RAM unstable @3200hz, please help!

[jefftm95]

Hello everybody!

 

I recently purchased an Asus Maximus X Hero mobo alongside an i7-8700k processor so that I could clock the frequency of my TridentZ RGB ram to 3200hz stably. However, everytime I try to exit BIOS after switching it to XMP enabled and setting the DDR4 to ~3100hz, and the computer crashes. I then reset the settings back to normal and just continue to use my PC at 2133hz. My BIOS is from 2017, and I'm updating that tomorrow, but do any of you know why this is happening? I have adequate cooling, but an Antec 850w bronze psu.

 

Thanks in advance and sorry if I left anything out!

[imreloadin]

Either up the RAm voltage, lower the speed, or loosen the timings. That's all you can do lol.

[SquintyG33Rs]

honestly if it's crashing at XMP (which is tested at factory normally) it's not your ram's voltages or timings that are fucking up. it's the controller in the CPU or the bios stuff. so the looser timings can help but voltage has to be added to the uncore not the ram itself. and there's nothing you can do about bios.

[jefftm95]

6 minutes ago, imreloadin said:

Either up the RAm voltage, lower the speed, or loosen the timings. That's all you can do lol.

Is it even worth it to update the bios then? What would I loosen the timings to roughly and is it safe to up the ram voltage?

[jefftm95]

1 minute ago, SquintyG33Rs said:

honestly if it's crashing at XMP (which is tested at factory normally) it's not your ram's voltages or timings that are fucking up. it's the controller in the CPU or the bios stuff. so the looser timings can help but voltage has to be added to the uncore not the ram itself. and there's nothing you can do about bios.

What do you mean there's nothing I can do about bios? Wouldn't updating it fix that? 

[SquintyG33Rs]

Just now, jefftm95 said:

What do you mean there's nothing I can do about bios? Wouldn't updating it fix that? 

 

Just now, jefftm95 said:

What do you mean there's nothing I can do about bios? Wouldn't updating it fix that? 

yeah if you're not on latest. but i was assuming you were because you should pretty much always be.... you can't loosen timings too much, if you do you can just clear CMOS and it's all good.

 

voltage you need to touch is UNCORE not RAM. it's a CPU sub voltage. safe voltage for it is NOT the same as for CPU it's usually around 0.3~0.5V lower at it's max. you do not want to fry your chip.

[MageTank]

2 minutes ago, SquintyG33Rs said:

honestly if it's crashing at XMP (which is tested at factory normally) it's not your ram's voltages or timings that are fucking up. it's the controller in the CPU or the bios stuff. so the looser timings can help but voltage has to be added to the uncore not the ram itself. and there's nothing you can do about bios.

XMP's are not guaranteed overclocks. They are also not as tested in the way most people expect them to be tested at. The IC's on the ram itself are binned in a way to work alongside each other at those set voltages and timings, but the memory itself cannot possibly predict how the motherboard will train the memory, and how the IMC is going to respond to those trained values.

 

17 minutes ago, jefftm95 said:

Hello everybody!

 

I recently purchased an Asus Maximus X Hero mobo alongside an i7-8700k processor so that I could clock the frequency of my TridentZ RGB ram to 3200hz stably. However, everytime I try to exit BIOS after switching it to XMP enabled and setting the DDR4 to ~3100hz, and the computer crashes. I then reset the settings back to normal and just continue to use my PC at 2133hz. My BIOS is from 2017, and I'm updating that tomorrow, but do any of you know why this is happening? I have adequate cooling, but an Antec 850w bronze psu.

 

Thanks in advance and sorry if I left anything out!

If I can give any advice in overclocking, it would be this: Never buy hardware with the preconceived notion that an overclock is guaranteed. It's seldom ever the case. If you want 3200mhz to work when XMP refuses to cooperate, you are likely going to need to get your hands dirty and dial it in manually. Set your vDIMM to 1.35-1.4v, set VCCIO/VCCSA to 1.15/1.2, and manually input your timings to a slightly looser value than what your XMP has listed. Once you successfully post, work on tightening them until you fail to post, then go back and test for stability. I have a guide in my signature that may be of use to you, just be prepared for a very long read. 

 

2 minutes ago, SquintyG33Rs said:

 

yeah if you're not on latest. but i was assuming you were because you should pretty much always be.... you can't loosen timings too much, if you do you can just clear CMOS and it's all good.

 

voltage you need to touch is UNCORE not RAM. it's a CPU sub voltage. safe voltage for it is NOT the same as for CPU it's usually around 0.3~0.5V lower at it's max. you do not want to fry your chip.

The uncore voltage is strapped to vCore on Skylake and beyond, you cannot set it individually. I believe you are referring to VCCSA (IMC and PCIe subdomain voltage) which would indeed help, but your value of "0.3-0.5v" isn't accurate either. Both VCCIO/VCCSA don't really have a general value that they need to be at. They typically have a sweet spot that is entirely dependent on the system setup, and is often different for everyone. I know my system is far more stable with less VCCSA (1.15v) than say, 1.3v, while others need 1.3v to even use their OC's. 

[jefftm95]

4 minutes ago, MageTank said:

 

If I can give any advice in overclocking, it would be this: Never buy hardware with the preconceived notion that an overclock is guaranteed. It's seldom ever the case. If you want 3200mhz to work when XMP refuses to cooperate, you are likely going to need to get your hands dirty and dial it in manually. Set your vDIMM to 1.35-1.4v, set VCCIO/VCCSA to 1.15/1.2, and manually input your timings to a slightly looser value than what your XMP has listed. Once you successfully post, work on tightening them until you fail to post, then go back and test for stability. I have a guide in my signature that may be of use to you, just be prepared for a very long read.

 

Thank you everybody for the insight -

 

So if I don't want to do the fine tuning at the moment, would setting the DRAM to ~2800hz for a stable midground benefit work? What would you suggest I set it to for gaming and streaming?

 

great advice all around

[MageTank]

11 minutes ago, jefftm95 said:

Thank you everybody for the insight -

 

So if I don't want to do the fine tuning at the moment, would setting the DRAM to ~2800hz for a stable midground benefit work? What would you suggest I set it to for gaming and streaming?

 

great advice all around

2800mhz is typically where diminishing returns kicked in during my testing, so I would say it's a very fair compromise assuming you can make it stable at that frequency. Also, be mindful of your cache (uncore) frequency when memory overclocking. A higher uncore multiplier will improve IMC performance, but will also make it more difficult to overclock your ram in the process. Relaxing your cache clock can actually make memory overclocking a little easier, at a slight cost in latency. Try to find the best balance to where you can achieve the highest bandwidth without sacrificing any latency. 

[SquintyG33Rs]

6 minutes ago, MageTank said:

The uncore voltage is strapped to vCore on Skylake and beyond, you cannot set it individually. I believe you are referring to VCCSA (IMC and PCIe subdomain voltage) which would indeed help, but your value of "0.3-0.5v" isn't accurate either. Both VCCIO/VCCSA don't really have a general value that they need to be at. They typically have a sweet spot that is entirely dependent on the system setup, and is often different for everyone. I know my system is far more stable with less VCCSA (1.15v) than say, 1.3v, while others need 1.3v to even use their OC's. 

yeah i haven't had a skylake+ CPU in hand so i didn't know it was strapped together now. the values was just to give a ball park because throwing 1.4V at uncore because your CPU overclock takes it is a bad idea (on the platforms it works that way). and of course OC isn't guarantied that's not the point. XMP is generally conservative because they want it to work as a quick and dirty solution so it's very rare to fail on a tried and true platform.... intel hasn't really changed much in years. I believe the problem lies elsewhere. I might be wrong this requires further testing.

[MageTank]

6 minutes ago, SquintyG33Rs said:

yeah i haven't had a skylake+ CPU in hand so i didn't know it was strapped together now. the values was just to give a ball park because throwing 1.4V at uncore because your CPU overclock takes it is a bad idea (on the platforms it works that way). and of course OC isn't guarantied that's not the point. XMP is generally conservative because they want it to work as a quick and dirty solution so it's very rare to fail on a tried and true platform.... intel hasn't really changed much in years. I believe the problem lies elsewhere. I might be wrong this requires further testing.

Memory manufacturers do not test ram on every possible motherboard that is released. Each and every motherboard has a different trace topology that impacts the signaling of the ram. They typically validate the ram itself, then leave it up to the board manufacturers to validate memory on their specific boards. This is why each motherboard has a QVL list. 

 

All that being said, I do agree with you that it's likely not his board. The board itself is rated for 4133mhz+, and I've seen people clock to 4333 on that specific board just fine in a 1DPC setup with single rank sticks. It's more likely that either his CPU's IMC is a dud, or he needs to change the DIMM slots his ram is located in, for better signaling (slots 2 and 4 preferred).

 

@jefftm95 Care to link your memory kit to me? I am curious as to how many sticks you are using, and whether or not they are dual rank or single rank. There could be some issues with tertiary timings holding you back, and it may even be a simple fix. 

[SquintyG33Rs]

4 minutes ago, MageTank said:

Memory manufacturers do not test ram on every possible motherboard that is released. Each and every motherboard has a different trace topology that impacts the signaling of the ram. They typically validate the ram itself, then leave it up to the board manufacturers to validate memory on their specific boards. This is why each motherboard has a QVL list. 

 

All that being said, I do agree with you that it's likely not his board. The board itself is rated for 4133mhz+, and I've seen people clock to 4333 on that specific board just fine in a 1DPC setup with single rank sticks. It's more likely that either his CPU's IMC is a dud, or he needs to change the DIMM slots his ram is located in, for better signaling (slots 2 and 4 preferred).

 

@jefftm95 Care to link your memory kit to me? I am curious as to how many sticks you are using, and whether or not they are dual rank or single rank. There could be some issues with tertiary timings holding you back, and it may even be a simple fix. 

for his dimms there are only 2 variant of tridentZ RGB at 3200. a C15 and a C16. and i'm pretty sure they are also both single rank

[jefftm95]

1 hour ago, MageTank said:

Memory manufacturers do not test ram on every possible motherboard that is released. Each and every motherboard has a different trace topology that impacts the signaling of the ram. They typically validate the ram itself, then leave it up to the board manufacturers to validate memory on their specific boards. This is why each motherboard has a QVL list. 

 

All that being said, I do agree with you that it's likely not his board. The board itself is rated for 4133mhz+, and I've seen people clock to 4333 on that specific board just fine in a 1DPC setup with single rank sticks. It's more likely that either his CPU's IMC is a dud, or he needs to change the DIMM slots his ram is located in, for better signaling (slots 2 and 4 preferred).

 

@jefftm95 Care to link your memory kit to me? I am curious as to how many sticks you are using, and whether or not they are dual rank or single rank. There could be some issues with tertiary timings holding you back, and it may even be a simple fix. 

They're in 1 and 3 now. I'm switching to 2 and 4 to try.

 

2x 16gb 3200hz tridentz rgbs

[jefftm95]

1 hour ago, MageTank said:

Memory manufacturers do not test ram on every possible motherboard that is released. Each and every motherboard has a different trace topology that impacts the signaling of the ram. They typically validate the ram itself, then leave it up to the board manufacturers to validate memory on their specific boards. This is why each motherboard has a QVL list. 

 

All that being said, I do agree with you that it's likely not his board. The board itself is rated for 4133mhz+, and I've seen people clock to 4333 on that specific board just fine in a 1DPC setup with single rank sticks. It's more likely that either his CPU's IMC is a dud, or he needs to change the DIMM slots his ram is located in, for better signaling (slots 2 and 4 preferred).

 

@jefftm95 Care to link your memory kit to me? I am curious as to how many sticks you are using, and whether or not they are dual rank or single rank. There could be some issues with tertiary timings holding you back, and it may even be a simple fix. 

thanks sexy