AMD CPU + G.Skill DDR3-1600

[06MonteSS]

You should be OK at 1333, but I'd suggest a single set, I say this because anytime you mix two sets it can be problematic, with a single 4 stick set you get a set that is tested to work together. Normally at 1333 there's not a problem with adjusting voltages to get them to play with Intel and AMD, but more likely to encounter problems with a AMD CPU due to the weaker MC (Memory Controller)

yeah, have never gotten my AMD system to run stable with my ram at 1600... or even 1333 for that matter.. i've got 16gb ram, all 4 slots filled... but get same results if I take 2 sticks out and only use 2 slots (in dual channel config)....

I have the AMD A8-3850 2.9GHz APU, with the integrated gpu ATI Radeon 6550HD graphics... : http://www.amd.com/us/products/deskt...omparison.aspx

I am using the Gigabyte GA-A75-UD4H motherboard: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/pro...px?pid=3927#sp

It is updated to their latest BIOS.. revision F8a...

yes, I have all memory times, frequency, etc all manually set.. and I still get BSOD's frequently... several times a week... it could run perfectly fine for a few days, and then I'll get bsod's.... very aggravating...

have run prime95 for hours, never had a problem, windows memory tester, never had a problem.. .memtest, that won't even run at all on my system, gets to Loading................ and system reboots...

so, my question is, in this screenshot below, can I change/bump up any of these drive strengths for the memory controllers to gain stability?? or what about ANY of the settings shown in this screenshot - would adjusting any of them help??

http://www.eprowebdesigns.com/upload..._Settings2.jpg


thanks!

[GSKILL TECH]

Thanks for the information! In that particular case, it may be motherboard specific, but good thing you posted and shared this info! We will go ahead and add it to the guide.

Thank you
GSKILL TECH

[Mauser]

Problem with Wake From Sleep Related to NB and HT Link Speeds

Excellent explanation on the default CAS settings (as usual) - thank you!


Now I have run into a bit of a strange issue with wake from sleep mode that is directly related to changing the NB frequency to 2400MHz. Took me most of the day to finally discover what was happening - found an easy solution, but I'd like your thoughts on it.

There have been MANY MANY problems with Vista and W7 hybrid sleep from the very beginning, and the tech world is rife with folks complaining that their machine will not wake from sleep. Mine was waking just fine until I started setting the BIOS for the memory as per the OP. Somewhere in the middle of that testing I noticed that it would no longer wake up - just hang with black screens and fans running full speed. Hitting reset would cause it to reboot and then restore from hibernation, proving the problem was with the wake function, not the sleep function. This problem ONLY affected hybrid sleep - using ACPI S1 or S4 (normal suspend or straight hibernation) still worked fine. but it just could not wake from S3.

When I went back and restored by BIOS to the initial settings, the problem went away. What I eventually found was that when I set the NB frequency, I saw a big red warning that said "If cpu northbridge Frequency lower than HT link speed, system will correct frequency as default." If I set NB frequency to 2400 and just left HT Link at the default 2000, the machine boots fine and has been 100% stable EXCEPT for the problem with wake from sleep. CPU-Z shows the HT Link as 2400 even though when I go back to the BIOS it is still shown as 2000.

The solution to this problem is simply to change the HT Link frequency to 2400 at the same time the NB frequency is changed. With that done, there are no further problems waking from sleep. My best guess is that there must be some timing issue going on during the wake process when the system is trying to automatically reset HT Link speed to match the NB speed, so when the BIOS is set with them equal, this timing issue does not arise.

Unless you think the issue is actually something different, you might want to include this information in your OP where you specify setting the NB frequency to 2400MHz.

[GSKILL TECH]

DDR3-1600 CL11 is the DDR3 standard. It is the max any DDR3 motherboard can default to with AUTO settings. This allows any DDR3 memory to POST; whether it's DDR3-1866 or DDR3-2800 memory, it can still work in a motherboard that supports DDR3-1600 max.

Since your kit is above standard, manual settings or enabling DOCP will be necessary. Your frequency may not be above standard, but timings are better than standard, so your kit has to be treated just like a DDR3-1866 or DDR3-2133 kit. Manual settings are typically best, but you have to know what you're doing. DOCP is convenient as it tells the motherboard you have memory better than standard, so then it automatically detects and sets the memory settings for you. BUT, depending on the CPU and memory, it may not be natively capable, which is why we have this thread to provide additional information. e.g. Phenom II CPU does not fully support DDR3-1600 with just the basic memory settings, so this guide shows that you also have to set the CPU-NB Frequency and Voltage. For non-BE CPUs, 'overclocking' is necessary.

When you have a CPU that can natively support the memory, then one setting is all it takes. e.g. Intel i7-2600K CPU, you can buy any DDR3-1600 to DDR3-2133, enable XMP, save, exit, done. The memory controller is designed so that all you have to do is input DRAM frequency, timings, and voltage, and that's it. CPU settings are ready for up to DDR3-2133, so one setting (enable XMP), is all it takes. This makes Intel easier to build and achieve high performance, especially for those that are novice builders.

If you look in CPU-Z, the SPD tab will show you some values stored in the memory. Notice timings table, far right column will always be what the memory is rated for. For your kit, you should see XMP-1600, 800MHz, 9-9-9 etc. That's the performance profile of your memory that is enabled when you enable XMP or DOCP in BIOS.

Thank you
GSKILL TECH

[Mauser]

GA-970A-D3 MB, x4 960T processor, and 16GB DDR3-1600 RAM

Hello Folks - just spent the last 2+ days reading every post in this thread to get up to speed. No problems here at the moment, but I do have a success story and one question...

First the question:
I have two sets of F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL, specifically labeled as CL9-9-9-24 1.5v. In the Award BIOS, vF7, the memory is shown from SPD as 11-11-11-28 (and that is what the Auto setting used also). Now my understanding is that the SPD is actually information contained in an on-board chip from the memory manufacturer, so why would my 9-9-9-24 memory show as 11-11-11-28?

Now my success story:
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-D3
Processor: AMD Phenom II x4 960T (packaged as a Black Edition, but not documented as such by AMD, nor shown as a BE processor in CPU-Z)
Memory: 16GB DDR3-1600 - 2 x F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL

I set the BIOS as specified in Method 2 of the OP (with one minor exception), and it seems to be running perfectly for a couple of days, including several relatively short stability tests of an hour or so each from AMD OverDrive. Prime95 and memtest86+ (REAL stress tests yet to come, of course). So my AMD 960T is running smoothly with 1600 DRAM. The exception to the setup was that I did not increase CPU-NB voltage at all yet. In addition, I actually REDUCED the DRAM voltage from the Auto setting of 1.51V to the specified 1.50V Cannot say how much I appreciate y'all documenting and sticky-ing this information like you did - Great!

And now the background story for anyone who may be interested in this combination of hardware:

I started by acquiring the 960T to upgrade another OEM computer when I couldn't get an x4 955. But it turned out the 960T was not compatible with the BIOS, so it just sat in the box bugging me while I tried to figure out the cheapest way I could get some use out of it. No way I ordinarily would have started a new build with such a mid-range CPU, but that's how it happened. I decided to use it to upgrade a still very useable but old Intel Core 2 system.

I know I said I was looking for the "cheapest way", but that is not technically true - I wanted the cheapest way that would still potentially allow me to realize some of the capabilities of the CPU, like core unlocking and medium range OC, and give me a very meaningful increase in performance over the old system to take me at least three years out. By upgrading the old Intel home-brew system, all I technically needed to buy was an economical MB. Of course I ended up making a few other choices along the way, such as new DDR3 memory and a W7 license to replace the old 4GB XP system.

Component compatibility:
Since I order almost everything from out-of-state suppliers, I was really concerned about not getting stuck with something else that would not work in the intended system (like why I got stuck with the 960T in the first place!), so I made sure the memory I ordered was specifically documented on the Gigabyte approved memory list. Not a lot of choices for 4GB sticks there, and especially limited when I was trying to match them up to lowest possible sale prices. I did not realize at the time what new risk I was taking by going with two 8GB kits, but so far I seem to have lucked out. I also noted that the board specs stated to use anything above DDR3-1600, you must have an AM3+ CPU.

One other thing I noticed - ALL the memory I checked on the approved list was 1.5v memory. I have no idea if that was just coincidence, but I mention it because just maybe my easy success with this MB so far is related to making sure I did not go with some of the higher voltage stuff.

And a comment on my choice of motherboards - the GA-970A-D3 was specifically because I was cheap - it had almost everything I wanted at $20 - $30 below the other contenders. But I do not think it was the best choice. After realizing I needed to buy an aftermarket heat sink for the VRM, plus the reduced power rails on this un-cooled VRM, I would have been much better off just to go ahead and get the GA-970A-UD3 or even the GA-990XA-UD3 board. But on with the show...

When I first popped this new build together, I made absolutely no BIOS changes - I knew everything was supposed to be compatible, so a quick look around in there and I just blindly loaded W7 and started playing around. Everything was working perfectly, and the 960T even unlocked easily into a seemingly stable x6, which REALLY improved my performance in video encoding jobs. But when I started pushing it some with Auto Clock in AMD OverDrive things got shaky. And that is eventually what led me to this forum; after one freeze, I couldn't even get the machine to POST until I cleared CMOS. It was so dead I actually got an RMA before I finally tried the clear as a last resort before pulling the mounting screws. But in the end this was goodness, 'cause now I know how I should have the memory set up, and I am back on track to a more rational pace for OC changes and stability testing.

Thanx again to all who help here. And I might just say to anyone new who is having problems and just jumped to the end of the thread looking for a quick fix - go back and start from the beginning! The quick fix is right there!!! Reading the entire thread, even if long and tedious, helped my understanding a LOT. And it was even quite amusing to see the number of people who constantly jumped in with complaints about how it wouldn't work for them without even bothering to try what was already documented. Good luck to all...

[tscam]

Solar...

My guess is 4GB is your limiting factor with WEI. I'd suggest a minimum of 8GB for Windows. Under Linux, you'd do OK with 4GB but MS is a bloated memory hog.

T

[Tradesman]

I haven't seen anything on that, though 30 sounds about right with the 10-10-10 base, with the 10CL I don't think it would be lower - the old (old) axiom with DRAM was the first 3 base timings added up to the 4th i.e. 4-4-4-12, 5-5-5-15, which has sort of gone by the wayside, but is still a decent rule of thumb

[Zaphod]

I browsed back a few pages but didn't see this particular question answered; apologies if I should have looked further.

I have a pair of 8GB Ares DIMMS (F3-1600C10D-16GAO),
an AMD A8-3870 CPU,
ASUS F1A75-V EVO FM1 AMD (A75 chipset).

I am using the on-chip graphics, and I'm looking to tune the memory for optimal video performance (and stability)

The board properly picked up the SPD and set timings to 1333 with 9-9-9-24 timings, but I want to run them at 1600.

Moving the speed up without changing the timings resulted in no post (not too surprising).

I went back and manually set 1600 @ 10-10-10-30, and I seem to be running fine.

But the 30 part of that was just a very conservative guess on my part; what should I be able to use instead?

[Tradesman]

Quite often it will work fine, but there is no guarantee, some sets just don't want to play at stock others, like your will and others, won't play together at all. I'm running a pair of sets of 1866 Snipers in one of my P67s and no problem at all. Like you, I was prepared to do some tweaking from the onset, but nada. Actually even when I went for a basic OC of them to 2133, just loosed the timings by one (sort of a standard thing) and boom, they were fine at 2133, only took an additional .02 on the DRAM for full stability.....when you start OCing things, whatever you find will be of interest to the members

[caesar0000]

An OC will make it easier yes, think you'll be OK w/ 1333, if you do have any problems, give us a shout and should be able to get them stable w/ slight adjustments

This is gonna sound weird but I'm disappointed because I got to run not 1 but 2 identical ddr3 kit's without any problems, and you even said it's not recommended. It even went along with 7/7/7/21 specs. I guess I'm lucky or something. It's just not fair you guys get all the fun in tweaking. Hope this will give some clues to somebody. I will try some OC on my CPU and Memory and will come back with info.

[Tradesman]

With your mobo, you'll want to make sure you have the latest BIOS, then set freq to 1600 and manually set the base timings, CR to 2N and the DRAM voltage. The rest of the settings should work under AUTO, just ensure you input the settings manually, even if they are showing correctly, especially DRAM voltage.

[Slackiller]

G.skill f3-12800cl10d-16gbxl

Hi, got a problem

I have an
ASUS Sabertooth 990FX AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS with AMD FX-4100 Zambezi 3.6GHz
with this ram
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL10D-

it runs ram at 1333
I was trying to follow directions on first page, but my bios has alot more settings or different wording.

Have you ever set up this motherboard to run the ram at 1600

[GSKILL TECH]

Basically every G.Skill memory kit (that fits the motherboard's specifications) is compatible.

Just make sure the CPU is capable, and also your overclocking abilities.

Anything DDR3-1600+ is above standard, so make sure you research or figure out how to achieve the higher frequency. DDR3-2133 is NOT plug and play, so don't expect to install them and see them running at DDR3-2133. AMD CPUs don't even have a multiplier for that, so OC is required.

Thank you
GSKILL TECH

go here for all ASUS Crosshair V Formula Qualified Vendors List

http://usa.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD...underBolt/#MSL

[power2ram]

go here for all ASUS Crosshair V Formula Qualified Vendors List

http://usa.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD...underBolt/#MSL

[Tradesman]

Good idea, sounds like a driver issue or the graphics card itself, might even be the resolutions need to be adjusted, what GPU(s) is/are you running