XMP Instability

[HeathCliff]

Hiya guys,

 

I've been spending some time trying to figure out what sort of settings I can tweak for my kit of memory. When I load up XMP profile 1, my system starts spitting out errors in TestMem5. BIOS and chipset drivers are up to date, so I guess it's either the timings or the voltage that need dialing in. 

 

CPU us a 5800X3D, memory is a kit of 4* 16GB 3600MHz and the board is a MSI MPG X570S. At the moment, I have it running without any xmp settings enabled, but any tips on what I can change to get the 3600 config work?

 

 Thanks

[RONOTHAN##]

First thing I'd do is check to see if the memory ICs are the same across all sticks. Just because two kits have the same model number doesn't mean they have the same memory IC installed on them and can be incompatible. If you bought this as a 4x16GB kit, this isn't applicable, those are validated to work together, but assuming you bought this as 2 2x16GB kits this would be the first thing I'd check. You can do a quick and dirty check right in CPU-Z by going to the SPD tab and looking where it says DRAM Manuf. and double checking to make sure that it says the same thing across all the memory slots, or you can do this the more granular way by downloading a program called "Thaiphoon Burner" and reading the SPD of each DIMM, doublechecking that the Die Density / Count box is the same across all DIMMs. Even the Thaiphoon Burner method is subject to error, but it's not that common. 

 

While you're doing that, do doublecheck the organization of each memory stick, you want to find out if they're single or dual rank. If you're running 4 dual rank DIMMs, that puts a ton of stress on the memory controller and could cause you issues at 3600MT/s. If you're running 4 single rank DIMMs, that's not really an issue and should be OK. 

 

Anyway, after you've confirmed that the memory is all the same, start trying to see if adjusting the SOC voltage helps get this stable. It could be that your 5800X3D has a pretty weak memory controller, and since it runs off the SOC voltage raising that to 1.15V might help get this to be stable. 1.2V is the max you'd want to run for daily operation, though the majority of Ryzen 3000/5000 series CPUs sweet spot somewhere between 1.1V and 1.2V for stability, hence the 1.15V recommendation (my chip personally does best at 1.175, but your mileage may vary), it's "I don't feel like fine tuning" voltage. If that doesn't get it stable, still leave it there since it can't hurt anything, and try seeing if increasing the DRAM voltage slightly will help. 

 

If neither of those help though, I'd just start dropping DRAM frequency until it does work. Realistically the 5800X3D doesn't really care about memory performance much, if at all, so the difference between 3600 CL18 and 3400 CL18 is going to be basically impossible to notice.

[HeathCliff]

1 hour ago, RONOTHAN## said:

-snip-

All four DIMMs are from the same kit and CPU-Z verifies it. Tried it with 1.15 and 1.2, and still getting errors. Might have to spend a day dialing it in as this cpu probably drew the short straw on the memory controller.