TridentZ F4-F4133C19D-16GTZA and ASUS Maximus VIII Hero

[Signal]

Currently there is only one motherboard on the QVL for the F4-4133C19D-16GTZA kit.
ASUS Maximus VIII Impact is the ITX version of the ASUS Maximus VIII Z170 series boards.

I'm trying this kit on a ASUS Maximus VIII Hero and getting a reboot at Q-Code 41.
I can hit the MemOK! button and get back into BIOS.

There isn't anything official on what Q-Code 41 means but other forums have suggested increasing VCIIO and System Agent voltage to get past it.

Both are on AUTO and reporting VCCIO at 1.304 and System Agent at 1.352. I'm not sure what's safe to bump these up to as anything above these values is showing red and small increments haven't been successful so far.

CPU: i7-6700K no overclock
BIOS: 1701 (Latest)

Any suggestions?

[emissary42]

Some of the ITX models can higher memory clocks than their ATX brethren, because of shorter / optimized memory signal pcb traces for only two dimm slots. For most boards DDR4-4000+ is beyond what the board AUTO mechanisms can handle, so manually tweaking VCCSA and IO for stability is probably a necessity at this point. Don't go overboard with either one right away, raise them in small steps.

If you can't get it to work at all, my advice would be to manually set the XMP timings, start a lower memory ratio and work your way up until you hit the wall again. Also test the other memory slots, most boards have stronger and weaker ones.

[Signal]

Thanks for the reply. Thought I was being a bit too optimistic but giving it a shot to see how far I can get.

1. Could not use the XMP profile as a reference.

I can guess this has something to do with ASUS AI overvolting when XMP is in use.

I got Qcode 55 (ram not present) with XMP and any other speed between 3600 and 4000. 4133 got further through the post but stopped at Qcode 41. Also tried slots A1/B1 vs the recommended A2/B2 with no joy. Increasing VCCIO and SA voltage at 3600 got it to post but loading windows would crash and the voltages were having to be set in the 1.35+ range which seems a bit crazy for DDR3600.

2. More success with full manual settings.

I reset BIOS settings to default and got things stable again with my DDR3600 kit. This has been running stable for a couple of months now.

Noted all the timings and then tried them with the G.Skill except this time setting everything up manually.
18-19-19-39-2T, tRFC at 630, VCCIO and SA at 1.125, DRAM voltage at 1.35.

Everything is stable at 3600 and 3733 with those settings.

Currently working on 3866.

19-21-21-41-2N, tRFC at auto, VCCIO and SA at 1.200, DRAM voltage at 1.35.
Was able to boot windows and do some benchmarking/stress tests but subsequent reboot failed with Qcode 55.

Still working on it.

[Signal]

Couldn't get anywhere on getting 3866+

The board advertises 3866 compatibility and has options up to DDR4-4266 but can't get a solid post in that range with manual settings.

Best I could do was tighten up the timings at 3733 and settled in on 16-15-15-36.
Better than I had but probably could have gotten that on a cheaper kit.

Will probably return these.

[emissary42]

If you don't have issues at DDR4-3733 CL16, then i don't think the memory itself is the problem. Unless something with your settings is off, it is probably the board or the cpu that cannot handle the high memory frequency of your kit.

You could try to ask ASUS for help with the settings or an updated BIOS and they might at least be able to tell you if DDR4-4133 is actually possible under normal conditions with the Hero.