GA-X58A-UD3R XMP Problem

[jetpack]

I just built my fist system so am pretty new at this, wondering if anyone can shed some light for me on a mobo/ram issue

I installed 12Gb Corsair TR3X6G1600C8D RAM and it seemed to be working fine and was listed in the BIOS as running at 1066MHz. I heard about XMP and thought, hey why not try it to see if I can actually get it run the "advertised" 1600MHz with a simple option. So, I enabled XMP and got through one boot but on the second one I got an error from the bios.. something like:

"The system has experienced boot failures because of overclocking or changes of voltages ...."

I ran memtest (at 1066MHz) and found no errors. Corsair has recommended I memtest each module separately with XMP enabled, one a time to see if one stick in particular might have a problem that didn't show up with XMP off.

To me it sounds though that the XMP changed some bios settings that my board didn't like and it's not really faulty memory. Is this possible or can someone provide another explanation?

Sorry for all the words and thanks for your help.

 

[Lmeow]

Lol, I don't think I could help you, but, on my board, I once tried setting the FSBRAM ratio too high, I set my RAM at like 1800MHz + on 1.5V, I was actually suprised it even booted. But Prime 95 crashed it within a minute. So I set back to default settings, and was fine. Have you tried clearing the CMOS?

 

[bilbat]

Here's the 'skinny':

Your RAM contains a 'flashed-in' table of data, called an SPD (I know it makes no sense, but: 'serial presence detect' - I think they keep a few guys in closets out in SoCal, just thinking these things up to keep us confused - my favorite has always been PCMCIA: "people can't memorize computer industry acronyms!") So, anyway, the first few columns of entries in this SPD set out the timings, and, more importantly, the sub-timings, for whatever are the 'standard' JEDEC (ackKK - another one: 'Joint Electronic Device Engineering Councils') speeds for whatever generation of RAM you have...

Then, for fast RAM, it gets a little more complicated. There can be an 'additional' timing table for the higher, rated speed. Intel and AMD, in one of their little 'pissing contests', kind of screwed us all up by 'declaring' two seperate standards for this 'added' info and its use: for Intel, it's XMP (extreme memory profile); for AMD (actually, originated by nVidia & Corsair) it's EPP (enhanced performance profile) What happens when you enable XMP, is that the system changes how it does its 'hardware discovery', both when it starts up, and, especially, when you execute the "Load Optimized Defaults" from the BIOS. As the 'discovery' code in the LoadOpt is much more thorough, I'd give that a try with XMP enabled - might cure your problem...

The plain fact, though, is that you'll never 'see' the difference:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/memory-scaling-i7,2325-5.html
and, Intel, on the 1156/1366 platforms (all i3/i5/i7) only supports three RAM speeds - 800, 1066, and, (for some...) 1333! Unless you are doing either massive rendering, or transcoding a lot of video, you are better off with low-latency 1333, set with the latencies as low as they'll successfully run - as you will 'see' a difference from latency variations...

 

[bilbat]

Oh - and, try the "LoadOpt" with only one stick in (in DDR3_1, slot second away from the CPU...), per the Corsair instructions - it sometimes works better that way. You may still need manual adjustments to run six DIMMs, though - if the "LoadOpt" seems to work, try it with three first...

 

[jetpack]

Best answer selected by jetpack.

 

[jetpack]

Lol, I don't think I could help you, but, on my board, I once tried setting the FSBRAM ratio too high, I set my RAM at like 1800MHz + on 1.5V, I was actually suprised it even booted. But Prime 95 crashed it within a minute. So I set back to default settings, and was fine. Have you tried clearing the CMOS?

Yes. I cleared CMOS and reset the bios to default setting and things run fine, though still at 1066MHz. I'm going to run it at 1066 until I figure out my latest issue.. a video problem. Will post about that separately.

 

[bilbat]

When you feel like 'fiddling' with the RAM, if you'll d/l this:
http://www.tweakers.fr/download/CPU-Tweaker.zip
and post both the main screen, as well as the one that pops up when you click on the SPD button, I can try to assist...

 

[jetpack]

When you feel like 'fiddling' with the RAM, if you'll d/l this:
http://www.tweakers.fr/download/CPU-Tweaker.zip
and post both the main screen, as well as the one that pops up when you click on the SPD button, I can try to assist...

Thanks bilbat. I'll likely take you up on that once I figure out my video and cold boot problems... Will post about those.