1.65V 1600MHz RAM question

[muesch]

Hello internet. I've got a not-so-quick question. Keep in mind none of this involves overclocking... at least intentional overclocking. I recently put together the following build:

MB: ASUS M4A79XTD EVO AM3 AMD 790X ATX
CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 630 Propus 2.8GHz Socket AM3
GPU: XFX HD-485X-ZDFC Radeon HD 4850 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16
RAM: G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Dual Channel (F3-12800CL9D-4GBNQ)
Case:COOLER MASTER RC-690-KKN1-GP
OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Misc: Western Digital Caviar Black WD7501AALS 750GB
Sony Optiarc 24X DVD/CD
Rosewill RCR-IC001 40-in-1
ASUS PCE-N13 PCI Express Wireless Adapter

However, after having to RMA my RAM three times (it never passed MemTest, other reports on the internets reported incompatibility with this RAM and motherboard, despite being on the QVL, etc.), I switched the memory to Crucial Ballistix based upon the recommendation of my company's IT department. So now I've installed:

RAM: Crucial Ballistix 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) (BL2KIT25664BN1608)

I got some error message when I first installed the RAM, so I went in to the BIOS and specified the voltage to be 1.65V (actually 1.66V b/c I had to deal in .02 V increments). Voila! Everything worked perfectly. MemTest was happy. Windows was happy. No problems for about two months. The I got a BSOD when coming out of hibernation mode. I moved to a previous restore point. BSODs starting becoming more frequent. Then eventually windows would not load or load it's system restore point software from boot. I started moving modules around, pulling one out, putting the other back in. Weird/random things started happending. The mother motherboard wouldn't post one time. Then it would randomly do one of the following: wouldn't post, post but crap out while loading either windows, windows safe mode, or windows restore point. On my last attempt, the MB got stuck on the "Loading ASUS Expressgate..." screen before the POST even occurred! Needless to say, I'm frustrated. Keep in mind, all of this was occurring with the latest BIOS and nothing overclocked.

I'm past my RMA point for the MB. The question is, did I make the wrong decision in buying 1600 MHz RAM. It seems like 1333 is the sweet spot for 790X, GX, FX type boards... at least when looking for system stability and not trying to overclock. Should I scrap my current motherboard and get a newer 890FX type board that can handle 1600 MHz ram without overclocking? Or should I just send this MB off and get a new one back and underclock my current RAM to 1333?

On a side note, besides setting the clock speed to, say 1333 MHz, do the voltage or timing settings also need to be changed to underclock memory for stability purposes?

Sorry for the barrage of questions, but thanks in advance to anyone who takes on my questions.

 

[davcon]

The newer board will still default the ram to 1333MHz.Someone correct me if i'm wrong.
I have 1600MHz ram on a P55 mobo and the default is 1333MHz.
To enable 1600MHz i still had to adjust the dram voltage from 1.5v to 1.65.
I have a Gigabyte mobo and the only other setting was enabling XMP.
It's called something different on an Asus samething though.
However everytime i update the bios these two settings must be adjusted again for 1600MHz to run.No biggie!

 

[muesch]

Thanks for the info. I guess I never used any diagnostics to figure out what the motherboard was setting the clock speed of the memory to. I left that setting on [Auto] in the BIOS. When things starting to get really unstable, I went and specified the clock speed (1600) in addition to the voltage. However, then I received a message during POST that "Memory overclocking failed". That really made me scratch my head, because I had simply set everything to the out-of-the-box settings.

 

[shortstuff_mt]

Did you also manually set the timings? You need to set the speed, timings, and the voltage. Your timings may have been set to tight if you didn't change them.

 

[muesch]

No I didn't. That may well have been my problem too. If my board isn't completely fried, that will be my next attempt.

 

[muesch]

Best answer selected by muesch.