F3-1866C10D-16GAB XMP2 with Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3 wont post

[mdmower]

G.Skill F3-1866C10D-16GAB
Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3
Intel 2500K at Stock Speed

I replaced my G.Skill Sniper 2x 4GB DDR3 1866 kit with this new G.Skill Ares 2x 8GB DDR3 1866 kit today. SPD speed works fine (memtest+ 4.2 finishes a full pass), XMP Profile 1 works fine (DDR3 1600), but the most important profile XMP Profile 2 will not let the system post.

I tried changing the BIOS setting "Performance Enhance" from Turbo to Standard and it still didn't help. What should I try next to get DDR3 1866 speed?

Here is a screenshot with my system running XMP1:

[Tradesman]

Do you have latest BIOS? try 10-11-10-32, 2T, 1.56 DRAM Voltage, MC (memory Controller) voltage (think its VCCIO or VTTCPU on your mobo depending on BIOS version) to 1.14 (or thereabouts) and a slight OC 3.8 or so.

[mdmower]

Still no luck.

BIOS: F12
I tried QPI/Vtt = 1.14 and DRAM 1.56.
I tried with CPU multiplier OC to 38 and also tried without (33).

Not sure if it'll be useful or not, but here is the CPU-Z full report for my system: LINK

[Tradesman]

Have you checked w/ GB?, maybe see if they have a BIOS update on tap, many of the Z68s have BIOSs that are behind the times when it comes to 8GB sticks, especially the P67/H67 and Z68 mobos, as the makers are concentrating on the Z77 and X79 mobos

[mdmower]

I just e-mailed Gigabyte and I'll report here when they reply.

Gigabyte has a new UEFI BIOS U1h, but it offers no improvements over F12 aside from being UEFI. I'm hesitant to try it because of poor performance reports I've read.

[Windsage]

Similar issue

I have a similar issue. My motherboard is a Gigabyte Z68MA-D2H-B3 rev. 1.3 and with 4 x 4gb - 1600 G.Skills sticks in it everything is great. I tried to upgrade to 4 x 8gb - 2133 and it would freeze at the loading windows screen every time.

If I run the 8gb sticks one at a time they will work, but only at 1333mh. Even 3 at a time I can get 24gb running at 1333mh, but any higher speed and it won't post. Add the fourth stick and it posts but won't load windows.

Seems to me to be a bios issue, but I have checked and I have the latest bios. I have also emailed gigabyte. This was my first try with one of their motherboards.

[Tradesman]

Do either of you know if they even have any 8GB sticks on their QVL, I'm leaning towards secondary?advanced timings not being good (or possibly even supporting the sticks, ran into this on a couple of ASRock mobos that didn't allow a tRFC of more than 255). Could you post your advanced DRAM timings and we'll see if they are out of whack

[mdmower]

The QVL was last published one year ago (Aug 2011) and does not contain any 8GB modules (even though the max supported memory is supposedly 32GB).

The table below summarizes what my F12 BIOS reports as the max manually enterable value and what the automatic setting is for different profiles.

		Max	SPD	XMP1	XMP2
CAS		15	9	10	10
tRCD		15	9	11	11
tRP		15	9	10	10
tRAS		40	24	29	30
tRC		63	33	38	40
tRRD		15	4	6	6
tWTR		15	5	7	7
tWR		16	10	14	14
tWTP		31	22	25	25
tWL		12	8	7	7
tRFC		255	174	232	244
tRTP		15	5	7	7
tFAW		63	20	24	26
CMD		3	1	2	2

		Max	SPD	XMP1	XMP2
IO Latency	31	1	1	1
RT Latency	255	39	39	39

[Windsage]

They do not have any 8gb sticks on their QVL, All of the sales literature shows that 32gb is supported, and there are only 4 slots, so I'm not sure how they can promise 32gb support without support for somebody's 8gb sticks of memory.

With the present 4gb-1600 sticks, I am running at 1600. The 8gb sticks are recognized at 1333mhz and I think I remember 9, 9, 9, 24 as the timings from Memtest86. I will put one of the 8gb sticks back in and get the full set of numbers in about an hour. I have the system working on a CFD iteration right now.

ADDED: One other thing. I am running F9 Bios and the Gigabyte utility says it is up to date, but their website lists a F10 for download and also lists U1b (UEFI BIOS) that is dated 7-13-2012.

[mdmower]

I have the system working on a CFD iteration right now.

... it figures that a couple of physics nerds are the ones that wont let this issue go unresolved.

[Tradesman]

OK, the BIOS isn't optimized for 32GB sets, this is the same problem I ran into on the ASRock mobos, my 2133/CL9 32GB set wante 278 in tRFC, and like this one, it maxed at 255.

To both of you, might try the new BIOS - (and/or)

MDMOWER

Might want to go in and try the XMP2 settings, but put them in manually with DRAM voltage at 1.6

Windsage

Try and see if you can manually input 278 into the tRFC....if no joy after that and the BIOS update, get back and I'll dig out the manual settings I used on my set with 255 to get them running

*** on QVLs might look at my info thread

http://www.gskill.us/forum/showthread.php?t=10566

and since you all are into physics, take a look at my HELP thread in general discussions, am looking for a new GPU

[Windsage]

I flashed the bios from F9 to F10. The cap is still 255 for tRFC. I tried the memory and it has the same issues. They have a newer bios listed but I downloaded it twice and both times the utility said the checksum was bad, so I assume its a bad copy.

This computer was built about 2 months ago for this project. Its too bad the bios is from last year. My first and last Gigabyte.

I will probably keep the 16gb in this system and pass it down for other uses. With 16gb this system just hammers the SSD's like crazy running the software we have on it. It sits at 15.4gb for hours with the HD lights all on.

I'll pick up some hardware this week and build up another system to use the 32gb to run the rest of the project.

You have been incredibly helpful. Do you have any recommendations for a good MB to use 32gb-2133 ram.

[Tradesman]

Not sure what CPU you're looking at, but I've got 32GB of Ripjaws X, 2133/CL9 right now with a 3570K (@ 4.6GHz) running at 2400/CL10 on a ASRock Z77 Extreme 4 (BIOS 1.60, ver 2.0 is screwed up and back to the 255 limit, 1.4 which they have posted was OK, not sure why they pulled 1.6, but if you go this route let me know and I can email 1.6 to you, I worked with them on getting the problem fixed). Should have a 32 GB set of Trident 2400/10 next week if all goes well, but just had a GPU die on my P67, so right now I'm shopping to replace it, am going to move the 285 OCX I've been using in the Z77 to the P67

[mdmower]

MDMOWER

Might want to go in and try the XMP2 settings, but put them in manually with DRAM voltage at 1.6

Is there a place which lists the full set of timings that XMP2 is supposed to use for F3-1866C10D-16GAB? The product page only lists the basic 10-11-10 2N.

[Tradesman]

If you go into CPU-Z and go to the last tab, you can create a report, which will give you info from the SPD on minimums for advanced timings, but all mobos will set things up different, depending on the combo of BIOS and at times even individual CPUs