OC Ram to 1600mhz

For that kit you want to go into BIOS and enable XMP
OR you can manually set your ram to 9-9-9-27 at 1.5v and 1600MHz (which CPU-Z will report as 800MHz

Yep he is right !

makers of Cpuz should consider adding a field to report multiple channel frequencies as to not confuse people...

OK so I tried both your recommendations. First I set it manually to 9-9-9-27 at 1.5 and 1600mhz and my PC wouldn't boot up and it failed. Second method I tried was enabling XMP and nothing... then I tried XMP with 1.65v and still nothing.

What am I doing wrong?  

Forgot to add that when I do change the settings in the bios and hit reset my PC doesn't shut off completely and restart it stays on and the screen just turns black. When I reset the settings after it fails and save and reset again it completely shuts off for like 2 seconds and restarts. Is this supposed to happen when and OC fails? Why is this technically even OC'ing if the ram says it runs at 1600mhz?

Clear cmos shown here

http://support.asus.com/Troubleshooting/detail.aspx?SLa...

Then try C12Friedman's suggestion again.

Did as you said, cleared the CMOS and still cant get my ram running at 1600mhz.

My question is if I leave it at 1333mhz even though its rated at 1600mhz will it effect the ram in the long run? All this restarting and OC failing and force shutting down is scaring me...

I don't understand why this is so difficult...



Here's a pic of the Bios when I set it to XMP. Anyone see a mistake?
Any other last suggestions?

There is absolutely no danger to running ram at a lower frequency than it is rated for there is however a danger in running ram at a higher voltage than it is rated for. Putting 1.65v through 1.5v ram may shorten it's lifespan and voltages over 1.5v are not recommended by Intel - not good for the CPU.
Check your picture link, I see nothing there

I only tried the 1.65v once. After I posted here I never tried it again with that voltage.

http://tinypic.com/r/20upwti/6
That's the actual link, just tested it.

Everything looks right in the picture, better yet would be a screen shot of CPU-Z memory tab. When you press F10 to save and restart what happens then?

Where's the CPUZ tab? Sorry I'm a noob.

CPU-Z is a program used to monitor the system. It is available here http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z/versions-history.h... and highly suggested to run when overclocking (while checking stability anyway).
After CPU-Z has compiled it's info, there are tabs at the top, main, motherboard, memory, graphics, etc... the info in the memory tab is what I'm looking for
edit: BTW, it runs in windows, you can also use it to validate your overclock(s)

Here's a pic of the cpuID tab.
http://tinypic.com/r/2po9s36/6

I also forgot to answer your question about what happens when I press f10 and restart. Normally when I exit and reset, the computer actually restarts, to the point where the lights on the fans and sound go off. It then starts up normally. When I try to "OC" the ram and restart, the screen just goes blank as if its about to restart but the monitor does not display anything. It says "no signal" and then goes blank with no start up whatsoever and the fans and lights do not go off. It just gets stuck and at this point I have to manually power it down and power it back up and it gives me the "failed to over clock" message.

I'm going to try to drag GSkill Support into this - might have better insight into something I'm obviously missing

Really appreciate all your help so far, thank you very much!

amuffin here states you cant overclock on B75 chipset, whether he means cpu only or memory is related too, im not sure. http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/318141-30-abou-asus-p...

Hopefully C12Friedman can come up with something simpler but as for me, it might be an idea to update your bios for improved stability.

Check the bios revision first and compare to the latest here at Asus

http://support.asus.com/download.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=P8...

In your bios, look for EZ Flash in the bios tools page. You can use and copy the bios file to a usb thumb drive formatted as fat32 as im pretty sure the bios wont read ntfs.

If you do decide to give this a go, after flashing with the new bios version, use the jumper switch again to clear cmos and revert bios to default settings under the new bios revision.

ahhh i see

And there it is! That's the answer! I have an i7 2700k processor which is a sandy bridge model. I had no idea that the type of processor affected the type and speed of ram. Thanks everyone for all the info!

Best answer selected by Shizemaneigan.