BSOD due to XMP profile with new Motherboard

[GDub3]

Build Info:

Motherboard: MSI MAG B550 Tomahawk

CPU: Ryzen 5600x

RAM: Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 3600 

GPU: XFX Merc319 Radeon 6900XT

PSU: Corsair RM850x

SSD: Samsung 970 Evo 1TB M.2

HDD: Western Digital Blue 1TB

 

CONTEXT:

I'm kinda addicted to upgrading and or replacing stuff, and of course it's coming back to bite me. Over the last 6 months, I have upgraded nearly every component off a prebuilt I originally had. The only original components are the CPU and the hard drive, which has nothing saved on it. 2 months ago, I case swapped everything and changed the GPU from an RTX 3060 to my 6900XT. Along with uninstalling and updating all drivers, I decided to update BIOS, which was very out of date. Everything worked fine. Here we are 2 months later, and yesterday I randomly decided I might as well replace the old motherboard (Gigabyte B550 UD AC) which was apparently OEM for prebuilt PC's. Got the B550 Tomahawk and installed it, initially everything was fine. I uninstalled and reinstalled GPU drivers after the new install, also installed latest chipset drivers and BIOS. 

 

I've been having BSOD issues, and the screen splits into 4 and is very 'mangled' looking. I'll try to include a picture. Also, Chrome would crash randomly once per session, and I would have to reload the page, very weird. Things got bad when attempting to play Fortnite and it would just crash after the game was open for 30 seconds. I uninstalled it and attempted to reinstall, which caused continuous BSOD crash, followed by an automatic restart. I tried everything I could find on the internet, total reinstall of windows, uninstalling all drivers and reinstalling in safe mode, repairing my (C:) drive, which is now the M.2 SSD, etc. Finally, I turned off the CPU game boost function in BIOS, and low and behold Fortnite downloads and plays fine. Spent the rest of the night playing multiple games with no issues. Today I tried to change my background (yes the screen saver) and the BSOD crash/restart dance started again. This time it was constantly happening every 5 minutes after I logged in. I went into BIOS and disabled XMP profile because I saw something somewhere on the internet about it. I've been playing games, listening to music, browsing the web, continuously changing my background, and no crashes are happening. Prior to replacing the mobo, I never had BSOD or any system crash EVER in one year. On my previous motherboard with the exact same RAM sticks, I always ran an XMP profile with the same frequency and timings as the one I was attempting to use in the new BIOS. Both Motherboards support 3600 (O.C), so I'm very confused.

 

My question is why XMP seems to be causing BSOD crash on the new motherboard, when it worked totally fine on the old one. I don't want to have to run my RAM at 2300 due to a supposed upgrade when it's been run at 3600 for 6 months. I also find it weird that I would be able to play games with no issues last night if the XMP profile is the real issue.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

[Shimejii]

Every mobo vendor Memory topology for each board, their bios, and just in general will be different. Some have the XMP for your specific ram kit and its on their QVL, others may not and it doesnt work as well.

 

This is one of those times where i would tell you stop needlessly spending money on crap you dont need to upgrade. If it works then leave it alone, tell your lizard brain part that you dont need new shiny thing.

 

I would set XMP up again and try doing 3200 mhz, and see if thats stable. Then back to XMP but then see what the DRAM voltage is for XMP and do a bit more. if its 1.2v try 1.3v or 1.35v and see if its stable.

[Bitter]

You're going to need to tinker around with RAM voltage, SOC voltage, and memory timings if it doesn't 'just work'. And just because it's booted doesn't mean it's stable. Unstable memory will cause all manner of crashing and file corruption and easily can break your Windows install. You'll need to spend considerable time testing for stability to ensure you don't just crash and burn all the time.

[GDub3]

52 minutes ago, Shimejii said:

Every mobo vendor Memory topology for each board, their bios, and just in general will be different. Some have the XMP for your specific ram kit and its on their QVL, others may not and it doesnt work as well.

 

This is one of those times where i would tell you stop needlessly spending money on crap you dont need to upgrade. If it works then leave it alone, tell your lizard brain part that you dont need new shiny thing.

 

I would set XMP up again and try doing 3200 mhz, and see if thats stable. Then back to XMP but then see what the DRAM voltage is for XMP and do a bit more. if its 1.2v try 1.3v or 1.35v and see if its stable.

In my defense, I fought the lizard brain part for a couple months, I just ultimately lost lol. Thanks for the reply, I set XMP to 3200 mhz and so far so good. Voltage was around 1.3, so I'll just let it play out and see what happens. Thanks again!

[GDub3]

34 minutes ago, Bitter said:

You're going to need to tinker around with RAM voltage, SOC voltage, and memory timings if it doesn't 'just work'. And just because it's booted doesn't mean it's stable. Unstable memory will cause all manner of crashing and file corruption and easily can break your Windows install. You'll need to spend considerable time testing for stability to ensure you don't just crash and burn all the time.

I see. I didn't realize RAM could be unstable lol. I appreciate the reply and will be researching and testing going forward!

[Bitter]

Be sure to research safe voltages, too high volts can do permanent damage over time. 

[johnno23]

Agreed with settings at 3200 and if it does not take just make a note of the XMP profile settings and try them manually.

For some obscure reason sometimes entering the same values manually seems to fix things for many people.

[GDub3]

3 hours ago, johnno23 said:

Agreed with settings at 3200 and if it does not take just make a note of the XMP profile settings and try them manually.

For some obscure reason sometimes entering the same values manually seems to fix things for many people.

I did attempt to manually set at 3600 but crashed again. 3200 seems to be stable so far!

[Bitter]

Depending on the RAM and timings, SOC voltage, RAM voltage, and luck, you *should* be able to get more than that. I'm able to run 3400 on my 2700X but I may just have had dumb luck on my side. I am running my RAM at 1.4 volts to do C18 timings with a probably safe 1.125 volt SOC. My memory is supposed to do 3600 C19 at 1.35V but I can't do that with my 2700X, this is as good as it gets for me until I swap in my 3800X and even then 3400 is probably as good as I'll get. Some memory plays better with Ryzen than other memory, I got lucky and accidentally bought something that isn't too awful in terms of Ryzen compatibility.