Adding RAM

[Mixednuts]

Hello all, I have a quick question. I'll be adding 4gb more RAM to my rig in the near future and was wondering if I need to change any settings in the BIOS like voltage or timings.
My current rig is:
GSKill F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL
AMD Phenom II 965 125 Watt
GA-MA790XT UD4P Gigabyte
Windows7 Professional
XFX HD5770
Thanks in advance.

[Onslaught2k3]

given your current setup, timings, speeds, and voltages of the RAM modules you have in now are stable and no errors in memtest, then I would recommend you slightly bump up the CPU-NB voltages a few notches to ensure stability of your added modules. However, HOWEVER, make sure it's the same kit you ordered originally to ensure consistency with your current setup. You should be fine.

[Mixednuts]

Thanks for the reply. Should I go 1 increment at a time in the NB voltage?
Check this out:
The voltage is 1.62 to the RAM now when set to auto in the BIOS. This seems to be a default with my Motherboard. If I set it to manual in the BIOS I still can't lower the voltage to 1.5 volts. The only adjustments available are to increase the voltage. The BIOS is the latest. I'm waiting for a reply from Gigabyte now. I hope this won't harm anything in the long run.

[wevsspot]

Mixednuts - on the other voltages mentioned by Onslaught -

Please be sure to recognize that he recommended a bump in your CPU/NB voltage. That is different than the regular Northbridge voltage.

The Northbridge voltage adjustment is for the chipset only. The CPU/NB voltage is for the communication lane between the cpu and northbridge.

Unless you are overclocking, you probably won't have to adjust the Northbridge voltage at all.

For the CPU/NB voltage I think that 1.26v is a fairly decent starting spot.

Regarding your DRAM voltage, unless Gigabyte gets a BIOS fix out quickly you'll need to decide whether you want a different board or a different memory kit. It isn't good for that kit of memory to run that far overvolted.

[Mixednuts]

Oh ok I'll make sure I raise the CPU-NB. Didn't know there was a difference.
As far as the DRAM voltage goes you would think they had all this worked out since the RAM is on Gigabytes qualified parts list. Oh well I'll just have to wait for their reply.
Thank you all for your help.

[wevsspot]

Hey, no problem. I agree with you, you would think that they would have had it all worked out........................

Hopefully you'll get an answer soon.

[Mixednuts]

OK here's what I was told:
GO into BIOS settings and manually set the voltage to the next higher voltage increment and that should set the voltage to it's default of 1.5v. I'll try it but sounds wacky to me.
This is the answer I got when I called them this morning. Then I got email from their tech support and told me to set the BIOS to fail-safe defaults and then optimized defaults.
I'll let ya know how it goes when I get my RAM back from RMA. Hopefully soon since GSkill received my problem sticks yesterday.

[wevsspot]

best of luck and keep us posted