RAM causes BSOD's - please help me set it up

[Chaoson]

Hey guys, 

 

After 2 weeks of tinkering with my new build I'm officially out of ideas how to fix my issue and I need some help. 

Said issue - whenever I choose any of the default OC options in BIOS (DOCP I, DOCP II or DOCP Tweaked) I get a blue screen either before Windows login screen or directly after logging in. Sometimes it works for about 5 minutes and then it BSOD's. PC is stable only when Auto is selected which limits RAMs speed to 3600MHz. 

 

CPU: Ryzen 9 7950X3D

MOBO: Asus Crosshair X670E Hero (latest BIOS 1904)

RAM: Corsair Dominator Platinum 4x16GB (SKU: CMT64GX5M4B5600C36) 

 

That RAM is on the QVL list. Otherwise system is perfectly stable - no overheating, no other issues. MCR works perfectly, PBO as well and the system loads in about 20 seconds or less I think.

I've already tried clearing CMOS more than a few times, flashed BIOS 3 times, did clean Windows reinstall more than 10 times. Had to do all that, because there were times when the PC was at the verge of bricking itself from all the BSOD's. 

 

Like I said I'm out of ideas - should I just overclock manually? Can someone tell me how to do that if so? Or are there other ways of fixing this? 

 

Bunch of side notes:

1. I tried changing just the memory frequency in BIOS to 5200 and 5600 leaving everything else on auto, seemed more stable, but I don't know if that's safe. I think it only crashed once with that or maybe not even at all. 

2. One time I got stuck in a Blue Screen Death Loop - basically couldn't get into BIOS (not responsive) and PC crashed immidiately before Windows login screen. And it just kept doing that over and over until I turned it off and cleared CMOS. 

3. Don't ask me what BSOD screen says in terms of an error info - it's a whole catalogue and it's different everytime. I've got at least ~10 different causes. 

4. Corsair iCue tends to not see RAM quite frequently (RGBs not syncing and not showing, etc.) even when it's not OC'ed. It works fine for a few days and then either stops completely or sees 1 or 2 sticks. I haven't figured out if it's caused by RAM itself or just iCue acting up. 

[RONOTHAN##]

3 minutes ago, Chaoson said:

4x16GB

That's why, 4 DIMMs of DDR5 is a nightmare. You can get it to work if you know what you're doing, but it's not as simple as enable XMP and you're done. 

 

5 minutes ago, Chaoson said:

should I just overclock manually?

If you're dead set on 4x16GB, yes. Not because I expect you to get better performance, but because you need to go through the stability checks that someone doing manual overclocking would go through. 

 

 

If you have the option to though, return the kit and just get a 2x32GB kit instead. This isn't worth the hassle. 

 

[Chaoson]

@RONOTHAN##

Appreciate your quick answer. I'm gonna come clean - I knew what I was getting into and still stuck with it. 

So manual overclocking it is. The only problem is I have absolutely no idea how to do so. Can you link me to some sort of a reliable guide for dum-dums so I can try to get it working? 

 

Edit: I no longer have the option to return that kit, unfortunately I've only had 14 day return window and it's already well past that. 

Frankly, I did a bit of research and had a little bit of hope it would work, but it is what it is. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

9 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

That's why, 4 DIMMs of DDR5 is a nightmare. You can get it to work if you know what you're doing, but it's not as simple as enable XMP and you're done. 

 

If you're dead set on 4x16GB, yes. Not because I expect you to get better performance, but because you need to go through the stability checks that someone doing manual overclocking would go through. 

 

 

If you have the option to though, return the kit and just get a 2x32GB kit instead. This isn't worth the hassle. 

 

This is why I paid more for EXPO RAM rather than trying to use XMP, as it means its timings have actually been verified as working on AMD without needing any tweaks.

 

You really optimally want two sticks of 6000MT CL30 for best performance, least issues getting it to work.

 

Also in ASUS infinite wisdom, DOCP II/EXPO II is the RAM rated OC timings, when you'd think it would be EXPO I.  That tripped me up for several hours until I finally noticed what it said at the bottom of the page in the UEFI.

[Chaoson]

2 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

This is why I paid more for EXPO RAM rather than trying to use XMP, as it means its timings have actually been verified as working on AMD without needing any tweaks.

 

You really optimally want two sticks of 6000MT CL30 for best performance, least issues getting it to work.

Yup, however there are different offerings in different regions. Not really a matter of money. Also when I asked on a different forum, someone told me that XMP profiles would work and even when I asked Corsair support and Asus support they both told me it will work since it's on QVL. 

Anyway now I'm stuck with this, no regrets really, just trying to get some lemonade out of these lemons. 

[RONOTHAN##]

5 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

This is why I paid more for EXPO RAM rather than trying to use XMP, as it means its timings have actually been verified as working on AMD without needing any tweaks.

The issue isn't XMP in this case though, XMP as of now works perfectly fine on AMD systems (it was just an issue initially when motherboard vendors would read the XMP profiles incorrectly for whatever reason, I'd guess it was an issue of tRFC vs. tRFC2 but haven't directly tested to be certain, but that has since been fixed). The issue is the fact they're running 4 DIMMs. 

 

7 minutes ago, Chaoson said:

@RONOTHAN##

Appreciate your quick answer. I'm gonna come clean - I knew what I was getting into and still stuck with it. 

So manual overclocking it is. The only problem is I have absolutely no idea how to do so. Can you link me to some sort of a reliable guide for dum-dums so I can try to get it working? 

 

Edit: I no longer have the option to return that kit, unfortunately I've only had 14 day return window and it's already well past that. 

Frankly, I did a bit of research and had a little bit of hope it would work, but it is what it is. 

There aren't any guides I'm aware of for dealing with a config like this, mostly because people have kinda agreed that it's a terrible idea to do. If you really want to give it a shot, there are a few things you will have to play with in the rough order of their importance:

• SOC voltage - The voltage the memory controller runs on.
• VDDIO - The voltage that the memory uses to talk to the memory controller. 
• VDDP - The voltage a different part of the memory controller runs on. This usually doesn't help unless you're in 2:1 mode though. 
• Memory VDDQ - The voltage that the memory outputs to the memory bus. 
• Nitro Mode settings - These are what control the memory training, and setting this to as long as possible can help stability. 
• ProcODT - The CPU's impedance matching resistor, it's important for complicated electrical engineering reasons. 
• All the other termination settings - Similar to ProcODT but less important. Generally, if you have to start setting these, it's not worth the effort. 

The general process for memory overclocking is to first set some rather loose timings (in your case just do the XMP timings since you're trying to get to 5600MT/s), then start working your way up from the default JEDEC until you hit your desired maximum frequency, checking for stability each time. Once you find a maximum frequency, then start messing with timings and lowering them until the system stops passing memory stress tests (or just give up with XMP). 

 

As for some stress tests, the main two I'd use are Y-Cruncher VST and TestMem5 with the 1usmus_v3 preset. Y-Cruncher VST is very good at detecting errors related to max frequency, while TestMem5 is pretty good at detecting errors related to timings. Both of them can detect issues related to the other, but those are the main ones they're good at. 

 

13 minutes ago, Chaoson said:

when I asked Corsair support and Asus support they both told me it will work since it's on QVL.

Hence why I never look at the QVL, most of the time it's nonsense. It's not updated, so there's a ton of kits that exist that won't be present on the QVL, and they test it under the best possible circumstances (I.E. CPU with a top bin memory controller) so there's plenty of kits on there that won't work as you're finding out the hard way. 

[Chaoson]

8 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

The issue isn't XMP in this case though, XMP as of now works perfectly fine on AMD systems (it was just an issue initially when motherboard vendors would read the XMP profiles incorrectly for whatever reason, I'd guess it was an issue of tRFC vs. tRFC2 but haven't directly tested to be certain, but that has since been fixed). The issue is the fact they're running 4 DIMMs. 

 

There aren't any guides I'm aware of for dealing with a config like this, mostly because people have kinda agreed that it's a terrible idea to do. If you really want to give it a shot, there are a few things you will have to play with in the rough order of their importance:

• SOC voltage - The voltage the memory controller runs on.
• VDDIO - The voltage that the memory uses to talk to the memory controller. 
• VDDP - The voltage a different part of the memory controller runs on. This usually doesn't help unless you're in 2:1 mode though. 
• Memory VDDQ - The voltage that the memory outputs to the memory bus. 
• Nitro Mode settings - These are what control the memory training, and setting this to as long as possible can help stability. 
• ProcODT - The CPU's impedance matching resistor, it's important for complicated electrical engineering reasons. 
• All the other termination settings - Similar to ProcODT but less important. Generally, if you have to start setting these, it's not worth the effort. 

The general process for memory overclocking is to first set some rather loose timings (in your case just do the XMP timings since you're trying to get to 5600MT/s), then start working your way up from the default JEDEC until you hit your desired maximum frequency, checking for stability each time. Once you find a maximum frequency, then start messing with timings and lowering them until the system stops passing memory stress tests (or just give up with XMP). 

 

As for some stress tests, the main two I'd use are Y-Cruncher VST and TestMem5 with the 1usmus_v3 preset. Y-Cruncher VST is very good at detecting errors related to max frequency, while TestMem5 is pretty good at detecting errors related to timings. Both of them can detect issues related to the other, but those are the main ones they're good at. 

 

Hence why I never look at the QVL, most of the time it's nonsense. It's not updated, so there's a ton of kits that exist that won't be present on the QVL, and they test it under the best possible circumstances (I.E. CPU with a top bin memory controller) so there's plenty of kits on there that won't work as you're finding out the hard way. 

Jesus Christ... Okay, so I'm not even gonna bother. Thank you so much for an extremely detailed explanation.

Here's what's I'm gonna do though - I'll just forget how much I've spend on that 4 stick kit and get myself 2 sticks. 

 

@RONOTHAN## If I'm understanding what you said already correctly - any 6000Mhz CL30 EXPO kit of 2 sticks should work fine, right? So if I want to get Corsair Dominator Titanium (SKU: CMP64GX5M2B6000Z30) it should work, is that correct? 

[Alex Atkin UK]

11 minutes ago, Chaoson said:

Jesus Christ... Okay, so I'm not even gonna bother. Thank you so much for an extremely detailed explanation.

Here's what's I'm gonna do though - I'll just forget how much I've spend on that 4 stick kit and get myself 2 sticks. 

 

@RONOTHAN## If I'm understanding what you said already correctly - any 6000Mhz CL30 EXPO kit of 2 sticks should work fine, right? So if I want to get Corsair Dominator Titanium (SKU: CMP64GX5M2B6000Z30) it should work, is that correct? 

That's how I understand it.  I personally went all out and got 2x Corsair Vengeance 32 GB DDR5-6000 CL30 which wasn't on the QVL.  Its been 100% rock solid once I realised EXPO II was the right setting.  Funny thing was EXPO I wouldn't even POST.

 

Part of the reason I went for that specific RAM was its identical timings to what Gamers Nexus use (though twice as much capacity) on their benchmarking system, so I was fairly sure it was as optimal as I could get.

[RONOTHAN##]

3 minutes ago, Chaoson said:

Jesus Christ... Okay, so I'm not even gonna bother.

Yup, hence why no one recommends trying to get 4x16GB working. To be fair, usually you only need to mess with the first two voltages and probably Nitro Mode, but that's still quite a bit of stuff to mess with. Nitro Mode is probably why 5600 kinda works when you're not manually touching anything but not working at XMP, since XMP causes the board to change a few of the Nitro Mode settings to improve boot times, and the SOC voltage can usually just be set to 1.3V to try and tune this (higher is better with SOC voltage, at least for memory stability, though 1.3V shouldn't be strictly necessary). 

 

It's still better than Intel where there's 9 total voltages, all of which sweet spot, triple the termination settings, and triple the training settings. 

 

5 minutes ago, Chaoson said:

I'll just forget how much I've spend on that 4 stick kit and get myself 2 sticks. 

Yup, try to resell the kit and hope you can get some amount of return on investment. 

 

8 minutes ago, Chaoson said:

If I'm understanding what you said already correctly - any 6000Mhz CL30 EXPO kit of 2 sticks should work fine, right? So if I want to get Corsair Dominator Titanium (SKU: CMP64GX5M2B6000Z30) it should work, is that correct? 

Yeah, any 6000 CL30 kit will work. That Corsair one should be just fine, albeit a bit pricey. 

[Chaoson]

@RONOTHAN## @Alex Atkin UK

Many thanks for the help guys. I just got myself 2x32GB 6000Mhz CL30 Expo certified kit of Corsair Dominator Titanium. 

 

I have a question though - some time ago I did a build for a friend. He's also on AMD and I picked Expo 6000 CL30 kit for him. However he also had blue screen issues. After 15-20 minutes in game it always crashed, stable otherwise. @Alex Atkin UK judging from what you said, since my friend is also on Asus board, we should have enabled EXPO II and it will be the same case with me, is that correct? 

[Alex Atkin UK]

2 hours ago, Chaoson said:

@RONOTHAN## @Alex Atkin UK

Many thanks for the help guys. I just got myself 2x32GB 6000Mhz CL30 Expo certified kit of Corsair Dominator Titanium. 

 

I have a question though - some time ago I did a build for a friend. He's also on AMD and I picked Expo 6000 CL30 kit for him. However he also had blue screen issues. After 15-20 minutes in game it always crashed, stable otherwise. @Alex Atkin UK judging from what you said, since my friend is also on Asus board, we should have enabled EXPO II and it will be the same case with me, is that correct? 

That was certainly my experience on a B650E-F, EXPO I just didn't work, EXPO II has been flawless.  Problem is ASUS website still references older UEFI before they renamed the profiles but it explains what they are in the UEFI itself, saying EXPO II uses the profiles exactly as they are defined on the RAM.

[RONOTHAN##]

7 hours ago, Chaoson said:

@RONOTHAN## @Alex Atkin UK

Many thanks for the help guys. I just got myself 2x32GB 6000Mhz CL30 Expo certified kit of Corsair Dominator Titanium. 

 

I have a question though - some time ago I did a build for a friend. He's also on AMD and I picked Expo 6000 CL30 kit for him. However he also had blue screen issues. After 15-20 minutes in game it always crashed, stable otherwise. @Alex Atkin UK judging from what you said, since my friend is also on Asus board, we should have enabled EXPO II and it will be the same case with me, is that correct? 

I do know there was also a BIOS revision or two where most ASUS boards had issues running DDR5 6000, but no issues with the surrounding ratios (6200 and 5800). There's a good chance that they're on one of those and that a BIOS update would help. 

[Chaoson]

@Alex Atkin UK That explains a lot then. We've only tried EXPO I when I was at my friend's building his PC, he called me after I left telling me about the BSOD issue. I just instructed him how to turn it off and never had a chance since to go to him and fix it.

 

@RONOTHAN## Yeah, while I'm running latest BIOS my friend sits at a BIOS that is 2 versions older than current one, so I'll check how things work now with EXPO II enabled.

 

As for my situation - I'll receive my ordered RAM tomorrow and try it after I get home from work. Also I checked and I completely forgot that I got my current RAM directly from Corsair, meaning I can still return it since I have 60 days for that and not even half that passed. So all well that ends well I guess. Fingers crossed new RAM will work straight out the box, hopefully I won't have to ask for help again in this thread

[Chaoson]

Quick update for those interested:

 

@RONOTHAN## @Alex Atkin UK

I did exactly what those fine gentlemen said - switched from 4x16GB 5600Mhz CL36 from QVL list that was certified for XMP to 2x32GB 6000Mhz CL30 certified for EXPO and enabled EXPO II on my Asus board and the system is rock solid now! Everything works even after extensive stress tests. Moreover my friends system also works perfectly fine now - he also needed to just turn on EXPO II on his Asus board and he has Corsair Vengeance 6000Mhz CL30 2x16GB kit (SKU: CMH32GX5M2B6000Z30K). 

Gotta say - those 2 sticks of Doms Titanium look almost as sexy as 4 sticks of Doms Platinum

 

Anyway, many thanks again for helping me solve my issue and convincing me to ditch 4 sticks!