turn this crap off? Its probably not crap but im just curious, ive read thro the manual a ton of times and there doesnt seem to be any option what so ever for it - maybe its just a standard thing these days? (gigabyte ep43-ds3 core 2 duo e7400)

I bought this pc as a pre build machine because PCs tick me the fk off, i dont understand all the fickle bios stuff, and basically just want it to work.

So my friend says oh yeah grab 4 gig of ram to help performance and stuff, win7 and whatever i dont know, so i go and pickup this 1066 4gig x2gig strips of ram, its great and all. But apparently i cant run it at 1066, it has to be 800, the same as old ram i had, now why this is I dont understand and my friend who has the "know how" cant seem to explain it in laymans terms.
Heck maybe it can be run like that but i have no idea what im doing with all the bios numbers

It drives me up the bloody wall so quick all this

[Hohum]

You can turn off the power saving features in the BIOS, but you shouldn't as there really isn't any benefit in doing so. Regarding your RAM - 1066 isn't part of the standard JEDEC spec for DDR2, thus you have to set that speed manually in the BIOS. Not sure why your friend recommended it, as that speed is generally only useful if you're overclocking your PC. You won't see any noticeable performance benefit over 800MHz if you're running at stock speeds.

[briareos_kerensky]

Dynamic CPU clocking based on workload is standard nowadays; the setting you're looking for is the CPU EIST Function under the Advanced BIOS Features: disable it and your CPU will always be at maximum speed even when the system is idling.

RAM: probably the BIOS is using the CPU multiplier to set the RAM speed, even if everything's is set to auto; entering the BIOS and forcing the RAM speed by leaving the CPU multiplier set to auto should do the trick, as well as resetting the BIOS to default values; before you do anything, take note how everything is set differently and proceed with caution.

Question is if you system feels unusually sluggish to turn off power saving features.

[Largo]

I managed to get it to desktop in 1066 with some settings changes

(http://forums.tweaktown.com/277365-post27.html) + some others, however it died after 2mins of TFC2, so screw it, ill put it back to 800 and just have it working

Aye system doesnt feel sluggish due to power saving i was just curious if it made a difference, id rather have the life of things extended so its no big deal really, thanks for replies

[abigsmurf]

May as well leave the power option on. It takes very little time for the CPU speed to be ramped up as needed and lower powerusage when idle will mean the CPU fan doesn't need to be going at full speed all the time.

If you're mixing different types of ram, the motherboard will automatically lower the speed to that of the slowest stick. Bear in mind DDR2 works best in matching pairs. If there is only a single stick in the PC, it's best to replace it entirely with 2* 2gb sticks.

[Largo]

They are matching pairs, 2 2gig strips plugged in for dual channel, check out that forum url above, all those settings just to get it to boot up at 1066, so fk knows really, hassle

i just get pissed off wasting my money on this crap

[abigsmurf]

Were you doing this by bumping up the front side bus (FSB) up to 1066?

If so, you'll need to lower the multiplier on your CPU. Your motherboard can definately take 1066mhz ram but if you just boost the FSB by that much, you're massively overclocking your CPU too which probably explains it dying in TFC2 (did the PC beep then reboot or bluescreen?). Make sure if you change it to 1066mhz your CPU multiplier is at 10.5x (these should all be options in the bios).

[Largo]

Well when i reached desktop i checked in cpuZ if the cpu was clocked and it wasnt, i think its called a divider right? where you can do the ram/cpu fsb separately? or so i gather.

However im probably wrong, i really need some kind of laymans calculator or something, perhaps ill grab some pictures of the bios screen

Heres the settings anyway from that forum post of that chaps

DRAM Performance Control
Performance Enhance...................: [STANDARD]
Extreme Memory Profile (X.M.P.).....: doesn't exist
(G)MCH Frequency Latch...............: [Auto] 266 Mhz
System Memory Multiplier ..............: [Auto] 4.0A
Memory Frequency (Mhz) ..............: 800 1066
DRAM Timing Selectable ................: [Auto]

The 266 matches the cpu fsb thats all i know, 266x10

[abigsmurf]

Gigabyte BIOS' usually have am overclocking themed screen that'll show you the current actual speed of ther ram and CPU so if they're incorrect you should be able to see there.

The other option to ensure it's the memory crapping out is to run memtest as that should highlight any issues on that front.

[Largo]

Aye first thing i did after getting to to desktop at 1066 was to then run memtest off a cd boot, and yep there were red errors across the board, after realizing that i cant understand memtests errors and just generally wait for it to crash, i tried tfc2 for a more real world test

[Hohum]

You don't need to understand the errors on Memtest. If you have any at all, then that's considered a failure. It could well be due to you having not set the correct voltage the RAM requires - as you've bought non-standard spec RAM, then it's highly likely that it requires voltages outside of the default spec aswell.