Do Gigabyte boards work best with a specific brand of memory?

lanman_aw1 · Aug 30, 2014

Do Gigabyte Boards work best With a specific brand of memory?

I have been undertaking two separate builds both utilizing Gigabyte motherboards and I am having some difficulty getting to POST successfully.
One of these boards is a GA-X48T-DQ6 with an Intel E8800 processor.
This board while still socket 775 uses DDR3 as opposed to DDR2 which is normal for this socket type.
Ive tried all sorts of DDR3 memory and to no avail. The boards wont post.
Gigabytes manual sets forth in the specifications that DDR3 1.5v is the standard memory spec for this board. I've tried memory spec'd as low as 1.65V, but the board still wont post.
On two board two(2). That board is also a Gigabyte motherboard. The model is a GA-X58A-UD7. Its a socket 1366 which currently has a core i7-920 installed. This board can run its memory configurations in either dual or triple channel mode which allows for some memory configuration flexibility. Gigabytes specifications for this board also state DDR3 @1.5V. So once again, I seem to be unable to POST this board with any of the memory which I currently have.
This would be all good if I didn't already own a Gigabyte board which has exhibited issues regarding memory. That board is a GA-EP45-DS3R running an E6600 cpu.
Initially, it had 4Gb of Corsair XMS2 memory installed..
The memory was timed at 4.4.4.12 with a 675Mhz frequency rating. It ran well until a few months ago when the system would inexplicably hang and force a cold boot in order to recover.
The problem escalated to the point where on boot, the system would not POST until the reset button was depressed at least three times. Then on boot, it would hang at some random point, forcing that reboot i initially mentioned.
AQ check of the system logs in Windows 7 revealed that the system was logging a power failure to the kernel. That made no sense as the power to the system was still active.
I finally replaced the Corsair memory with 2Gb of generic Transcend memory which seems to be working ok. I however cant populate all four memory slots as one slot seems to be faulty.
So my question is simple. Is there a specific brand of memory that Gigabyte boards seem to work best with from user's experience?
If there is, I'd rather get that brand of memory and work with it going forward. Mo other option which has been constantly pushed at me is to get the rid of all my Gigabyte boards and migrate to ASUS. Truth be told, my ASUS boards just work with whatever memory I trow at them, just like ABiT boards did in the past.Gigabyte and DFI boards seem to be very picky with their memory choices and that is something I want to get to the bottom of before making a firm decision either way.
Hope some reader(s) have some experiences they can share.

jdcranke07 · Aug 30, 2014

lanman_aw1 :

Do Gigabyte Boards work best With a specific brand of memory?

I have been undertaking two separate builds both utilizing Gigabyte motherboards and I am having some difficulty getting to POST successfully.
One of these boards is a GA-X48T-DQ6 with an Intel E8800 processor.
This board while still socket 775 uses DDR3 as opposed to DDR2 which is normal for this socket type.
Ive tried all sorts of DDR3 memory and to no avail. The boards wont post.
Gigabytes manual sets forth in the specifications that DDR3 1.5v is the standard memory spec for this board. I've tried memory spec'd as low as 1.65V, but the board still wont post.
On two board two(2). That board is also a Gigabyte motherboard. The model is a GA-X58A-UD7. Its a socket 1366 which currently has a core i7-920 installed. This board can run its memory configurations in either dual or triple channel mode which allows for some memory configuration flexibility. Gigabytes specifications for this board also state DDR3 @1.5V. So once again, I seem to be unable to POST this board with any of the memory which I currently have.
This would be all good if I didn't already own a Gigabyte board which has exhibited issues regarding memory. That board is a GA-EP45-DS3R running an E6600 cpu.
Initially, it had 4Gb of Corsair XMS2 memory installed..
The memory was timed at 4.4.4.12 with a 675Mhz frequency rating. It ran well until a few months ago when the system would inexplicably hang and force a cold boot in order to recover.
The problem escalated to the point where on boot, the system would not POST until the reset button was depressed at least three times. Then on boot, it would hang at some random point, forcing that reboot i initially mentioned.
AQ check of the system logs in Windows 7 revealed that the system was logging a power failure to the kernel. That made no sense as the power to the system was still active.
I finally replaced the Corsair memory with 2Gb of generic Transcend memory which seems to be working ok. I however cant populate all four memory slots as one slot seems to be faulty.
So my question is simple. Is there a specific brand of memory that Gigabyte boards seem to work best with from user's experience?
If there is, I'd rather get that brand of memory and work with it going forward. Mo other option which has been constantly pushed at me is to get the rid of all my Gigabyte boards and migrate to ASUS. Truth be told, my ASUS boards just work with whatever memory I trow at them, just like ABiT boards did in the past.Gigabyte and DFI boards seem to be very picky with their memory choices and that is something I want to get to the bottom of before making a firm decision either way.
Hope some reader(s) have some experiences they can share.

There is no specific brand that Gigabyte works better with than others. First problem is that your putting 1.65V sticks in a board rated for 1.5V. You do not have enough power from the board to the sticks, hence the not posting issue. Second, if you bought individual sticks separately from each other there is a chance that they will not work together. Sometimes this is true even if you adjust their timings. So, as a failsafe, should always buy in packs with the needed amount of RAM and not purchase individuals unless you want to take the chance. I have a Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5 board and 16GB (4x4) of Corsair Vengeance memory. However, I have seen others work. Main thing is make sure the sticks run at 1.5V and not at 1.65V.

lanman_aw1 · Aug 30, 2014

jdcranke07 :

lanman_aw1 :

There is no specific brand that Gigabyte works better with than others. First problem is that your putting 1.65V sticks in a board rated for 1.5V. You do not have enough power from the board to the sticks, hence the not posting issue. Second, if you bought individual sticks separately from each other there is a chance that they will not work together. Sometimes this is true even if you adjust their timings. So, as a failsafe, should always buy in packs with the needed amount of RAM and not purchase individuals unless you want to take the chance. I have a Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5 board and 16GB (4x4) of Corsair Vengeance memory. However, I have seen others work. Main thing is make sure the sticks run at 1.5V and not at 1.65V.

Thanks for the response.
I was suspecting as much, but wasn't sure as I have only recently started to build using the Gigabyte brand.
Not having come across boards that were this specific w.r.t their memory voltages, I wondered if it was the only issues that I was possibly experiencing.
As for purchasing kits or pairs of DIMMS, I certainly do understand the value of taking that approach to avoid conflicting memory timings, voltages or both.
Thanks for the response.

Tradesman1 · Aug 30, 2014

What DRAM do you have, the model #

lanman_aw1 · Aug 30, 2014

Here are the three specific makes and part numbers of memory that it have tried in each of the DDR3 based boards:

Corsair Denominator: CMP4GX3M2A1600C8
Kingston: HyperX KHX1333C7D3K2/4GX
OCZ Obsidian series: OCZ3OB1600LV6GK

They are all rated at 1.65V which a previous responder to my post identified as the problem.
I was under the assumption that if I could get the boards to post, I could adjust the memory voltage in BIOS settings. Gigabyte calls some of these enhanced BIOS settings M.I.T or Motherboard Intelligent Tuner. I assume this is akin to some form of overclocking, which I am not terribly fond of, but a change of 0.15v may or may not be significant in terms of component longevity. It apparently is in terms of getting a system to POST however.
Welcome your thoughts and analysis.

Regards.

Tradesman1 · Aug 30, 2014

On the 775 mobos you'll need to have the FSB equal to or greater than the DRAM freq, so minimum of a 1333 FSB for the Kingston and 1600 for the others if you wish to run them at full freq, this OCs the entire system so the 8800 is native 1333, but the 6600 is native 1066. Both will be OCed with 1600 DRAM and the 6600 will be OCed with even the 1333 so may have scale back the multiplier for the CPU if it gets to hot

lanman_aw1 · Aug 31, 2014

Tradesman1 :

OK.
Thanks for the response. This is the type of information that I was unaware of but it makes perfect sense.
Do you know if anyone have a "tool" ( even a on-line utility) for sizing/matching mother boards based on their respective chip-sets, with memory based on its timings and operational frequency?
In short, a tool that you can plug in the MB FSB frequency and chip-set type and it will tell you which memory will work by frequency and possibly timing. That would take the labor intensive nature of matching memory to a MB out of the build process.
However, whether there is or ins't that type of a tool, its good information to have as I better understand what my challenges may now be and they are more complicated than I first assumed.
Thanks for the response again.

Tradesman1 · Aug 31, 2014

Don't know of one off hand...it depend on a combination of things, i.e. with 775 to run a particular freq of DRAM at that freq the FSB needs to be equal to or greater than....With most AMD rigs, the mobo needs to be able to run the DRAM freq but more important is the MC (memory controller) of the CPU needs to be able to handle it, same with most all of the more modern Intel setup (1156, 1366, 1155, 2011, 1150 sockets)

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