R7-1700 / Gigabyte AB350Gaming.rev1 - G.Skill Aegis 32GB 2x16 3200mhz, machine will not boot with XMP on.

[t33to]

I've just updated to the latest bios which now lets me boot up Linux Mint instead of just halting during the start up process, but when I enable XMP it hands during boot. Something about CPU#X not responding over and over again, and the numbers change representing to the threads.

 

Should I try to manually overclock the memory until it halts during boot and then back it down one notch?

[mariushm]

Make sure the voltage of the ram is set to 1.35v or whatever is required for that frequency. 

You could also just try to set manually to 2933 Mhz, 3000 Mhz or something lower than 3200 Mhz ... could be the motherboard is just not quality enough to handle 3200 mhz with those particular sticks... and the first gen Ryzen was also more picky about ram.

 

[t33to]

1 minute ago, mariushm said:

Make sure the voltage of the ram is set to 1.35v or whatever is required for that frequency. 

You could also just try to set manually to 2933 Mhz, 3000 Mhz or something lower than 3200 Mhz ... could be the motherboard is just not quality enough to handle 3200 mhz with those particular sticks... and the first gen Ryzen was also more picky about ram.

 

I'll give that a go, thank you.

[t33to]

19 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Make sure the voltage of the ram is set to 1.35v or whatever is required for that frequency. 

You could also just try to set manually to 2933 Mhz, 3000 Mhz or something lower than 3200 Mhz ... could be the motherboard is just not quality enough to handle 3200 mhz with those particular sticks... and the first gen Ryzen was also more picky about ram.

 

Is it the DRAM voltage I want to have a 1.35v? That is what the ram sticks say the XMP should operate at.

 

DRAM Voltage (CH A/B) is the setting I'm referring to.

[t33to]

27 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Make sure the voltage of the ram is set to 1.35v or whatever is required for that frequency. 

You could also just try to set manually to 2933 Mhz, 3000 Mhz or something lower than 3200 Mhz ... could be the motherboard is just not quality enough to handle 3200 mhz with those particular sticks... and the first gen Ryzen was also more picky about ram.

 

 

It seems to be functioning properly at 2933mhz. I think maybe I'll just leave it there. I just wanted to get near 3000mhz as that's what I had before but in 16GB.

[Moonzy]

Zen 1 can't handle dual rank at 3200 I think, unless you have a very good chip

[t33to]

4 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

Zen 1 can't handle dual rank at 3200 I think, unless you have a very good chip

Would you mind explaining that a bit further. Although I have built computers for many years I don't have much modern experience with overclocking.

[Moonzy]

Just now, t33to said:

Would you mind explaining that a bit further. Although I have built computers for many years I don't have much modern experience with overclocking.

Basically your CPU IMC can't control the DIMMs at 3200 MHz, it's not capable of doing it

 

16gb DIMMs are normally dual ranks, unless you got single rank DIMMs.

Dual rank puts more strain on the IMC compared to single rank, so the freq may drop when going from single to dual rank.

[mariushm]

AMD licensed the DDR4 memory controller from another company, they didn't make it themselves .... so think of it like writing a long word document, and copy pasting some chunk of text written by someone else inside it - it's usable, but it's not perfect. 

A memory controller is very complex, so there's quite a lot of parameters that can be tuned to get things right, and AMD left A LOT of those parameters to some not quite optimal values, which meant the Ryzen processors originally really preferred ram sticks with memory chips from a specific manufacturer, which tolerated those poorly chosen parameters better. Memory sticks with chips from other manufacturers didn't work as well, and therefore you could not achieve high frequencies. 

 

As time went on, AMD updated the microcode inside the processors through bios updates (each time you update the bios, the bios contains a small package of code that gets uploaded into the processor) so a lot of those parameters that could be adjusted were more fine tuned to make the memory controller more flexible and make it possible to support higher frequencies with more diverse memory chips. 

However, it still depends a lot on both the processor, and how the motherboard manufacturer routed all the wires between the socket and the memory slots, and also the memory sticks themselves and what chips are used on the memory sticks.

 

So with 1st generation ryzens, it's quite possible you could get 3200 Mhz with just one stick, 3000 Mhz with 2 sticks in dual channel mode, but may have to go to 2800 or 2933 with 4 memory sticks installed on the motherboard. 

 

Ryzen 2xxx (Zen+) processors have a memory controller that's improved on the hardware level, more optimized and more configurable, and capable of handling more diverse memory chips, and that makes it much easier to support frequencies like 3200 Mhz much easier, and higher, if the motherboard is also capable.

 

Zen 2 ( Ryzen 3xxx ) processors raised the bar to make it easy to get 3600 mhz or more.

 

 

 

 

[t33to]

Thanks guys, what actually is a RANK though? Is that physical circuitry? Or is it like a classification of memory?

[Moonzy]

11 minutes ago, t33to said:

Thanks guys, what actually is a RANK though? Is that physical circuitry? Or is it like a classification of memory?

hmm... i think it's easier if you just watch the video, and ask us anything that you don't understand