General Discussions

[silverdragon]

Hi was given an ASUS F1A55-V mb and found the AMD A8-3870 apu at a garage sale in a box of pc junk ($10) my question is when reading up on the cpu it kind of tells me that in order to use the cpu internal graphics I need to use atleast 1866mhz ram, is that true. I can acquire 4x4gig 1600mhz ram (plain ram no heat spreader) for $30 from a friend but am wanting to find out if it will work so I can use the HDMI onboard only. I will be installing Win7 Ult x64. If you require any more info please don't hesitate to ask. Thank You

[elstaci · Accepted solution]

Not sure if this is the exact F1A55-V Motherboard you have or you have a PLUS version.

But here is Asus Support concerning your Motherboard's QVL list for LLANO APUs for RAM MEMORY: https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/SocketFM1/F1A55/AMD_Llano_4DIMM_QVL.pdf

It is a short list. So I copied the entire QVL RAM list for your LLANO APU:

Here is all the Data for your A8-3870: http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K10/AMD-A8-Series%20A8-3870%20AD3870WNZ43GX.html

It mentions that the APU is a LLANO APU.

According to the CPU Link, it does seem to indicate it needs 1866 mhz RAM MEMORY for the Integrated Graphics.

This is from AMD Support for the type of Memory speed you need on the type of APU you have: DDR3 Memory Frequency Guide | AMD

According to Asus Spec on your Motherboard. You have 4 DIMM slots available. So it seems you can use 1600 Ram Memory. If your Motherboard only had 2 DIMM slots then you are forced to use 1866 RAM Speed memory. F1A55-V | Motherboards | ASUS Global

[silverdragon]

ok I will borrow the ram just to test and yes just a plain -V (no plus) 4 dimm. I will get back to you with my results, Thank You

[elstaci]

From what I gathered, the 1866 speed is the MAXIMUM RAM Memory speed you can use with your AMD APU. So, it should work with a lower speed RAM Memory according to the AMD Chart that I posted in my previous comment.

Good luck and keep us posted, good or bad

[silverdragon]

ok, I asked the guy that owned the board and he told me he never used the onboard because he has a 4gig vid card. so I proceeded to install 1x4gig stick and boot up - blank screen using hdmi and then dvi cable, tried 2x4gig sticks still blank screen same results. went to 3x4gig same results. then 16gig same results. I then pulled out an older vga monitor and used the onboard vga, voila boot screen appears and i can get into the bios. In the bios there is a feature to force DVI and HDMI, tried DVI first shutting down and removing the vga cord and plugging in the DVI cord, rebooted no screen. Went back to vga and switched it to force HDMI, rebooted no screen.

So i have come up with a few probable causes:

1. The ram even though being low end no-name ram isn't good enuff.

2. The DVI/HDMI ports are not working only the VGA.

3. I need to use atleast 1866mhz or higher in order to use the DVI or HDMI onboard ports.

(All 4 sticks show up as unknown but run at 1600mhz)

So i have decided not to buy the 16gig no-name but buy 2x4gig 1866mhz ram not sure which brand but they won't be no-name  lol  Thank you for the help and i hope the 1866 or higher works.

[elstaci]

There is also another possibility,  The AMD APU you found in a garage sale may be defective or possibly damaged. Depending on how it was stored in the box of junk.