Windows crashes when EXPO is enabled.

[AutonomousRedux]

Good evening, all. I come in seek of help for an issue I've been having ever since building my AM5 platform. Essentially, my RAM choices have been unstable when "overclocked" to rated speeds. I have tried three different models:

1. Silicon Power 6000/CL30 SU032GXLWU60AFDGSW 2x16 (2 kits)
2. Crucial 6000/CL36 CP2K16G60C36U5B (1 kit)
3. Mushkin Enhanced Redline Lumina 6000/CL30 MLB5C600AEEM16GX2 (2 kits)

The two sets of Silicon Power kits I tried either boot looped until hitting a Windows recovery page or would only run at 3600mhz stable. The Mushkin kits will run stable at stock, but with EXPO enabled Windows freezes with an error code on my main monitor and then crashes. The Crucial kit actually worked perfectly even with EXPO enabled, although it was only one x2 kit. I was wondering if there was anything I could try to solve the issue with  filling all the slots. I am currently in possession of the Crucial kit and the Mushkin kits.

 

The rest of my system:

• Windows 11 Pro 64 bit 22H2
• Gigabyte B650E Aorus Elite X AX ICE (BIOS F5c, latest)
• AMD Ryzen 7800X3D (stock)
• MSI Radeon 6900XT Merc 319 Black
• Corsair MP600 Pro LPX 2TB, Crucial MX500 2TB x4, WD Blue 5400 8TB
• Seasonic Vertex GX-1000

[podkall]

The good news is, this is considered pretty normal.

 

The bad news is, it's because of RAM and CPU limitations: if you're running 4 sticks, it is unlikely that the ram will be stable at it's rated OC speed.

 

2 sticks will work fine and could potentially OC even further beyond 6000Mhz if you're lucky, but 4 sticks is a harsh reality of that it's complicated that it's just hard to make it work for the CPU's controller.

 

Suppose you had 4 hands instead of 2, but still same mind, you could train yourself to handle 4 things at once with 4 hands, but it would be far more difficult to do it quickly, than with 2 hands.

 

It's support problem because of CPU controller's limitations: (AM5's official supported Max RAM speed, this one specifically is for 7800x3D)

 

So the unfortunate bottom line is, if you want more RAM you either need 2 huge sticks to get the speed, or run 4 sticks, but lose some speed with it.

 

• I only have like surface knowledge of this, so if there's any way to make the 4 sticks work at least slightly faster, then someone else should comment on that.

[RONOTHAN##]

11 minutes ago, AutonomousRedux said:

I was wondering if there was anything I could try to solve the issue with  filling all the slots.

There's some things you can do, but just know that running 4x16GB of DDR5 is pretty sketchy. You need just the right BIOS revision with just the right memory settings in order to get it to not crash. Newer BIOSes are not always better for this, so try a few of the earlier revisions to see if the support improves or not (AFAIK its roughly every other BIOS where 2x16GB works on AM5). 

[podkall]

1 minute ago, RONOTHAN## said:

There's some things you can do, but just know that running 4x16GB of DDR5 is pretty sketchy. You need just the right BIOS revision with just the right memory settings in order to get it to not crash. Newer BIOSes are not always better for this, so try a few of the earlier revisions to see if the support improves or not (AFAIK its roughly every other BIOS where 2x16GB works on AM5). 

is DDR5 still this "young"?

[RONOTHAN##]

6 minutes ago, podkall said:

is DDR5 still this "young"?

It's complicated. On Intel it's a bit more reliable now, though signalling with 4 DIMMs at this high a frequency is very hard to accomplish. On AMD it's a combination of that and the fact AMD tends to change something in the AGESA regarding memory training in almost every update, which changes how 4 DIMMs train and thus breaks support. The same thing happened on AM4 when trying to do higher memory frequency, where you could have some BIOS revisions where super high FCLK running benchmarks and 4800+ was easy with the right memory, then have a newer update where you can't get above 1900MHz to boot, it doesn't do over 4533, and 3600 CL14 won't even POST. 

[PDifolco]

24 minutes ago, AutonomousRedux said:

Good evening, all. I come in seek of help for an issue I've been having ever since building my AM5 platform. Essentially, my RAM choices have been unstable when "overclocked" to rated speeds. I have tried three different models:

1. Silicon Power 6000/CL30 SU032GXLWU60AFDGSW 2x16 (2 kits)
2. Crucial 6000/CL36 CP2K16G60C36U5B (1 kit)
3. Mushkin Enhanced Redline Lumina 6000/CL30 MLB5C600AEEM16GX2 (2 kits)

The two sets of Silicon Power kits I tried either boot looped until hitting a Windows recovery page or would only run at 3600mhz stable. The Mushkin kits will run stable at stock, but with EXPO enabled Windows freezes with an error code on my main monitor and then crashes. The Crucial kit actually worked perfectly even with EXPO enabled, although it was only one x2 kit. I was wondering if there was anything I could try to solve the issue with  filling all the slots. I am currently in possession of the Crucial kit and the Mushkin kits.

 

The rest of my system:

• Windows 11 Pro 64 bit 22H2
• Gigabyte B650E Aorus Elite X AX ICE (BIOS F5c, latest)
• AMD Ryzen 7800X3D (stock)
• MSI Radeon 6900XT Merc 319 Black
• Corsair MP600 Pro LPX 2TB, Crucial MX500 2TB x4, WD Blue 5400 8TB
• Seasonic Vertex GX-1000

4 sticks on AM5 means you're stuck (haha) with low speeds

Knowing that I got 2x32GB of the best reputed RAM for AM5, GSkill Trident Neo Z (Hynix M die, no A die on that size), which is listed in my mobo QVL list, and 6000CL30 worked right off the bat

You could try lower XMP speeds like 5200CL30, CL32 etc until it's stable

 

[RONOTHAN##]

2 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

GSkill Trident Neo Z (Hynix M die, no A die on that size)

Actually, from my experience at least it's more common to get A die in 2x32GB kits than M die at this point. The CL30-40-40 speed bin from G.Skill is almost exclusively A die in 2x32GB. 

[Agall]

45 minutes ago, AutonomousRedux said:

Good evening, all. I come in seek of help for an issue I've been having ever since building my AM5 platform. Essentially, my RAM choices have been unstable when "overclocked" to rated speeds. I have tried three different models:

1. Silicon Power 6000/CL30 SU032GXLWU60AFDGSW 2x16 (2 kits)
2. Crucial 6000/CL36 CP2K16G60C36U5B (1 kit)
3. Mushkin Enhanced Redline Lumina 6000/CL30 MLB5C600AEEM16GX2 (2 kits)

The two sets of Silicon Power kits I tried either boot looped until hitting a Windows recovery page or would only run at 3600mhz stable. The Mushkin kits will run stable at stock, but with EXPO enabled Windows freezes with an error code on my main monitor and then crashes. The Crucial kit actually worked perfectly even with EXPO enabled, although it was only one x2 kit. I was wondering if there was anything I could try to solve the issue with  filling all the slots. I am currently in possession of the Crucial kit and the Mushkin kits.

 

The rest of my system:

• Windows 11 Pro 64 bit 22H2
• Gigabyte B650E Aorus Elite X AX ICE (BIOS F5c, latest)
• AMD Ryzen 7800X3D (stock)
• MSI Radeon 6900XT Merc 319 Black
• Corsair MP600 Pro LPX 2TB, Crucial MX500 2TB x4, WD Blue 5400 8TB
• Seasonic Vertex GX-1000

I'd make sure those kits aren't pushing the SoC voltage too high or too low. There's a few things that EXPO changes when enabled, so its possibly applying unstable settings.

 

You could always try manually configuring the EXPO settings. I'd have to be in front of an AM5 motherboard UEFI to give more details.

[AutonomousRedux]

36 minutes ago, podkall said:

The good news is, this is considered pretty normal.

 

The bad news is, it's because of RAM and CPU limitations: if you're running 4 sticks, it is unlikely that the ram will be stable at it's rated OC speed.

Blegh. I was hoping this wasn't the case. Yet, when I only use 2 DIMMs, it's working just fine.

 

I thought it wouldn't be an issue since in my AM4 rig I had 4 DIMMs going at their rated speeds just fine (Crucial Ballistix 3600)

[AutonomousRedux]

9 minutes ago, Agall said:

I'd make sure those kits aren't pushing the SoC voltage too high or too low. There's a few things that EXPO changes when enabled, so its possibly applying unstable settings.

 

You could always try manually configuring the EXPO settings. I'd have to be in front of an AM5 motherboard UEFI to give more details.

Here's what I have in my EUFI for RAM

 

[PDifolco]

33 minutes ago, Agall said:

I'd make sure those kits aren't pushing the SoC voltage too high or too low. There's a few things that EXPO changes when enabled, so its possibly applying unstable settings.

 

You could always try manually configuring the EXPO settings. I'd have to be in front of an AM5 motherboard UEFI to give more details.

Isn't the simplest method applying the 6000MHz EXPO and turning down clocks and/or increasing CL ?

Tweaking other timings is tedious af, increasing voltage may be dangerous (EXPO is already at 1.4V)

[AutonomousRedux]

59 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

4 sticks on AM5 means you're stuck (haha) with low speeds

Knowing that I got 2x32GB of the best reputed RAM for AM5, GSkill Trident Neo Z (Hynix M die, no A die on that size), which is listed in my mobo QVL list, and 6000CL30 worked right off the bat

You could try lower XMP speeds like 5200CL30, CL32 etc until it's stable

 

So I dropped the speed to 5200 and CAS to 36. I might mess around with it later, but it's stable for now. 

[podkall]

9 hours ago, AutonomousRedux said:

So I dropped the speed to 5200 and CAS to 36. I might mess around with it later, but it's stable for now. 

that's awesome, also not saying you should try it now if it works, but could have tried updating Chipset drivers if you haven't already,

 

but if it's working then I'm not sure of updating chipset drivers would in turn could cause sudden instability,

 

@PDifolco do Chipset drivers touch RAM? since they're associated with Motherboard they probably do right?

[PDifolco]

13 minutes ago, podkall said:

that's awesome, also not saying you should try it now if it works, but could have tried updating Chipset drivers if you haven't already,

 

but if it's working then I'm not sure of updating chipset drivers would in turn could cause sudden instability,

 

@PDifolco do Chipset drivers touch RAM? since they're associated with Motherboard they probably do right?

I don't really know but don't think so, seems to me it's really hardware related, and never seen anyone advising updating chipset drivers for RAM issues

[AutonomousRedux]

6 hours ago, PDifolco said:

I don't really know but don't think so, seems to me it's really hardware related, and never seen anyone advising updating chipset drivers for RAM issues

The thing is my computer will run just fine if I'm in the EUFI with EXPO active. As soon as I try to get in to windows it stops working. 

 

Also, the expo tinkering went unstable last evening after a few hours.

[PDifolco]

40 minutes ago, AutonomousRedux said:

The thing is my computer will run just fine if I'm in the EUFI with EXPO active. As soon as I try to get in to windows it stops working. 

 

Also, the expo tinkering went unstable last evening after a few hours.

BIOS don't stress RAM at all, unstable RAM will manifest in Windows or certain programs

I had my rig working flawlessly for months in nearly everything with "unstable" OCed RAM, only Ryzen Master refused to work, but worked again with RAM back to stock settings

 

 

[AutonomousRedux]

On 5/24/2024 at 11:50 AM, PDifolco said:

BIOS don't stress RAM at all, unstable RAM will manifest in Windows or certain programs

I had my rig working flawlessly for months in nearly everything with "unstable" OCed RAM, only Ryzen Master refused to work, but worked again with RAM back to stock settings

 

 

So I managed to get two Crucial 2x16 kits to be stable at their rated 6000 CL36.

 

 

 

I hate how fussy some things can be.