Jedi @ Pantip

[surface]

I'm heading back to Pantip today, after buying a new system yesterday evening, to hopefully replace some memory that doesn't work in my motherboard. Similar thread was started recently about the same shop and branch of Jedi, the one with all women working there, but I thought I'd give them a try anyway since I've read mostly good things about Jedi (and I didn't realize yesterday that one shop is run by clueless women while the other is run by guys who appear to know their stuff).

After pointing out the ladies which motherboard, cpu, etc., I was interested in, they recommended some of the cheaper GEIL memory (cheaper being relative to Thailand since RAM appears to be much much cheaper in the states at this point). I asked the ladies "Are you sure 4 of these sticks will work in this motherboard? I need 8GB." Even had it translated for them by my Thai tagalong in order to be extremely certain that it wouldn't cause me headaches and hours of troubleshooting, and they said "sure, no problem." They then had the other jedi shop put the system together where I watched it boot and was satisfied that all the parts were in working order and appeared to work together.

Unfortunately upon getting it home it took hours of messing around with everything under the sun to get any OS installed, and even then it wasn't stable. I knew from experience that consistent OS installation problems likes these were 99% likely to be the RAM, so I was eventually able to get XP 64 installed with 2 sticks instead of 4. Decided it was time to run memtest, and with 4 sticks the system locked up almost immediately. Gave it a go with 2 sticks and they ran fine. Swapped with the other 2 sticks and they ran fine as well.

I decided to look up the qualified parts list for the P5Q Deluxe at the Asus site and saw my sticks weren't mentioned, though there was one with a similar part number, just 1 number off I think, that was only qualified for a single stick in the system (out of 4). I just laughed as the "yeah yeah, no problem, work fine" from the jedi sales women couldn't have been more off the mark.

Now I'm off to Pantip, computer in tow and armed with the list of qualified RAM to see what they'll do for me. I was a little peeved to be honest that they insisted I pay VAT, after the sales woman who was helping me for almost an hour gave me a final price for all of the components so I knew how much to get from the ATM. When I get back to pay, and mention I need a receipt in my companies name, all of a sudden that wasn't the final price and they insisted I pay VAT. I haggled them down a bit from what they wanted, but since every other store was closing I wasn't in much of a position to say no unless I felt like going back again today (which I'm doing anyway) and going to any of the other shops there that don't charge VAT, as none of them do unless they think they've got you by the balls, which jedi basically did at the time.

Until I conclude the follow-up visit in a little while, I'm still up in the air about if I would give them any repeat business. The guys who hang out at the corner shop seem to know what they are doing, and if I were to go back to Jedi for anything it would be straight to their shop. The women I ended up with at the other shop were clueless and caused me to waste time and another trip over there. They were also able to gouge me for a bit as it was late, the other shops were closing, and I was desperate not to go back to Pantip again today ( I paid most of the "VAT" they wanted and I'm going back anyway). Not surprisingly, non of the other shops I made purchases from yesterday charged me VAT, including IT City. In fact most gave me a discount off the advertised price when asked. If there was a comparable shop at Fortune I wouldn't even think twice about going to Pantip, but unfortunately there isn't anyplace that has such a variety of high end components that Jedi and some other shops at Pantip have.

I'll follow up when I get back. I'm 99% sure that they'll sort everything out for me, but I'm interested in seeing if they will (try to) charge me for more expensive RAM if it ends up that similar priced sticks won't work in the motherboard. I don't have a problem paying, but it's just the fact that they assured me it would work, and you'd think that after they've built x number of systems based on this motherboard they'd know which RAM would work and which wouldn't.

I'll post the components here as I've seen people discussing similar systems recently and it might help them avoid the issues I've had so far.

ASUS P5Q Deluxe

Intel Q9550

*** GEIL DDR2 800 4GB(kit of 2) 4-4-4-12 -- 4 sticks of this does not work with this MB.

Powercolor HD 4850 GDDR5

Thermaltake ToughPower 650W

Updating the BIOS from the 6 or 8 month old original version to the latest version from a few weeks ago improved stability with 4 sticks a bit, but not enough for this RAM.

Edited March 11, 2009 by surface

[sillyfools]

Some staff at Jedi were good about 4 years ago. The last couple of years I avoid them. Especially the 'little boss'.

She has always been very uninterested and unfriendly and it carries over on the rest of her staff. I always found the shop just next door to be much friendlier and knowledgable.

[RLM2008]

The shop next door (jedi's bitter rival) is TKCom and they are very good. They also tend to get some quality brands in that other shops don't have.

The small boss in Jedi is a bit preoccupied with just getting the money in, but her partner there is very friendly and helpful in my experience. I've been going there for 4 or 5 years, and haven't had any issues, but it really pays to do a bit of research first. The guys I've found to be a little bit dopey in my experience, but there you go.lol

Your talking 8gb, which I presume is 4x2gb populating all four slots. That's notoriously more tricky to get stable and even the pros from the memory manufacturers like OCZ I've seen struggle with certain boards. That's taking into account they have multi thousand oscilloscopes at their disposal.

From what I see you have to be prepared to make certain compromises, maybe dropping down from the advertised memory speed, and loosening timings. You may also have to give the memory a boost in voltage just a tad and likewise the northbridge is going to need that bit extra voltage(especially with the Quadcore thrown in). You've then got countless other settings haven't you like GTL refs and clock skews, which can make a significant difference.

I've never had your particular board, but I did read some threads on it, and certainly in the early days many people had issues. It favors either samsung or micron based chips I can't rememeber which. They do sell OCZ ram in Jedi, so it maybe worth going to the OCZ forum first and doing a search ocztechnologyforum.com/forum (not allowed to post a helpful link)

Alternatively they sell Gskill next door, which I've always liked or you could look at corsair. I've had a few of the high performance Geil sticks, but I can't say that they are a favourite of mine. it's also hard to find any detailed online info.

xtremesystems.org is a great site to get the info on. Here's a thread for your board I believe. (google search 'p5q deluxe xtremesystems')

xtremesystems.org/FORUMS/showthread.php?t=189437

you may want to start at the end of the thread and work back. Check out peoples signatures to see what configs they are running and the tests, bios version/settings they post.

memtest is a good start for sure, but it's also worth running prime95 blend tests once in your OS for further testing.

Hope that helps

Cheers

RLM

[RLM2008]

just looking at your config again. what are those sticks 2.1v?(I'm on DDR3 so have forgotten ddr2 voltages) did you try running them at 5-5-5-15 timmings with say 2.2v and as I say a boost in northbridge voltage?

also is that PSU man enough for your config? The toughpowers are excellent PSUs, but what with the Quadcore, graphics card and 4 sticks I'm not 100%.

RLM

[surface]

Well, after all that, it ended up being a bad motherboard. Yes, we eased the timings, raised the voltage, etc. They then swapped in some different/better memory in the MB and it was still misbehaving. When they eventually pulled out another P5Q Deluxe and tried my original RAM in it, low and behold, it worked.

Have to say I'm very glad to be in Bangkok and not back home ordering online in a situation like this. It would have taken quite a while to narrow it down to the MB with all the shipping back and forth to an online reseller who may or may not have useful and efficient RMA procedures and staff.

The P5Q does default to 5-5-5-15 for the RAM, so I've manually set it to 4-4-4-12 which is working fine. The tech there had bumped the voltage to 2.1 or 2.2 (the approved range is 1.8 - 2.3), but I knocked it back down to 1.9 and it's working just fine. Might even bump it down to 1.8 and see how it works, unless I decide to try some overclocking for a bit.

In the end I'm very satisfied with Jedi's support. The techs looking into the problem were nothing but friendly and professional.

Still feeling a bit sour about who I assume is the owner or boss based on the above posts. I'll definitely be avoiding her if I go back to Jedi again, and if she happens to chime in again about VAT or some other such nonsense I'd simply walk, for good.

Edited March 11, 2009 by surface

[RLM2008]

Ahh, an infamous friday afternoon build. It's not until you pull the heatsinks of these boards and check the sloppy thermal paste application that you get an idea of their quality control. Glad it's sorted though.

Just my opinion, but I'd be hesitant about dropping down to 1.8v or 1.9v. If you do, make sure to run prime95 (blend test) for a few hours at least. The kit may seem alright, but in no time with a bit of stress (games or whatever) you'll experience blue screens and an inevitabel OS corruption. You may also lose valuable files. A lot of the problems people seem to have, which they'll blame on graphics drivers etc come down to poor memory settings.

Anyway good luck:)

RLM

Well, after all that, it ended up being a bad motherboard. Yes, we eased the timings, raised the voltage, etc. They then swapped in some different/better memory in the MB and it was still misbehaving. When they eventually pulled out another P5Q Deluxe and tried my original RAM in it, low and behold, it worked.

Have to say I'm very glad to be in Bangkok and not back home ordering online in a situation like this. It would have taken quite a while to narrow it down to the MB with all the shipping back and forth to an online reseller who may or may not have useful and efficient RMA procedures and staff.

The P5Q does default to 5-5-5-15 for the RAM, so I've manually set it to 4-4-4-12 which is working fine. The tech there had bumped the voltage to 2.1 or 2.2 (the approved range is 1.8 - 2.3), but I knocked it back down to 1.9 and it's working just fine. Might even bump it down to 1.8 and see how it works, unless I decide to try some overclocking for a bit.

In the end I'm very satisfied with Jedi's support. The techs looking into the problem were nothing but friendly and professional.

Still feeling a bit sour about who I assume is the owner or boss based on the above posts. I'll definitely be avoiding her if I go back to Jedi again, and if she happens to chime in again about VAT or some other such nonsense I'd simply walk, for good.

[harrisben]

I've been going to Jedi for years for both personal and business equipment and while there've been a couple of problems Jedi staff have always done their best to overcome them. I've never felt that any problem was caused by Jedi anyway.

Re: Tax invoice, if you ask for a Tax Invoice (in a business name) why would they not ask for 7% additional VAT? Producing a Tax Invoice means they must submit it to the revenue department/pay the sales VAT, so by insisting on not paying 7% additional you are effectively asking for a ~7% discount. Anyway, if you are really purchasing for your business why would you not want the purchase VAT to balance against your sales VAT?

[spacefruit]

Here is my experience with Jedi over five years:

I first went when they had the one shop on the right. Then the two girls (Sisters??) worked side by side. One was techincaly USELESS except with money (and rude) and the other EXTREMELY knowledgeable and charming. Because I am a geek I could never remember which was which so I always started my visit with a technical question to see which one I was dealing with.

I avoid the boss, but the thing is, at Jedi, it is the girls who know best. The boys are just drones.

What I dont like is that they have always pushed me to buy new tech, and I prefer a year old at least, and have not yet tried I7 setups. I see no reason to for a while.

One has to have to have a basic knowledge, and frankly I would expect anyone going there to have it as they are a high performance outlet. Even so, as everyone here seems to agree, you do have to count your fingers.

I do agree that since they got the second shop, and some or all of the girls had babies, It has gone a little soft. I too have now moved to the shop opposite who's prices are good, and they seem to have knowledge and high end stock.

[spacefruit]

HAving read my post, It seemed too negative. Jedi are a busy well run buisiness who have always sorted out any problems or warrenty fast and to my satisfaction.

My only gripe is that they dont always give advice that suits me, and I cant always tell wether I have the knowledgable person infront of me. EG Pushing expensive I7 setups when all I wanted was a Q9665 to upgrade.

I like them. Can you tell?