jvmunhoz

Ok, thanks for the clarification @MageTank! I think I'll start tinkering the 4133 C17 since it seems It'll take less compromise to achieve stability. Besides adjusting TFAW to 36 (4x9), any other obvious improvements I could make? Thanks for the tips so far!

I actually mistakenly understood that the system should be totally stable after choosing the frequency/primary timings with the proper voltages. And only THEN we would start tinkering with secondary and tertiary timings. So yeah, my bad hehe. I've another doubt though. The best config which passed on MemTest86 was the 4133 C17 that I mentioned on my last post, but my highest bootable config was definitely 4200 C16, which gave me some great performance out of the box, but it failed spectacularly on MemTest86. So is it safe to say at this stage that my mobo doesn't like 4200 C16 and it would be better to focus on the 4133 C17? Or was it my bios that may have messed up on the auto timings of the 4200 C16 and therefore made it unstable?

Hey, @MageTank! It's been about a week I've been (slowly) tinkering with the RAM, and it's been a complete disaster lol. My mobo doesn't like frequencies above 4200 C19, so I've taken 4200 as my limit. Some configurations between 4100Mhz and 4200Mhz (my IMC outright hates 4000Mhz, MemTest86 passed 4100 C19 but rejected 4000 C19) are totally passable at MemTest86, being 4133 C17 the best one performance-wise . . All voltages are basically maxed for now, with VCCIO/VCCSA both at 1.25v and vDIMM at 1,45v. All other timings besides the primary ones are on Auto for now. But I can't, for the life of me, make any of those configs run Prime95 longer than 5 minutes. So I gather I should now try to loosen some secondary and tertiary timings? (Anything seems off with any of those timings?) Or should I try to lower the frequency even more? (for a mobo that should theoretically be able to handle the XMP, that would be a major disappointment). Anything I'm doing wrong? Thanks for the patience in helping me.

Why have both top fans as exhaust then? Not meaning to be rude, I'd like to understand. Wouldn't have one of them as intake fix all of this?

But how much slower? 20% slower, 30% slower...? Any tips on this matter? One of the other reasons I thought for having one of the top fans as intake is for positive pressure. But I gotta admit I'm not certain exactly how that would affect positive pressure, since what I know is basically positive pressure = more intake than exhaust Yep, already bought the fans, it will have to be the 140mm. PS: I'll definitely clean the case, I'm just finishing some RAM OC, then I'll proceed in changing the case fans

Thanks for the fast response! And what were the odds we had the same memory kit? Hahaha. It certainly helps a lot with some of the guesswork. I'll try dialing it down to 4000/C15 to see how it responds. But since you are using 4 DIMM's, what are the values that I must tweak and what should I do with them since I just use 2 DIMM's? I'll take your config as a base, so I'd like to know what to look for. Really appreciate the help!

I decided it was finally time to have a decent airflow since I changed my water-cooler for a Noctua NH-D15S a few months ago. So I bought 6 Noctua NF-A14 PWM for my Corsair 750D Case and 2 Noctua NF-A15 HS-PWM for the Noctua NH-D15S. But I was wandering what is the best placement for them. My idea would be something like this: The front fans are intake. The bottom one is intake to bring some more cool air into the GPU (?) The two NH-D15S fans are also intake. The first top fan is also intake, to bring some cool air into the memory slots and in front of the NH-D15S (?) The second top fan is outtake, to take some of the hot air created by the the NH-D15S out of the case (?) The rear fan is also outtake, to remove the hot air created by the NH-D15S out of the case Does that make sense? Any tips on other types of placemente? Thanks in advance! Full PC spec here

Hi @MageTank, first of all I'd like to congratulate you on a great guide. Really great depth for such a complicated matter, especially for a beginner like me in overclocking. Since I'm a beginner, I'd like to ask a few things before tinkering with my configs here. I have a MSI MPG Z390 GAMING PRO CARBON mobo, an i7-9700k and a Patriot Viper Steel Series DDR4 16GB 4400MHz (PVS416G440C9K). You can check my full setup here. I'd say it's a good mobo and should be able to give me some maneuverability with some settings (such as tREFI). Without the overclock the RAM is just really meh, so that's why I'm here. I originally intended to use the XMP profiles that came with it, but I had no such luck. XMP profile 1 wouldn't even POST at 4400MHz 19-19-19-38 2T, with 1.45V of VDIMM and VCCIO and VCCSA both jumping to 1.40V. I couldn't complain, since my motherboard specifications only gave support for XMP profile 2 which gave me 4266MHz 19-19-19-39 2T with 1.35V of VDIMM and VCCIO and VCCSA again at 1.40V. But to my dismay, although the system would post, it was as unstable as it gets. It crashed on the first minute of the first benchmark. So here I am having to make overclock it myself . The timings of the XMP Profile 2 are as follows: I should probably begin by trying to raise the current VDIMM of 1.35V. At most 1.45V? (I've seen lots of controversies as to what's the max safe limits). Any other values that may seem a bit jarring and could cause the instability? I intend to make a decent overclock, focusing on frequency, primary timings and tRFC and tREFI. I may fiddle with the other values, but won't tighten them that much since it's my first time doing it. Any other value I should focus on? Any other tips? Thanks in advance!