Can memory chips be too fast for a motherboard

[Gerry J]

Hello,
I just put 2x2GB GSkill (F3-12800CL9D-4GBNQ) into an ASUS P5E3 motherobard and its telling me that overclocking failed. I didn't manually set overclocking.
The motherboard only supports FSB 1333 MHz. Are the memory chips trying to run faster?

 

[suat]

There may be a setting in BIOS that you have to manually set for your RAM modules. In some motherboards, there is D.O.C.P. setting in Ai Overclock section of BIOS for RAM that has speed higher than motherboard/cpu can accept. Also RAM voltage can be a problem as well. Please check your motherboard manual and RAM specs.

 

[saint19]

Hi newcomer and welcome to the Tom's hardware forum.

Enter to the BIOS and select "Load default settings"

 

[Gerry J]

Thanks suat,
Thanks saint19,
When the systems tells me "overclocking failed" if gives me the option to load default settings... and this works for that session. I guess what you're saying is that if I do this in the BIOS it'll "stick".
I will also check the DOCP and RAM voltage.
From reading around I think I'll put back the old memory chips and update the BIOS first and then ... try again.... with your recommendations.
I'll let you know how I get on.

 

[Maziar]

I had the same problem with my older rig(4GB OCZ DDR2 800RAM and ASUS P5K-E), everything was at stock speed, but sometimes i got the "overclocking failed" message when i started up my computer, so i updated to the latest BIOS and set the my RAM's settings(timings,voltage,speed) in the BIOS and after that it worked fine.

 

[jitpublisher]

A short answer to your first question, no. The speed memory is rated is simply the fastest speed the manufacture guarantees it will work without errors.This has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with the speed your board/processor combination will actually run the memory at by default.

 

[Gerry J]

Thanks all,
I tried setting DRAM freq, timings and voltage manually, no imporvement, infact had to restart a second time to get it to prompt for default settings... which work.
I'll go back to my old memory (xtreem 2x1GB) and update the BIOS and try again.