PC fails to POST at anything over 3200MHz

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jdracine18

Jul 23, 2018
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Hello,

Over the past month or so I have been dealing with a whole slew of headaches and stress trying to upgrade my RAM. Originally, I had my trusty 16GB (2x8) of G.Skill RipjawsV that is rated for 3200MHz. It has always worked fine.

But then I decided I wanted to upgrade. Silly me. I had my sights set on 32GB of Corsair Dominator Platinum RAM, which is rated at 4000MHz. Long story short, the Corsair RAM gave me a bunch of BSoDs with many differing stop codes, and I couldn't stop it no matter what. So I RMA'ed it and bought 32GB of G.Skill TridentZ rated for 4000MHz. But still, the memory was giving me blue screens at random times. I thought that RAM would work for sure because it was actually on my mobo's QVL. Nope, had to RMA it as well.

Fast forward 2 weeks to now, and I just got my third set of replacement RAM. This time, it's 32GB of G.Skill TridentZ RGB, rated at 3600MHz. I figured the lower frequency would stop the instability. Not quite. Now the system doesn't even pass POST. It gets stuck at DRAM.

However, if I turn down the frequency BELOW THE RATED SPEED to 3200MHz, the system POSTs and boots just fine. It just makes me wonder why doesn't it work at the rated speed of 3600MHz? Can anyone help me work this out? Any words of advice will be greatly appreciated.

By the way my specs are:

CPU: Intel i7-8086K @ 4.00GHz (OC'ed to 5GHz)

Motherboard: Asus Z370-E Gaming

GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080Ti

Storage: Samsung 850 EVO 1TB SSD

PSU: Corsair HX1000i
 
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volkgren

volkgren

Judicious
Aug 13, 2017
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Anything past 2666MHz is an overclock for memory on the Intel 300 series platform with a Core i7. So, anything past that is not gaurunteed. Just because the memory was tested at that speed doesn't mean your system is capable of running it. I'd be willing to bet it's your system and not the memory that can't handle the speeds. Not that your system is bad or anything, but memory speeds past 3200MHz are more so hit or miss.

Have you updated to the latest motherboard bios?
 
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volkgren

volkgren

Judicious
Aug 13, 2017
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Also know that you can adjust timings and voltage manually to find stability. For instance, if you're 3600MHz RAM is rated at C16 (CAS 16), try bumping it up to C17 in bios settings. You would likely have to disable XMP and set frequency and voltage and change CAS to 17. It's worked for me in the past with RAM that couldn't POST at XMP 3200MHz.

You could also try running dram voltage up to or at 1.4V, but that's the absolute max for DDR4 and could affect the lifespan of your RAM.
 
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J

jdracine18

Jul 23, 2018
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Hi volkgren,

First off, thank you for the replies to my question.

To answer YOUR question, yes I have updated my BIOS to version 1002. Secondly, I will try to manually configure my own timings and voltage and I will report back.

Thanks again,

Justin

P.S. According to the description on Amazon, the CAS latency is 17 by default. So maybe I should try 18?
 
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J

jdracine18

Jul 23, 2018
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10


 
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J

jdracine18

Jul 23, 2018
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Sadly, I had no luck in manually setting the timings and voltage. The only stable XMP profile is 3200 or below nowadays, which is puzzling to me, because a few weeks ago it could handle my Corsair and faster G.Skill RAM at 4000MHz, albeit rather briefly.

Also, I ran these sticks through the Memory Diagnostic and they passed, which the others have failed. Just seems to add to the confusion, don't you think?
 
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J

jdracine18

Jul 23, 2018
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0
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Here's another thought: my previous Corsair and G.Skill RAM sticks were 4 x 8GB, while my current G.Skill is 2 x 16GB. Not only that, but the fact that there were no options for 2 x 16GB sticks for 4000MHz when I purchased them makes me think the higher capacity sticks aren't as capable of handling the high frequency. And, like I said, my Corsair and other G.Skill RAM could actually pass POST, even though they did give me blue screens.

Long story short, maybe I should've went with the 4 x 8GB configuration rather than 2 x 16GB.
 
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volkgren

volkgren

Judicious
Aug 13, 2017
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The 3200MHz memory I had that wouldn't POST with XMP enabled or at rated timings/speed was 2x16GB. So I'm with you on suspecting the larger capacity modules have more stability issues. Also, the motherboard I was using was Asus Z370-A, so maybe it's an Asus thing..??

Usually fewer sticks is more stable though. So idk.. your guess is as good as mine.

Perhaps someone else will come along and be of better help.
 
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J

jdracine18

Jul 23, 2018
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I talked to Asus and we worked out that my DIMM_B2 slot is defective or something. If I just use one stick in A2, it will POST and boot just fine with 3600MHz. However, using that same stick in the B2 slot makes it fail post. I'm just going to RMA the board before it's too late. Thanks for the help though.
 
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