Kingston HyperX 1600mhz 12gb ram not stabilizing at all in overclock

[paradoxeternal]

hi, i'm new to overclocking but i have done my research, reading other people's experiences on forums, learning how things work, reading the amd black edition OC guide here on tom's hardware, etc.

my components are pretty good for OC'ing, i think: amd phenom ii x6 1100t, gigabyte 990fxa-ud5 mobo and my kingston hyperx 1600mhz RAM which has been giving me problems.

i managed to get my CPU to 3.9 ghz at 1.475vcore with the northbridge speed at 2400 mhz and voltage at 1.110v. i was able to run the prime95 small fft test for 6 hours which seems to indicate my northbridge is stable,

HOWEVER, i have not gotten the blend test stable, which leads me to believe my RAM is causing the instability. at times my PC crashes after a few min running the test, other times i just drop cores. i tried reducing the RAM speed at the standard 9-9-9-27 timings but i couldn't get stability. when i bumped the timings up to 11-11-11-29 (where my mobo at them at auto) i was able to get over an hour of the blend test before dropping 1 core. this was at 1600mhz.

i just tried the blend test again at 1333mhz with the same timings but the program crashed after about 7 minutes.

i don't know what else to do or try. should i just shoot for a lower clock speed? is there something wrong with my RAM? should i play around with the timings? if so, how? or maybe the RAM isn't causing the instability after all? sorry for all the questions, and i realize that i'm supposed to figure all this out by myself with OCing but google searches have yielded nothing and i hope an OCing veteran could provide some advice.

thank you for your time

 

[unksol]

well, for starters you are running a triple channel kit (3x4GB) meant for an Intel on an AMD dual channel system. So its probably forcing you out of dual channel mode. Or at least causing you some other issues with your BIOS settings when you take them off auto and force timings.

Go to just 2 sticks and manually set voltage speed and timings and try again.

does prime 95 run fine at stock speeds?
what are your CPU temps hitting at load?
run memtest to make sure memory isn't faulty

 

[paradoxeternal]

i ran the prime95 blend test with everything set to auto in the bios for 8 hours and i was fine. as for the 2 sticks, i'll try that but if that's the case i'm going to have to buy new memory cuz i want what i paid for.

my CPU's max temps at load are about 58c but usually are 54c.

when i shopped for memory there was nothing that indicated memory sets were meant for a certain platform. i guess i'll just have to do more research next time.

i'll also run memtest. but i think the problem is as you said that im running triple channel meant for intel on a dual channel amd system

 

[paradoxeternal]

well, for starters you are running a triple channel kit (3x4GB) meant for an Intel on an AMD dual channel system. So its probably forcing you out of dual channel mode. Or at least causing you some other issues with your BIOS settings when you take them off auto and force timings.

Go to just 2 sticks and manually set voltage speed and timings and try again.

does prime 95 run fine at stock speeds?
what are your CPU temps hitting at load?
run memtest to make sure memory isn't faulty

also when i take out one of the sticks should i set the voltage speed and timings to what kingston tested them at even tho im running 8 gigs not 12?

 

[unksol]

yes, the memory itself will work. its just you want to work in sets of 2 in a dual channel system.

your motherboard manufacturer will list memory kits they have tested with your board on their site. memory manufacturers usually do the same too.

also newegg has a tool although I have never used it

www.newegg.com/MemoryFinder/#AEA

 

[unksol]

you want the two sticks to be in slots with matching colors... sometimes they recommend which slots to use first. your motherboard manual should say.

XMP is extreme memory profile which is an Intel thing. I use an xmp set with my AMD but the board wont pick up the settings from xmp.on its own, which is why its not right on the auto settings

 

[unksol]

if you are going to return it anyway though I wouldn't spend too much time fiddling with it. the settings you end up at may not work for the new stuff and you'll have to fiddle some more. if you dont want toreturn you could get a single matching 4 gig stick if they sell one and have 16 gigs and it will probably work. not sure if this is it or not

www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104244

one other thought, the Phenom II memory controller is 1333MHz. you are overclocking it to hit 1600MHz Mine would never run at 1600 so I had to use the FSB to get it close instead of just setting it to 1600. So if you want to see how high your CPU can go You may want to leave the memory on auto, find your CPU limit with prime 95 using just the multiplier then back off and start fiddling with the memory/FSB to get too 1600MHz

 

[paradoxeternal]

if you are going to return it anyway though I wouldn't spend too much time fiddling with it. the settings you end up at may not work for the new stuff and you'll have to fiddle some more. if you dont want toreturn you could get a single matching 4 gig stick if they sell one and have 16 gigs and it will probably work. not sure if this is it or not

www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104244

one other thought, the Phenom II memory controller is 1333MHz. you are overclocking it to hit 1600MHz Mine would never run at 1600 so I had to use the FSB to get it close instead of just setting it to 1600. So if you want to see how high your CPU can go You may want to leave the memory on auto, find your CPU limit with prime 95 using just the multiplier then back off and start fiddling with the memory/FSB to get too 1600MHz

i think i'm going to try buying that other dimm since it's so cheap and see how that works, even though its not the same exact model as the 4 gig sticks that came in my 12 gig package. it runs at the same speed and voltage; if that still doesn't work i'll just buy dual channel memory.

i don't want to try the 2 sticks alone because i want more than 8 gigs, as i do a lot of RAM-intensive stuff.

i will try that memory controller stuff you mentioned only if i have to, only because it seems pretty complicated and i want to avoid overclocking the CPU by raising the bus frequency... if thats what you meant.

the only thing i've been having trouble with is running memtest; it opens in winrar and if i extract it i still can't find the file. apparently i have to boot it to a CD or something? a bit confusing. i'll do a google search and see if that clears things up.