Changing memory speed makes me lose ram

angkor · Jul 21, 2015

Hi,

(My complete rig at the bottom)

My bios defaults the ram at 1334. When I increase it to 1600 using EasyTuner6 and reboot, in the System pane I discover that WIndows now sees my full 12Gb or memory but with only 3,96 "usable". Turning it back to 1334 with ET6 and rebooting corrects it.

So far I tried inverting the 2 pairs of sticks (1-3 <-> 2-4) but got the same result.

Is it because I should do it "manually" in the bios and adjust other parameters (like voltage)?

I'm also wondering if going from 1334 to 1600 is an improvement worth it?...
(Even if it isn't, I'm the kind of person who hated having things that only half work... :pfff:

Though that seems to happen often enough with electronics.)

My rig:
CPU : AMD FX-4350 Vishera Quad-Core 4.2GHz Socket AM3+ 125W FD4350FRHKBOX
Motherboard : GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 AM3+ V. 4.0
ram : Kingston KHX1600C9D3K2/4GX Hyper X (2 x 2gb)
ram : Kingston HyperX HX316C10FK2/8 DDR3-1600 CL10 240-Pi (2 x 4gb)
PSU : Ultra ATK LS 600w (ult-ls6000p)
Graphique : GTX 760
HDD : WD Red 1T x1
HDD : WD Black 1T x2 (Model: WD1002FAEX-00Y9A0)

Thanks for any input.

angkor · Jul 21, 2015

Wait a minute...
ET6 tells me that 2 of my sticks are actually "PC#-10700(667 MHZ)" as opposed to what I wrote above, and which was written on the package when I bought them. Doesnt' it mean they are in fact 1334's ?

Dizzario · Jul 21, 2015

Since your mixing different sticks of ram, which as your finding out is usually a pain, you'll want to run at the settings of the slowest RAM kit.

I haven't looked up your ram, but I can tell from the model numbers your 2x2 kit is Cas9 and your 2x4 kit is Cas 10. What Cas are you actually setting them to once you get into windows?

Both appear to be DDR3 1600 (800MHzx2) kits,so they should run properly at that speed. What your seeing in windows is your mobo not being able to initialize the 2x4gb kit, probably cause your running them at CAS9. Hence the 3.94GB usable (a bit is probably used by onboard GPU or other devices.

As for the 667 your seeing, its easily possible ET6 is just reading one of the SPD values the ram is capable of. Grab CPU-Z (www.cpuid.com) and check your CAS settings, as well as some of the SPD values programmed into your ram.

When you move from 2 sticks to 4 sticks you might also have to relax timings as your asking your memory controller to co-ordinate 2x the workload, which sometimes needs a bit more time to complete properly (hence the relaxed timings). You can also go the other route and up the memory voltage to make up the difference needed to get stable sometimes.

As for your second question, yes 667 would be x2 (DDR Double Data Rate) to 1334.

Tradesman1 · Jul 21, 2015

Make sure you have the latest BIOS and then try initially with the 4GB sticks in slots 1-3 , make sure they work correctly at the spec data rate and timings (and it sees all 8GB), if that's good, go back into BIOS and set the DRAM voltage to 1.6 and the CPU/NB voltage to 1.25, save, exit shutdown and then add the 2GB sticks and see how it looks

angkor · Jul 21, 2015

Hi,
Thanks for the suggestions.

I'm quite the newb for hardware and never fiddled with memory before...

I looked with cpu-z and they are at 9.0 clocks.
Under the spd tab, I have 2 sticks that say 9.0 under the 800mhz column, and 2 other sticks that have a column at 10 and one at 11 under 800mhz. (Are those the readings you mean?).
Is there a way I can post screen captures? That could help maybe.

As for my bios, it's not the latest one according to my board's page : http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4672#bios
I currently have F2. But when I use Gigabyte's @bios, it tells me I have the latest version and won't let me see the F3 to update.

4Ryan6 · Jul 21, 2015

It is bad enough you attempting to run 2 mismatched kits and just because they both came from Kingston is irrelevant, but running different voltages as well?

Why didn't you at least buy the new kit matching the voltage of the prior?

For best performance I suggest running the 1.5v 8gb kit 1600mhz x cas10.

And just shelve the older kit, because if you are determined to get it all running together, you are going to have to drop down to 1.5v and possibly loosen timings to cas11 to get them all to work together error free.

More than likely you will not even use close to 8gb so why do you think you needed 12gb anyway, the answer is usually because I have 12gb now, irrelevant to whether you even needed the full 4gb much less the new 8gb.

8gb is really all you need for video and audio encoding and gaming anyway, very few applications even take full advantage of that much memory.

Just because you spent money on something doesn't mean running it all is your best option, next time read what you are buying and at least buy the same voltage modules.

If you are determined to attempt to run it all you are going to have to input all the timings and voltage settings manually, and there is really a reason there are 2 different voltages one was the older hardware specs and one is the newer hardware specs.

Personally FYI I would go back to a common voltage set manually at 1.50v and experiment with settings and the tightest being 9,9,9,24 at 2T if that fails try 10,10,10,28 at 2T, if that fails try 11,11,11,30 at 2T.

Some may suggest going the other direction to 1.65v but I would not recommend doing that with Kingston modules, so Good Luck to you! Ryan

angkor · Jul 21, 2015

4Ryan6 :

Short answer is, as I mentioned, I'm a newb. Which means I'm dependent on what people tell me (like now). You wouldn't believe the amount of reading I've done on motherboards, cpu's and vdo cards in the last weeks trying to build this budget-yet-functional rig. And I guess I neglected reading enough on upgrading the ram after I was told that adding these 2x4 to my previous 2x2 would work.

I'm at work now so I can't look further into it for the moment. I'll report tomorrow when I've had a chance to read the answers properly.
I don't mind at all using only 8gb if it's going to work better. So it's likely that'll be the solution in the end for now.

angkor · Jul 21, 2015

I asked earlier, but I guess it was lost.
How much of a difference does 1600 over 1334 actually make?

EDIT:
I'm reading through various different threads asking the exact same question. And the short answer is "not much".

angkor · Jul 21, 2015

Ok so...
I'm still at work but I have some free time to read. Many people agree with what Ryan said above.
Basically it boils down to this :
I don't need more than 8gb to start with. + There isn't a noticeable difference between 1333 and 1600.

So I guess I can simply ditch my older sticks and just keep my 2x4gb at 1600.

4Ryan6 · Jul 22, 2015

angkor :

That will give you the best overall performance, enough memory to handle what you'll be doing, and a lot less hassle.

angkor · Jul 22, 2015

Well, I upped the 8gb to 1600 using ET6 and all seems to be working well.

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