Lost in memory...

[SephGamer]

Hi guys,

 

I am completely lost as to how to get my memory running without errors. Last week I started building my new rig (nothing too fancy, but it should do the trick for me), but since I've been done building, everything seems to keep going to hell. First boot up, straight to Windows install gave a BSOD. So I decided to check everything (everything was at stock at the time), running Memtest86. Bunch of errors all around, Dual Channel, Single Channel, all slots. So I figured maybe the brand new memory was faulty, returned it, got some two new dimms and tried again. Again, errors, errors, errors...\

 

So I started tweaking the timings and voltages a little, and finally I managed to get a single module in slot A1 running a couple of passes without errors. Great! Tried the other slots for a couple of passes, also switching to the other dimm to make sure both worked, and got no errors in A1, A2 and B2, but a few errors in B1 (about 42 per pass if I recall correctly). Thinking my motherboard had a faulty slot, I decided to leave it as it was, seeing as I really couldn't afford to spend a few more days waiting for a new one. Decided to stick in both dimms in A2 and B2, run a few more passes before finally getting to actually use my new pc. But, you guessed it, BAM! errors out the wazoo when running Dual Channel. 

 

So, what is happening here? Are the tweaks I did (that seemed necessary) unique to Single Channel and should I try everything again just to get both modules working? Or is there more going on with my motherboard than 'just' a faulty slot? Or could it possibly be that all 4 sticks of brand new memory (Corsair Vengeance 2x8 and Kingston HyperX Beast 2x8) are defective? Would love to hear your thoughts on this.

 

MB: Asrock 990FX Extreme3

CPU: FX-8350

Mem: 2x8 Kingston HyperX Beast

 

P.S. I read somewhere about tweaking the NB voltage. Could this do anything useful for me? 

[Majestic]

If they aren't running properly on factory settings they're DOA. Or the motherboard is using the incorrect voltage (i had that once).

Check the DRAM voltage, otherwise RMA that memory.

[SephGamer]

But we're talking about 4 completely new modules, from different vendors and manufacturers. Wouldn't it seem more likely that the MB is DOA? Or possibly even the CPU?

[Majestic]

Check the voltages still.

[SephGamer]

Well, like I said, I've been tweaking the voltages to eventually get them to run Single Channel. MB seems to set the Kingston ones at a default of 1.54V. So if that's (part of) the problem that would simply mean running all my tweaks again until it works. Which then leaves the question: Would actually getting them to work without errors be considered 'good' products? And would that mean that it's simply the B1 slot on the MB that's faulty? I am rather new to all this, so please forgive me for being confused about: "They're DOA, unless you tweak the MB voltage".

[Majestic]

1.54V, yes that was what my old motherboard used to run my 1.65V sticks on aswell. And that ran fine for about 1.5 years, but suddently it started to BSOD and It took me weeks to figure out that the voltage was incorrect.

 

What voltage are they supposed to run on?

[SephGamer]

Well, according to what I can find on their website (and on the label) they should be at 1.5V.

[SephGamer]

Scratch everything I said before. I tried setting everything back to default again and then I noticed that my UEFI for some reason turns on the XMP profile by default. Turned that off (and left everything else the same), and sure enough now everything passes in all slots with no errors at all. So the question now changes slightly: How on earth do I get my memory running stably at the advertised speeds? The memory should be able to run at 1600Mhz, and the board should support it according to the site, the box, etc.