RAM not being able to sustain stock speeds

[Potato_Waffles]

Hey guys! 

I am new to this forum, but there has been something, that has been bothering me about my PC:
Some time ago I bought a second stick of RAM (which is closely matched, but certainly not the same as the other one) for my desktop, so I set them to use the slower timings and speed that were compatible with both modules and all was fine and dandy, but after a few months my PC started to freeze after a random and long period of time (like between 4 and 8 hours of it being turned on, not even used). Long story short, turned out to be RAM instability, so I lowered the speed from the stock 2133 to whatever was the lower one (1866... ugh...). Keep in mind, I have done no overclocking on the RAM, since the board I used to use was H110, no overclocking support what so ever. XD

But recently I upgraded to a newer one (Z170) and tried to push voltages and speeds a bit higher on the RAM, no success at all... No matter what voltage I tried (anything from stock 1.212V till 1.35V), the RAM just couldn't sustain any higher speed, in fact it didn't care much about the voltage, as it the system was freezing and crashing proportionally sooner to the increase of speed. So even at 2000MHz and 1.35V, it freezes. I tried increasing the timings with little to no success either... I haven't done testing on individual modules, since I am a tab hoarder and don't like closing tabs. XD

My question is, is this some sort of weird RAM compatibility issue about which I am completely blind to? Maybe I am doing something wrong with the timings? Or a defect? Or just aging, one has worked for 5 years? I am very confused as to why this is happening. I'll attache a photo of bot RAM sticks from CPU-z 

If anyone can shed some light onto this or even just give speculations, something I can use as a straw to figure this out, I'd be very thankful!!! ^^

PS: I know one has XMP and is higher specked that the other one, I was very tight on budget 5 years ago and no one is selling such old and cheap RAM second hand. And for some reason for ASUS Z170-A the recommended slots are 2 and 4, not 1 and 3, no clue why. 

 

[Guest]

It's totally and 100% Memory issue.

 

The issue is one stick is XMP and Jedec of 2400mhz and the other is only 1067mhz and lower no XMP and no matching timings for the other stick.

It's not just about that either, but no need to further discus beyond that.

 

Which ever stick brings you the most performance (probably the 2400) is the stick you should purchase to match. 

[Craftyawesome]

Maybe reset the bios and let it decide everything about the ram speed? Maybe you missed or had a typo on a subtiming that is too tight.

[Potato_Waffles]

@ShrimpBrime Yeah, I completely get it, but I am tight on money even today, beggars can't exactly be choosers, I got whatever I could on the second hand market. 

But both are running (at the moment) at 1866MHz, much lower specs for both sticks. But I guess then sticks are sensitive to increasing the timings as well as decreasing them?

@Craftyawesome The issue is the same across 2 mother boards, bios decided or not. Also, it cannot run at the stock bios decided settings, crashes after a few hours at 2133MHz. The timings are very loose, in one of the pictures you can see (I forgot to change them after I gave up on trying to get even 2133)

 

Thank you for the fast replies! But I still don't fully get the "why" behind this. Maybe I could ask somewhere else?  

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Potato_Waffles said:But I still don't fully get the "why" behind this. Maybe I could ask somewhere else?  

 

Because all the sub timings are different requirements for each stick and they dont like each other. 

Or

User purchasing error.

 

[Potato_Waffles]

Oh shit, those exist as well? Damn.... Well then, guess it's a major user purchase error then! 

But in all seriousness, thank you so very much!!! I'll look into it, Maybe my "new" (also second hand) board has a tab for it in bios! I haven't had the time to fully explore it.  

[Potato_Waffles]

@ShrimpBrime YOU ARE A HERO!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I just looked in the bios and what do you know, there is a tab about secondary timings! But there is a metric butt-tone of them! Guess I know what I'll be doing over the weekend!  

Google also yields no results for secondary timings on neither stick (or even any info at all for the slower one XD ), guess I'll have to boot each ram separately, note down the timings and use the slower ones or even increase them. 

Again, thank you for the information, I really appreciate it!!! 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Potato_Waffles said:

@ShrimpBrime YOU ARE A HERO!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I just looked in the bios and what do you know, there is a tab about secondary timings! But there is a metric butt-tone of them! Guess I know what I'll be doing over the weekend!  

Google also yields no results for secondary timings on neither stick (or even any info at all for the slower one XD ), guess I'll have to boot each ram separately, note down the timings and use the slower ones or even increase them. 

Again, thank you for the information, I really appreciate it!!! 

What you want to do is install each stick individually and write down all the timings. Then go from there.

[Potato_Waffles]

8 hours ago, ShrimpBrime said:

What you want to do is install each stick individually and write down all the timings. Then go from there.

Yeah, that is a wonderful idea, I'll try it over the weekend and see how far I will get! Hopefully I'll be able to fix it!

Thank you so much for the help, you made my day, sir!!! 

[Potato_Waffles]

@ShrimpBrime THANK YOU SO MUCH BRO!!! I tweaked the secondary timings to use the slowest ones (a few were like 1 or 2 lower than they should have been) and decreased a bit (from ~8300 to 7800) the RAM refresh cycle time (tRCT) and now it works like a charm! Even at the 2400MHz and 1.22V!!!  
I am in debt to you, my friend! 

 

I'll try to OC the memory a bit tomorrow and see how that is handled, but I feel pretty confident now, no crashes or endless freezes! 
Thank you so very much again!!! ^^

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Potato_Waffles said:

@ShrimpBrime THANK YOU SO MUCH BRO!!! I tweaked the secondary timings to use the slowest ones (a few were like 1 or 2 lower than they should have been) and decreased a bit (from ~8300 to 7800) the RAM refresh cycle time (tRCT) and now it works like a charm! Even at the 2400MHz and 1.22V!!!  
I am in debt to you, my friend! 

 

I'll try to OC the memory a bit tomorrow and see how that is handled, but I feel pretty confident now, no crashes or endless freezes! 
Thank you so very much again!!! ^^

Ah! you learn quickly! Very nice. 

Memory tweaking and overclocking takes a lot of patience and time. The more time you spend on it, the more you learn and the better the outcome.

 

Keep me posted

[Potato_Waffles]

@ShrimpBrime my dude, I am in full debt to you!!! With the fixed secondary timings, my RAM reached 2933 MHz at 1.28V!!! With 16 16 36 primary timings, but it doesn't like going any lower than that at any frequency. With more knowledge and tweaking of the secondary timings, I can probably get away with even higher clock! But that is a terribly big task to do. 

I also did a 10 hour run with MemTest64 and no errors occurred, so I am just amazed how much both sticks achieved! Are there any other good tools for testing RAM stability? 

 

However, there are some consequences - after a few crashes and having garbage audio at 3066 MHz, it broke a bit my audio in Windows, no matter the RAM speed. I can listen to youtube and films without problems, but in my favorite game (Doom Eternal), it crackles a lot. 

In Linux there is just the occasional crack or pop when the audio is "woken up".

 

In windows, it seems to be caused by the app Voicemeeter Banana, as there are no audible crackles without passing the audio through it. And I have to use it, since the Headphones I have have super weak bass (even though they were advertised with high bass) and the Realtek control panel doesn't give enough bass boosting control. It can be also a driver issue, I'll try to fix it later on when I have time again. 

 

Again, thank you so much @ShrimpBrime for the amazing help! How can I return the favor, my friend?  

[Guest]

26 minutes ago, Potato_Waffles said:

@ShrimpBrime my dude, I am in full debt to you!!! With the fixed secondary timings, my RAM reached 2933 MHz at 1.28V!!! With 16 16 36 primary timings, but it doesn't like going any lower than that at any frequency. With more knowledge and tweaking of the secondary timings, I can probably get away with even higher clock! But that is a terribly big task to do. 

I also did a 10 hour run with MemTest64 and no errors occurred, so I am just amazed how much both sticks achieved! Are there any other good tools for testing RAM stability? 

 

However, there are some consequences - after a few crashes and having garbage audio at 3066 MHz, it broke a bit my audio in Windows, no matter the RAM speed. I can listen to youtube and films without problems, but in my favorite game (Doom Eternal), it crackles a lot. 

In Linux there is just the occasional crack or pop when the audio is "woken up".

 

In windows, it seems to be caused by the app Voicemeeter Banana, as there are no audible crackles without passing the audio through it. And I have to use it, since the Headphones I have have super weak bass (even though they were advertised with high bass) and the Realtek control panel doesn't give enough bass boosting control. It can be also a driver issue, I'll try to fix it later on when I have time again. 

 

Again, thank you so much @ShrimpBrime for the amazing help! How can I return the favor, my friend?  

I help people for my own satisfaction. I need nothing in return past a good old fashioned thank you.

And you're very welcome too. Most people aren't willing to put time and effort into things like this, so Thank you for exploring possibilities through trial and error. 

 

As for the sound cards on motherboards, when it comes to productivity, sometimes it's better not to use the onboard audio.

Maybe in the near future you can get an audio card that will be much better with features you need.

 

 

[Potato_Waffles]

Ahahahaha, go full old-school! I will consider it as an option, since I have 6 PCI-e slots available and really want to get more audio-phile stuff! 

But until I get a proper "not working", I'll try to fix it! I am with the mentality, that if there is a problem, but it still works, it's fixable! ^^

 

And that is a very noble thing to do, @ShrimpBrime! Thank you for being such a nice person and helping people! 

I did get a lead what else could be causing the audio cracking - too low PCH voltage. Someone else got the same issue OCing his RAM to 3600MHz. Guess I'll be busting out the Multimeter to see if that is the case. I wanted to check if the CPU voltage reporting is correct anyway, might as well check the PCH. 

 

When I have the solution, I'll post back! I hope someone else finds this thread useful in the future! 

[Potato_Waffles]

Hey peps! I fixed the sound! It was just a case of increasing the PCH voltage. No clue why. Possibly too much EMI?

 

It took me some time (and courage) to investigate the voltages of my motherboard, primarily because there is not datasheet or electrical diagram I can follow and the case I have doesn't have an opening at the back. Also, the silkscreen doesn't label the test points, a shame. :(

 

BUT I did have some findings:

 - The PCH voltage was as reported under idle, but would go up a bit under load. Possible voltage droop? But I had to increase it to 1.10V from 1.00V in BIOS to get the sound to work perfectly. When measured under load, it was around 1.128V, which should still be safe (but is strange).

 

 - DRAM voltage was as reported, nothing to comment there. 

 

 - Interestingly enough, the VCORE voltage of the CPU was consistently 200mV above what was reported at all times, but is still within reason (1.40V rather than 1.38V under load). 

 

 

I hope this helps someone in the future! ^^