PC Does Not Post With XMP Enabled

[AdvocateOfNyx]

Hi all, last night I turned my computer off to go to bed and when I woke up today it refused to boot.  I identified that the problem went away when I reset the CMOS and came back when I turned on XMP.  This system had been running for about two months with no issues before that.

 

I tried to resolve the problem by updating the BIOS to the most recent stable release (2.70), but that did not fix the issue.

 

I'm not sure exactly what to do.  Everything seems to work fine with the RAM at it's default 2666mhz, but it won't boot at all with XMP 3200mhz enabled.  Are there other settings I can tweak?  Should I RMA the RAM? I've had it a couple months.  Any advice is appreciated.  Thanks!

 

Specs Here:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/JrFHL9

[ulookuglynoob]

I have the same problem. I have ram that was default 2666mhz, but could go up to 3200mhz. This is mainly because of the fact that one of your ram sticks, or maybe both, are not quite stable. Try putting one ram stick at a time and enabling xmp. If it doesn't work for both sticks, you may have to buy some new ram. Or not do anything at all and run them at 2666mhz. Or maybe wait for someone else to suggest another way to fix the problem. If someone else has a better solution, please share it here. I also have the same problem. Although I don't really think that there is another solution.

[Tetras]

7 minutes ago, AdvocateOfNyx said:

 I identified that the problem went away when I reset the CMOS and came back when I turned on XMP.

Did you check that the memory voltage is being set correctly?

[ulookuglynoob]

how would you do that? go to bios?

[AdvocateOfNyx]

1 minute ago, Tetras said:

Did you check that the memory voltage is being set correctly?

The way I enabled XMP was going into my BIOS and turning the profile from "auto" to "XMP-1".  All of the settings are still set to "auto", so I'm not sure how to know what the voltage is being changed to.  However, it was working for months prior to this issue so I'm not sure what would change suddenly in terms of motherboard settings. 

[OhYou_]

it is either the ram or the memory controller, which is in the cpu.
if you can maybe bump up the memory controller voltage a bit.
as for why it worked for two months and then stop, it was likely right on the border and perhaps your psu or mobo power delivery has settled in a bit and pushed it over the edge. 

Still, no boot no post for ram is usually you massively cocked it up. When they are on the edge of stability, they usually post fine no boot.

[AdvocateOfNyx]

5 minutes ago, OhYou_ said:

it is either the ram or the memory controller, which is in the cpu.
if you can maybe bump up the memory controller voltage a bit.
as for why it worked for two months and then stop, it was likely right on the border and perhaps your psu or mobo power delivery has settled in a bit and pushed it over the edge. 

Still, no boot no post for ram is usually you massively cocked it up. When they are on the edge of stability, they usually post fine no boot.

Yeah it was behaving very strange.  When I turned the computer on it would turn itself off and on again repeatedly, never able to get into the BIOS or OS.

 

Similar to my question above, how do I bump up the voltages if I'm not told the current value in the BIOS?  Everything is set to "auto" and if I want to change it myself, I have to type in a number.

[ulookuglynoob]

Same Problem 4 me.

[OhYou_]

3 minutes ago, AdvocateOfNyx said:

if I'm not told the current value in the BIOS

thats rough, it's gonna be a lot of work then. You will have to use software like cpuz or hwmonitor to find the voltage it runs at when its posted. This can be difficult if it isnt posting however.

alternatively you would have to measure the voltages in the non-posting state manually with a good multimeter but thats a bit out of scope
generally dont go over 10% more voltage than it is running at either. work your way up in increments of 2% till it boots ,
you absolutely should take a full disk backup too, memory errors can and will destroy your os if you roll a 1

[Tetras]

5 minutes ago, AdvocateOfNyx said:

how do I bump up the voltages if I'm not told the current value in the BIOS?

You might need to look in another section of the BIOS, or switch from a "simple" mode to an "advanced" mode, but I'm afraid I am not familiar with ASRock BIOS.

[AdvocateOfNyx]

3 minutes ago, Tetras said:

You might need to look in another section of the BIOS, or switch from a "simple" mode to an "advanced" mode, but I'm afraid I am not familiar with ASRock BIOS.

In advanced mode it's a similar situation.  I found this screenshot online that demonstrates it pretty well.  You can see at the bottom of this image how everything is just labeled "auto" under the XMP settings.

 

 

[Tetras]

7 minutes ago, AdvocateOfNyx said:

In advanced mode it's a similar situation. 

Go to: Voltage Configuration (in OC Tweaker) and even on Auto mode it should show the voltage next to it.

 

This is from this video (4:18):

 

[AdvocateOfNyx]

4 minutes ago, Tetras said:

Go to: Voltage Configuration and even on Auto mode it should show the voltage next to it.

 

This is from this video (4:18):

 

Thanks, I'd been to DRAM configuration but not voltage configuration.  So I'm bumping DRAM voltage up by like 5%?  I don't see anything labeled memory controller which is something that was also suggested, does that have a special name?

 

If that doesn't work, is enabling XMP but reducing the speed to 3000mhz a viable option?  I can't imagine there's a huge performance difference between 3000mhz and 3200mhz on my current CPU.

 

edit: accidentially said VRAM indead of DRAM, silly me

[Tetras]

5 minutes ago, AdvocateOfNyx said:

 So I'm bumping DRAM voltage up by like 5%?

To start with, I'd just check that it isn't 1.2v. I don't know what the manufacturer recommended is for your sticks, but probably 1.35v.

 

5 minutes ago, AdvocateOfNyx said:

 I don't see anything labeled memory controller which is something that was also suggested, does that have a special name?

Have a look at this thread:

 

[AdvocateOfNyx]

10 minutes ago, Tetras said:

To start with, I'd just check that it isn't 1.2v. I don't know what the manufacturer recommended is for your sticks, but probably 1.35v.

 

Have a look at this thread:

 

Okay, I went into my bios and pulled this thread up on my laptop.

 

After scrolling through, I identified that the voltages I needed to tweak were:

VCCSA Auto -> 1.260

DRAM Auto (1.35) -> 1.38

VCCIO Auto (1.25) -> 1.28

 

And there was no change.  The PC still turns itself on and off again at 3200Mhz 18-22-22-42

 

Seems like my RAM does not like these speeds even at a slightly higher voltage.

[Fasauceome]

36 minutes ago, AdvocateOfNyx said:

If that doesn't work, is enabling XMP but reducing the speed to 3000mhz a viable option?  I can't imagine there's a huge performance difference between 3000mhz and 3200mhz on my current CPU.

Yep, if you enable XMP and then drop frequency to 3133 or 3000, that would run pretty alright