I took advantage of half price PC3200 to convert my motherboard to dual channel (read somewhere that dual channel was a cheap way to gain performance)
motherboard happy, reported 2GB dual channel, openSUSE 11.0 definitely unhappy, started looking for non-existent SATA drives.
Grateful if someone could tell me:
a) was there any point in the first place?
b) if so what do I need to do?
TIA
gerrygavigan schrieb:
> I took advantage of half price PC3200 to convert my motherboard to dual
> channel (read somewhere that dual channel was a cheap way to gain
> performance)
>
> motherboard happy, reported 2GB dual channel, openSUSE 11.0 definitely
> unhappy, started looking for non-existent SATA drives.
Very strange. Adding RAM has in my experience never influenced hard disk
detection.
> Grateful if someone could tell me:
>
> a) was there any point in the first place?
Yes.
> b) if so what do I need to do?
First of all check if you inadvertently disconnected any cables while
installing the memory.
If that doesn’t help, come back with a clearer problem description.
I seriously don’t know what “started looking for non-existent SATA
drives” means in term of screen messages. Try following the well-tried
recipe for problem reporting:
HTH
T.
In addition, run an extended memtest86+ on the setup to ensure that the memory
is working.
Larry
[QUOTE=Tilman Schmidt;1908402]
Thank you for replying
> Very strange. Adding RAM has in my experience > never influenced hard disk detection.
I can’t argue with that, it mystified me
> First of all check if you inadvertently
> disconnected any cables while installing the > memory.
I can assure you that no cables were disconnected, I only have one PATA drive connected, which was busy downloading and setting up the OS, (which is how I got to see the SATA problem)
> I seriously don’t know what “started looking
> for non-existent SATA drives” means in term
> of screen messages.
Looping during boot sequence attempting to load SATA modules
> Try following the well-tried recipe for
> problem reporting:
I am grateful for this format but I’m not sure what I didn’t do
removed existing memory
installed two identical 1 GB sticks
motherboard started working on dual channel mode (yes…)
memory test (yes…)
OS boots (no…)
GRUB loaded, boot sequence started
OS never got past boot sequence and reported issues around non-existent SATA drives
Unfortunately I couldn’t get past that stage as the system failed to fully boot
However returning to one stick of RAM, everything started working again.
I’ll try again once I’ve got 11.1 up and running, in the hope that the problem automagically disappears and report back
gerrygavigan schrieb:
>>> First of all check if you inadvertently
>>> disconnected any cables while installing the > memory.
>> I can assure you that no cables were disconnected,
Ok.
>> I only have one PATA
>> drive connected, which was busy downloading
What do you mean by “downloading”?
>> and setting up the OS,
>> (which is how I got to see the SATA problem)
So your system does not contain any SATA drives at all? That wasn’t
entirely clear to me from your first description.
>>> I seriously don’t know what “started looking
>>> for non-existent SATA drives” means in term
>>> of screen messages.
>> Looping during boot sequence attempting to load SATA modules
Ok, but what are the actual messages? Attempting to load modules is
not a problem per se, even if the corresponding devices do not exist.
So in order to get an impression of what your problem is, I would
like you to tell me the actual message text appearing on your screen.
>> - action
>>
>> removed existing memory
>> installed two identical 1 GB sticks
>>
>> - expected result
>>
>> motherboard started working on dual channel mode (yes…)
>>
>> memory test (yes…)
>>
>> OS boots (no…)
>>
>> - actual result
>>
>> GRUB loaded, boot sequence started
Good. That’s one important piece of information already I didn’t get
from your first post. It tells me that the disk is working and that
GRUB still finds. That rules out an entire class of problems, namely
reordered drives after a hardware change.
>> OS never got past boot sequence and reported issues around non-existent
>> SATA drives
Again: please post the actual messages. I am unable to infer from the
sentence above what’s actually going wrong in your boot sequence. If I
knew which messages appeared on your screen, I might be able to come up
with an explanation.
>> Unfortunately I couldn’t get past that stage as the system failed to
>> fully boot
Ok, but how did the attempt end? In which state did it leave your machine?
What were the last messages on the screen? Specific details, please!
>> However returning to one stick of RAM, everything started working
>> again.
That’s an extremely interesting piece of information. It certainly rules
out a couple of possibilities.
Another interesting information would be whether you are running a 32 or
64 bit system, and if 32 bit, with or without PAE. Post the output of
“uname -a” for a start.
>> I’ll try again once I’ve got 11.1 up and running, in the hope that the
>> problem automagically disappears and report back
Ok, I’ll be very interested either way. Which as much detail as possible,
please.
HTH
T.
Installed 11.1, installed dual channel RAM, system working perfectly, not sure I’m getting much performance improvement from dual channel operation.
Nothing else to report