Slow HDD access when having at least 2 ram sticks..

[underthesun]

Hello,

I'm wondering if the stick I'm using right now is only meant to be used in a singular manner?

At first, I had the following set up (one 8GB ramstick)

Motherboard : Asrock h77-pro4-mvp
CPU: intel i7 3770
ram: G.Skill F3-1600C-11S - 8GB
OS : ubuntu 12.10

Feeling satisfied with the performance, I decided I wanted 24GB more ram (using this computer mainly for long compilation of very huge source code.. I guess 32GB would be overkill, but yeah).

As I put in the other three sticks (making it 4 sticks in total), it turns out that it slows hard drive access speed to a grinding halt. Same with using two sticks, although performance was noticeably better. I removed all the 3 new sticks, and hard drive access went back to normal. Tried to replace that stick with one of the new ones, and hard drive access speed is still normal.

Now, is it possible that this ram combination is just not meant to be? I'll also be hitting up other forums (or find one that's related to asrock), because it could also be a motherboard problem, or an ubuntu problem. Or it could be incompatible software, but yeah.. please let me know if I was not meant to be using these ramsticks in combination with each other.

[Tradesman]

Any time you mix sets it can be problematic, you need to set them up manually as XMP only works by the set (that includes both the base timings and the advanced/secondary timings) also am guessing the mobo can't set up proper voltages for DRAM. If you could post up your BIOS settings (in particular all the DRAM timings and system voltages) we can take a look and see if we can help you try and get them straightened out. GSkill Tech should be in sometime today and I'll be back later this afternoon or early evening

[underthesun]

Any time you mix sets it can be problematic, you need to set them up manually as XMP only works by the set (that includes both the base timings and the advanced/secondary timings) also am guessing the mobo can't set up proper voltages for DRAM. If you could post up your BIOS settings (in particular all the DRAM timings and system voltages) we can take a look and see if we can help you try and get them straightened out. GSkill Tech should be in sometime today and I'll be back later this afternoon or early evening

ah, will do. just want to add quickly (on the phone in the bed at 2am here) that the new ram sets are the same 1x8gb sticks, if that changes anything. maybe im misunderstandinh what you mean with mixing sets, but yeah.

[Tradesman]

If they come in different packages they are mixed sets (even if the same model)....XMP is programmed by the packaged set - so, say 1 stick might have a tRFC of 88, a two stick package might be 170, a 3 stick set might be 223 and a 4 stick might be 278 or so, from 1 stick to a 4 stick set other timings may differ also

[underthesun]

If they come in different packages they are mixed sets (even if the same model)....XMP is programmed by the packaged set - so, say 1 stick might have a tRFC of 88, a two stick package might be 170, a 3 stick set might be 223 and a 4 stick might be 278 or so, from 1 stick to a 4 stick set other timings may differ also

Ah, would it be possible to set up the timings of those models manually on the BIOS, or did I just waste money because of not researching?

Last time I checked the BIOS, it didn't seem like there was any options with that, but I might take a closer look next time.

p.s this captcha is the most annoying thing ever

[Tradesman]

SHould be able to (I hope, I'll try and pull down a manual and take a look), will check with the GSkill folks on the captcha's