Quad channel makes computer go into boot loop.

[Andrew3vans]

I was told to make another thread for this question so here it is. I have a Ryzen 7 2700 with Tforce 3200mhz ram on a b450f gaming asus motherboard. With 2 sticks in it works fine but when I have 4 sticks in at 3200mhz it goes into a boot loop. Any ideas on why this happens?

[lgcas]

5 minutes ago, Andrew3vans said:

I was told to make another thread for this question so here it is. I have a Ryzen 7 2700 with Tforce 3200mhz ram on a b450f gaming asus motherboard. With 2 sticks in it works fine but when I have 4 sticks in at 3200mhz it goes into a boot loop. Any ideas on why this happens?

Have you tested each stick to see if one is faulty or if a slot is faulty?

 

[CommanderAlex]

Ryzen does not have quad channel support, only dual channel support. Quad channel will be found on the HEDT/server platform. 

 

1000 and 2000 series Ryzen's can be temperamental with filling 4 DIMM slots on the motherboard. 

[Andrew3vans]

1 minute ago, lgcas said:

Have you tested each stick to see if one is faulty or if a slot is faulty?

yes and i just paid for the motherboard to be RMA. They sent me a new board because dual channel stopped working on the old one

 

[Andrew3vans]

1 minute ago, SpiderMan said:

Ryzen does not have quad channel support, only dual channel support. Quad channel will be found on the HEDT/server platform. 

 

1000 and 2000 series Ryzen's can be temperamental with filling 4 DIMM slots on the motherboard. 

Ok. I'm a graduate student in Athletic training so I'm not 100% knowledgeable in tech. Quad channel is when all 4 slots are filled correct? If I understand you correctly, this cpu cannot handle all 4 slots being full at those speeds. Can the 3000 ryzen or newer handle this?

[lgcas]

4 minutes ago, SpiderMan said:

Ryzen does not have quad channel support, only dual channel support. Quad channel will be found on the HEDT/server platform. 

 

1000 and 2000 series Ryzen's can be temperamental with filling 4 DIMM slots on the motherboard. 

Huh, that's interesting, I did not know that. Why is that? Some actual reason or artificial limiting?

 

Guessing it would also be worthwhile checking if the ram in on the boards QVL, but reading @SpiderMan's response makes me kind of weirded out.

[jaslion]

1 minute ago, Andrew3vans said:

Ok. I'm a graduate student in Athletic training so I'm not 100% knowledgeable in tech. Quad channel is when all 4 slots are filled correct? If I understand you correctly, this cpu cannot handle all 4 slots being full at those speeds. Can the 3000 ryzen or newer handle this?

No that is not correct. Your board only supports dual channel so with 4 dimms it's gonna run dual channel for each pair of sticks

[RAS_3885]

Check the sticks individually to make sure they are all functional. Your motherboard supports 4 sticks, but it's only dual-channel.

[PlayStation 2]

Just to ask, is your motherboard's BIOS fully updated? Earlier Ryzen CPUs really appreciate having updated BIOSes, especially for stability and RAM support.

[CommanderAlex]

2 hours ago, Andrew3vans said:

Ok. I'm a graduate student in Athletic training so I'm not 100% knowledgeable in tech. Quad channel is when all 4 slots are filled correct? If I understand you correctly, this cpu cannot handle all 4 slots being full at those speeds. Can the 3000 ryzen or newer handle this?

Just wanted to get that out there that Ryzen doesn't have quad channel support. 

 

Dual channel is when all 4 DIMM slots are filled. You have one channel for every 2 DIMM slots on the motherboard. I believe it has to do with how RAM is, DDR-Double Data Rate. So by having 2 DDR RAM modules occupy, i.e. DIMM slots 2 and 4, they occupy one channel going to the integrated memory controller. 

 

So, your processor, supports dual channel memory, thus you get 4 DIMM slots. 

2 hours ago, lgcas said:

Huh, that's interesting, I did not know that. Why is that? Some actual reason or artificial limiting?

 

Guessing it would also be worthwhile checking if the ram in on the boards QVL, but reading @SpiderMan's response makes me kind of weirded out.

I covered it above the quote. 

 

EDIT: The IMCs in these processors can be really judgmental about what RAM you use with them. They especially don't like having all 4 DIMM slots populated but as @PlayStation 2 suggested, updating the BIOS can improve memory compatibility. 

[Grabhanem]

35 minutes ago, SpiderMan said:

Just wanted to get that out there that Ryzen doesn't have quad channel support. 

 

Dual channel is when all 4 DIMM slots are filled. You have one channel for every 2 DIMM slots on the motherboard. I believe it has to do with how RAM is, DDR-Double Data Rate. So by having 2 DDR RAM modules occupy, i.e. DIMM slots 2 and 4, they occupy one channel going to the integrated memory controller. 

 

So, your processor, supports dual channel memory, thus you get 4 DIMM slots. 

I covered it above the quote. 

 

EDIT: The IMCs in these processors can be really judgmental about what RAM you use with them. They especially don't like having all 4 DIMM slots populated but as @PlayStation 2 suggested, updating the BIOS can improve memory compatibility. 

Ryzen desktop has two memory channels; each of those channels can take up to two sticks. Generally one channel is wired to slots 1 and 2, and the other to 3 and 4; therefore filling slots 2 and 4 gives you dual channel, the same with filling all four slots. There's no reason it has to be limited to two DIMMs per channel - a lot of server platforms support 3 or more - but that's what most consumer chips and motherboards are designed for. (The reason for recommending slots 2 and 4 over another combination that would also use both channels is that on standard memory layouts, slots that are on the end of a trace rather than in the middle of one have less electrical interference, so installing memory further from the CPU within a channel improves stability.)

 

As people have mentioned, adding more memory puts more strain on the already-anemic Zen+ memory controller, which is already close to its limit running 1 DIMM per channel at 3200. Dropping the speed a few notches should help get it running.

[bowrilla]

<removed by moderation>

2 hours ago, Andrew3vans said:

Ok. I'm a graduate student in Athletic training so I'm not 100% knowledgeable in tech. Quad channel is when all 4 slots are filled correct? If I understand you correctly, this cpu cannot handle all 4 slots being full at those speeds. Can the 3000 ryzen or newer handle this?

All Ryzen consumer chips (AM4) are dual channel (Ryzen Threadripper on TR4 or sTR4x has quad channel). That means the CPU's memory controller has 4 seperate memory channels. Memory channels and memory slots are not the same. On Ryzen boards with 4 slots 2 are conneted via daisy chaining basically (simplification, there are 2 ways in doing this, one is good but expensive, one is not). This means that the distance between the CPU and the slots are not all the same and that can be a challenge for the memory controller. Since Ryzen's memory controller is a bit on the sensitive side this might be enough to get an instable system.

 

First things first:

• What exact memory do you have (model number / SKU)?
• did you make sure that all memory sticks are okay (use memtest86 on an USB stick and test pairs)?
• Have you checked the details of your memory with Thaiphoon Burner (this can tell you wether you have Samsung B-Die or not)?
• Have you tried increasing memory voltage from XMP/DOCP standard 1.35V to 1.4V (don't go beyond 1.45V though, you can try in small increments of 0.01V each to test stability)?
• Have you tried increasing SoC voltage manually or with an offest (don't go beyond 1.2V)?
• Have you tried LLC settings (monitor the voltages with i.e. HWInfo64)?
• Have you tried setting XMP/DOCP and then manually choosing a slower speed?
• Have you tried Ryzen DRAM Calculator and setting the timings manually?

B450/X470 and Zen/Zen+ can be picky in terms of memory running at 3200 (not to mention anything above). 4 sticks even with single rank memory (memory modules on one side of the sticks) mean basically the same stress as 2 dual rank modules. If the chips aren't great (i.e. cheaper Hynix AFR) 4 modules might just not work.

 

1 hour ago, SpiderMan said:

Dual channel is when all 4 DIMM slots are filled.

No.

[Andrew3vans]

1 hour ago, SGT-AMD said:

Are all the sticks of ram the same brand / speed? or are you mixing?

 

All the same sticks  

[Andrew3vans]

1 hour ago, RAS_3885 said:

Check the sticks individually to make sure they are all functional. Your motherboard supports 4 sticks, but it's only dual-channel.

They all work with dual channel with only 2 sticks. 

[Andrew3vans]

1 hour ago, SGT-AMD said:

Nope

 

So it’s just dual channel with 4 Simms filled?

[NumLock21]

Try 1 stick at a time to see if all of your rams work. Then populate 1 slot at a time to see if all of your ram slots are working.

AMD Ryzen does not support quad channel. When all 4 stick of rams are installed, it's still dual channel.

AMD Threadripper on the other hand supports quad channel.

[TVwazhere]

-Thread cleaned, moved to CPU, Motherboards and Memory-

 

For future Thread Move requests, please use the report function (the Warning triangle under all posts) and select "Posted in wrong sub forum" in the category. 

[CommanderAlex]

2 hours ago, Grabhanem said:

Ryzen desktop has two memory channels; each of those channels can take up to two sticks. Generally one channel is wired to slots 1 and 2, and the other to 3 and 4; therefore filling slots 2 and 4 gives you dual channel, the same with filling all four slots. There's no reason it has to be limited to two DIMMs per channel - a lot of server platforms support 3 or more - but that's what most consumer chips and motherboards are designed for. (The reason for recommending slots 2 and 4 over another combination that would also use both channels is that on standard memory layouts, slots that are on the end of a trace rather than in the middle of one have less electrical interference, so installing memory further from the CPU within a channel improves stability.)

 

As people have mentioned, adding more memory puts more strain on the already-anemic Zen+ memory controller, which is already close to its limit running 1 DIMM per channel at 3200. Dropping the speed a few notches should help get it running.

That's good to know. Thanks for the clarification on the layout of the channels!! Unlike the other user that posts a simple "No".

[bowrilla]

5 minutes ago, SpiderMan said:

That's good to know. Thanks for the clarification on the layout of the channels!! Unlike the other user that posts a simple "No".

The other user explained it at the beginning of his post.

[CommanderAlex]

1 hour ago, bowrilla said:

The other user explained it at the beginning of his post.

My apologies, but normally, whenever you reply to a post, an explanation is down below... 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Andrew3vans said:

I was told to make another thread for this question so here it is. I have a Ryzen 7 2700 with Tforce 3200mhz ram on a b450f gaming asus motherboard. With 2 sticks in it works fine but when I have 4 sticks in at 3200mhz it goes into a boot loop. Any ideas on why this happens?

Well now that them guys got the dual channel and quad channel explanation out of the way, let's explain why it goes into a boot loop. 

 

So far we have slots are different distances from the Cpu and this is hard on the memory controller. Well, kinda. That's not actually what Your particular issue is.

 

The 2700 and 2700X flagship processors only support up to 2933mhz natively. Past this frequency, 3000mhz and higher is overclocking. This is more of the stress on the memory controller which is located inside the Cpu, then it can handle while populating 4 dimms, not necessarily the third Ram stick is further away while in dual channel the 2nd and 4th slots are to be populated, and 4 is furthest from the Cpu. This really is a non issue.

'

-

What you could try, is setting XMP/DOCP to enabled, then manually adjusting the memory frequency to 2933mhz. 

The board should post, but if it does not, it will try the setting 3 times. On the 4th cycle the board should post in safe mode so you can re-adjust your settings.

If it does not post at 2933mhz, set the frequency to 2667mhz, At this low of speed you can try with XMP enable and/or disabled.

With XMP disabled, the board will automatically choose timings and will likely post right up with no issues.

 

 

[Andrew3vans]

2 hours ago, NumLock21 said:

Try 1 stick at a time to see if all of your rams work. Then populate 1 slot at a time to see if all of your ram slots are working.

AMD Ryzen does not support quad channel. When all 4 stick of rams are installed, it's still dual channel.

AMD Threadripper on the other hand supports quad channel.

All sticks work. 

[NumLock21]

Just now, Andrew3vans said:

All sticks work. 

Okay now try to populate one slot at a time to see which slot is causing the problem.

[Andrew3vans]

46 minutes ago, ShrimpBrime said:

Well now that them guys got the dual channel and quad channel explanation out of the way, let's explain why it goes into a boot loop. 

 

So far we have slots are different distances from the Cpu and this is hard on the memory controller. Well, kinda. That's not actually what Your particular issue is.

 

The 2700 and 2700X flagship processors only support up to 2933mhz natively. Past this frequency, 3000mhz and higher is overclocking. This is more of the stress on the memory controller which is located inside the Cpu, then it can handle while populating 4 dimms, not necessarily the third Ram stick is further away while in dual channel the 2nd and 4th slots are to be populated, and 4 is furthest from the Cpu. This really is a non issue.

'

-

What you could try, is setting XMP/DOCP to enabled, then manually adjusting the memory frequency to 2933mhz. 

The board should post, but if it does not, it will try the setting 3 times. On the 4th cycle the board should post in safe mode so you can re-adjust your settings.

If it does not post at 2933mhz, set the frequency to 2667mhz, At this low of speed you can try with XMP enable and/or disabled.

With XMP disabled, the board will automatically choose timings and will likely post right up with no issues.

 

 

I will try this when I get home. Thanks! It’s running at 2666 right now. 

[Andrew3vans]

2 minutes ago, Andrew3vans said:

All sticks work. 

I don’t know if it’s a slot problem. It’s booting with all 4 sticks running at 2666 MHz. I think it may have been answered above but I’ll have to see here in a little bit.