Rates & Settings on crashing system with F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL

[snapcase]

Ok, so I just built a brand new system (I mean brand new, only old parts are the DVD burners), and I'm having a ton of crashing problems. I ran a Memtest86+ for almost 16 hours on both sticks of RAM (F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL) and they both reported no errors with 10 full passes. However I looked at the timing and wasn't sure if it was correct from memory. I looked up the specs online and looked in my BIOS to check. Frankly I'm not sure what half of those settings are. I see the 9-9-9-24 on the one, and I see it's set to 1T for Command Rate. One thing I don't know is that the RAM says 9-9-9-24 2N... is 2N the same as 2T? Should I set it to 2T, and if I do would it possibly have an effect on system stability? I don't know if RAM is my problem but I'm trying to figure that out. My crashes happen after playing a game for a while. High end games crash the most reliably, some crashing in well under a half hour. I never get a BSOD. Just buzzing sound and sometimes a system restart.

If you want to try and offer some insight to my overall crashing issue I have an ongoing post over at another tech forum:
http://forums.whatthetech.com/index....owtopic=118251

Here's my BIOS page for RAM settings (voltages is a different page):


Full system specs:
Case: Antec 902 V3
MOBO: Asus Crosshair IV Formula
CPU: AMD Phenom II x6 1100T Black Edition
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws 8GB DDR3 1600
HDD: System drive: WD Velociraptor 150GB a WD Caviar Black 1TB for storage, games, and the like.
GFX Card: Radeon HD 6970 2GB
PSU: Corsair 750W
CPU Cooler: Corsair H50
OS: Windows 7 Professional

All the links are just to Newegg product pages.

[Tradesman]

Should be 2T, that's your Command Rate (also known by other names) and the letters 'T' and 'N' are pretty interchangeable, 'T' normally is on Intel mobos and AMD norm uses 'N', in general terms it's the length of a pause between DRAM cycles.

If problems persist, may take a look at:

http://www.gskill.us/forum/showthread.php?t=7688

and...if they still persist, get back to us w/ your voltage settings

[snapcase]

Should be 2T, that's your Command Rate (also known by other names) and the letters 'T' and 'N' are pretty interchangeable, 'T' normally is on Intel mobos and AMD norm uses 'N', in general terms it's the length of a pause between DRAM cycles.

If problems persist, may take a look at:

http://www.gskill.us/forum/showthread.php?t=7688

and...if they still persist, get back to us w/ your voltage settings

I set it to 2T and still crashed. Also, after changing it to 2T, windows seems to take a lot longer to load. I get to the desktop then have to wait quite a while for everything to finish loading. Hadn't had that before changing that setting.

About that link.. Mine is set to 1600 in the BIOS (see below images). I don't want to do anything that would result in overclocking the CPU since the system is already unstable (somehow). I also didn't see where to "Set CPU Host/Bus Frequency to 240" anyway. Sorry I'm inexperienced with tweaking BIOS settings. I am using a Black Edition CPU though, but I'm trying to err on the side of caution.

The DRAM voltage is set to auto and is averaging 1.68v (also see images below) so I'm guessing I should lower that to 1.5v right?

The first 3 images are of the first page in BIOS the "Extreme Tweaker" section. There's a lot of overlap but all the info is there:






This last one is the DRAM Driving Configuration:


Don't know what half that stuff means honestly.

[GSKILL TECH]

Ai Overclock Tuner -Manual

The best way to adjust it is like how it is stated in the guide. If you don't want CPU overclock, just lower the CPU Ratio. Simple stuff.

Thank you
GSKILL TECH

[snapcase]

I set AI Overclock Tuner to manual, the CPU Bus to 240, and the DRAM Voltage to 1.500. That bumped the CPU to 3973MHz and the DRAM Frequency to 1600MHz.

However, it didn't fix the crashing problem. I also ran a Memtest86+ with the new settings. it returned 0 errors on 2 passes, but Memtest86+ reported the clock speed as 666MHz (1333MHz) instead of 800MHz (1600MHz). Yet CPU-Z reports DRAM Frequency as 802.7MHz. Not sure why there's that discrepancy.

I ran Prime95 for 20min before the CPU got too hot (65?C). There were no errors there either. It's a little hotter than before the OC (obviously) but not by much at all. I can still add another fan to my radiator and swap out a better thermal compound at some later time.

[GSKILL TECH]

Lower the CPU Ratio to your desired frequency or default.

Where is it crashing? Do you have the latest memtest?

Thank you
GSKILL TECH

[NemesisChild]

Have you updated your Crosshair IV Formula bios?
If so, completely clear the CMOS after the bios update.
Also, I highly recommend that you run both sticks in the black memory slots.
Confirmed by me and many other CH4 owners, instability can arise while running in the red slots.
To a newcomer, the bios settings on the CH4 can be overwelhming.
But there are some critical adjustments that need to be made to run a stable system.

You can run 1600 speed on this board by keeping your CPU clock at default (200MHz).
I suggest doing this until you get your memory stable.
Because you're running 8GB of memory, some voltages tweaks may be required.

Try these for now:

CPU/NB voltage: 1.250v
NB voltage: 1.3875v
HT Link voltage: 1.250v

Disable CPU and PCIE Spread Spectrum in the bios.