7950X + 2 x 16GB Trident Z5 DDR5-6000 CL30 Cannot run stable with EXPO

[Jexel]

Latest revision: I am no longer using an open box motherboard, all the places in the OP that reference using an open box board is now out of date.

 

Specs:

• AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
• Asus ROG CROSSHAIR X670E HERO (Latest BIOS 1602) (OPEN BOX)
• 32GB G.SKILL Trident Z5 Neo DDR5-6000 (30-38-38-96) F5-6000J3038F16GX2-TZ5NR
• Windows 10

 

Hi,

I'm having some issues with getting a system to run stable with any EXPO profile enabled. Before I updated to the latest BIOS, the system would not post with any EXPO profile enabled. This issue was resolved with a BIOS update, but would still not be stable. The system would boot, and then freeze up after 0-5 minutes. Within these 5 minutes, I would always hear crackling in my headphones when playing music, which makes me believe this could be a fabric issue? What's weird is that at any speed above 4800 with any EXPO module enabled, the system would continue to crash. My EXPO's preset is DDR5-6000, but even if I manually lower the speed, the crashes still ensue. At 6000 speeds, upon bootup, the computer will stay on the orange LED indicator code 15 for a good minute before cycling through the rest of the LEDs and checks. The motherboard I bought was an open-box one from microcenter, and thus, has been returned by a few users, so I'm wondering if this can be the culprit of the issue.

 

Here are some of the things I have done to troubleshoot:

• Increase and decrease the CPU SOC between 1.0V-1.25V. Found around 1.1V-1.18V to cause the least amount of issues but the headphones' crackling still continued along with the freezes
• Increase and decrease CCD VDDG between 800-950 (with 850 being the default). The lower and upper values made the system a lot more unstable, oftentimes would freeze before Windows even boots
• Increase and decrease the DRAM voltage between 1.3-1.4, looks like no effect to the system stability.
• Try a combination of these settings between EXPO I, II and Tweaked.

I see other people running their sticks at 6000 with no issue, so I'm wondering if there is something wrong with my mobo since it seems like no matter what, anything I change in the BIOS can somewhat improve stability, but never make the system fully stable unless I'm running at EXPO 4800. 

 

EDIT: I still am having the same issues with a brand new mobo, but the crashes happen less often and same goes with the crackling sounds

[Dedayog]

6 minutes ago, Jexel said:

Specs:

• AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
• Asus ROG CROSSHAIR X670E HERO (Latest BIOS 1602) (OPEN BOX)
• 32GB G.SKILL Trident Z5 Neo DDR5-6000 (30-38-38-96) F5-6000J3038F16GX2-TZ5NR
• Windows 10

 

Hi,

I'm having some issues with getting a system to run stable with any EXPO profile enabled. The system would boot, and then freeze up after 0-5 minutes. Within these 5 minutes, I would always hear crackling in my headphones when playing music, which makes me believe this could be a fabric issue? What's weird is that at any speed above 4800 with any EXPO module enabled, the system would continue to crash. My EXPO's preset is DDR5-6000, but even if I manually lower the speed, the crashes still ensue. At 6000 speeds, upon bootup, the computer will stay on the orange LED indicator code 15 for a good minute before cycling through the rest of the LEDs and checks. The motherboard I bought was an open-box one from microcenter, and thus, has been returned by a few users, so I'm wondering if this can be the culprit of the issue.

 

Here are some of the things I have done to troubleshoot:

• Increase and decrease the CPU SOC between 1.0V-1.25V. Found around 1.1V-1.18V to cause the least amount of issues but the headphones' crackling still continued along with the freezes
• Increase and decrease CCD VDDG between 800-950 (with 850 being the default). The lower and upper values made the system a lot more unstable, oftentimes would freeze before Windows even boots
• Increase and decrease the DRAM voltage between 1.3-1.4, looks like no effect to the system stability.
• Try a combination of these settings between EXPO I, II and Tweaked.

I see other people running their sticks at 6000 with no issue, so I'm wondering if there is something wrong with my mobo since it seems like no matter what, anything I change in the BIOS can somewhat improve stability, but never make the system fully stable unless I'm running at EXPO 4800. 

That you're asking while stating this:

 

The motherboard I bought was an open-box one from microcenter, and thus, has been returned by a few users,

 

I love MC, but their open box policy is a gamble.

 

Return it, and buy a real new motherboard.

[Jexel]

1 minute ago, Dedayog said:

That you're asking while stating this:

 

The motherboard I bought was an open-box one from microcenter, and thus, has been returned by a few users,

 

I love MC, but their open box policy is a gamble.

 

Return it, and buy a real new motherboard.

Hey, thanks for the reply.

 

Yeah, I knew the risks associated with the mobo, which is why I'm doing all of this testing within 15 days of their open-box return policy. I just wanted to make sure I'm not doing anything wrong or expecting unobtainable results before confirming that it's likely a hardware issue, since Zen 4 is a platform I'm new to.

[sabgog]

If you are having that many problems I would return that Motherboard, especially considering that you're spending the money to go the X670E route. I know the latest AGESA updates made big improvements to RAM performance but if you still can't get it up to 6000 especially with an EXPO rated kit it sounds like the motherboard. Especially if there is noise interfering with audio, thats a strange problem. One other thing you could double check is getting it to post at 4800 or something stable and run a memory test program to see if there are any memory errors.

I have a 7900x with an Asrock X670E board and 2x32GB 6000 G Skill trident Z5 ram as a well and after posting by default into 4800, I updated my bios and set it up to 6000 with zero problems or tweaking, and this wasn't even an EXPO rated kit, so yours should definitely be possible.

[Jexel]

Motherboard has been returned and I just got a brand new one, will keep this updated on my progress. Hopefully, the new mobo will fix the issue.

[Jexel]

Okay, just got my motherboard and essentially running into the same issues. I will note that the crashes are a lot less prevalent and I was even to run expo II relatively stable (the system crashed on the windows Restarting... screen) at completely default settings. However the audio crackling issues won't go away. Despite being better than the old motherboard, the crackling sounds still appear whilst stress testing the memory.

[Dedayog]

10 minutes ago, Jexel said:

Okay, just got my motherboard and essentially running into the same issues. I will note that the crashes are a lot less prevalent and I was even to run expo II relatively stable (the system crashed on the windows Restarting... screen) at completely default settings. However the audio crackling issues won't go away. Despite being better than the old motherboard, the crackling sounds still appear whilst stress testing the memory.

Does the crackling appear any other time?

[Jexel]

27 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

Does the crackling appear any other time?

Playing around with the 3 expo profiles, on very unstable settings (usually as a result of a too high or low SOC or VDDP voltage) the crackling appears even without stress testing. On my current most stable, it still crackles on stress tests, and will crash sometimes, within 5-30 minutes.

[sabgog]

Have you downloaded any software to run memory testing?

[Jexel]

8 minutes ago, sabgog said:

Have you downloaded any software to run memory testing?

OCCT for memory testing, and i just listen to spotify or youtube to listen for crackles

[Dedayog]

1 hour ago, Jexel said:

Playing around with the 3 expo profiles, on very unstable settings (usually as a result of a too high or low SOC or VDDP voltage) the crackling appears even without stress testing. On my current most stable, it still crackles on stress tests, and will crash sometimes, within 5-30 minutes.

I am at a loss. I have never heard any audio issues related to RAM or duplicating with a new board.

 

 

[Jexel]

27 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

I am at a loss. I have never heard any audio issues related to RAM or duplicating with a new board.

 

 

It's been a thing for a while, especially while i was testing Zen 3 as well. Infinity fabric instability causes audio crackling, and that's always been an indicator that your overclock isn't stable.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRnhHNAMAaSAN74oZTNkGEqVadce9XbegVYd7cwZqEaFN9q3e1jG66a7aIdeK_Di5Qy1zcP4-6MJB1H/pub

[sabgog]

Probably a dumb question but are you on the very latest BIOS and latest chipset drivers with the new board?

[Jexel]

1 hour ago, sabgog said:

Probably a dumb question but are you on the very latest BIOS and latest chipset drivers with the new board?

Yep, both latest bios and chipset drivers.

[Jexel]

Okay, I have seemed to solve the issue.

 

The system instability was indeed caused by the fabric on the CPU. No amount of SOC or VDDP voltage tinkering is able to completely absolve the issue. However, adjusting the FCLK ratio AND decreasing the RAM speed has fixed the audio crackling and stability problems. It seems that, at least on ASUS BIOS, you have to manually adjust the RAM speed and FCLK speed to a 3:1 ratio. I'm not sure what the default EXPO presets were doing, but they were running the FCLK at something that my CPU couldn't handle, thus, causing the audio crackling and instability. Adjusting the RAM speed alone will not proportionately change the FCLK clock, from my testing, so these values must be adjusted together manually.

 

I do want to add too, that I had to remount my cooler due to not adding enough thermal paste. Crackling can be caused by the CPU overheating as well.