2* 16 GiB Ares PC3-17066U CL9, Asus P9X79 Pro

[Onimax]

Hello,

for quite some time now I have been running my System (Asus P9X79 Pro, i7 3930K) with one 16 GiB Kit (4 modules) of the PC3-17066U CL9 Ares series.
With one Kit my system is absolutely stable and both Prime95 and Memtest+ give no errors at all.

Recently I decided to throw in another bunch of those Ares modules as there are still 4 DIMMs left, and that was where the trouble started...

While Memtest+ is still okay, Prime95 nearly immediately throws errors over and over when running in Blend (RAM stress) mode.

I also checked around the forums to see if other people have similar problems and stumbled over this thread: http://gskill.us/forum/showpost.php?...3&postcount=23
I tried increasing VCCSA in small steps to 1.25V but it still throws errors in Prime95.

Btw.: Both Kits run stable when they are installed alone. I also want to run 8 DIMMs @2133 Mhz (8 DIMMs @1600 Mhz is also stable)
Strange enough sometimes less RAM than installed is recognized by the UEFI BIOS (and windows of course...) when all 8 DIMMs are installed.
Also sometimes I get DRAM SPD Info errors (via the Asus DRAM SPD INFO tool - part of the UEFI - to read the SPD data) on random DIMMs.


Any help/suggestions would be gladly appreciated.
Thank you all for taking you time reading this.


(Also I want to apologize if I failed to express myself clearly as English is not my native language.)

[Tradesman]

First, anytime you mix sets it can be problematic, best way to go is a single set that has been tested to have all sticks work together (and XMP will work with single sets, not when you have two or more. Sounds like both sets are good as they work together at 1600, but at higher freqs may need timings and/or voltage adjustments to try and get them to play together, if you could post the current BIOS settings with all sticks installed we might be able to find where the problem is. Initially I'd try raising the DRAM voltage .05 to .07, leave VCCSA at 1.25 and raisce VTT to about 1.2....But would really help to see all system voltages and DRAM timings, especially the advanced timings.

[Onimax]

Yeah I know it is always a bit of a gamble if you mix kits even if they are of the same batch (which seems to be the case here as far as I can tell).

Currently I have set DRAM Voltage to 1.65V
VCORE @ 1.26V
VCCSA @1.25V (as stated above)

All Secondary and Tertiary Timings are luckily the same throughout all modules with one exception (one module has slightly higher timings, I can check that later as I don't remember which values and what timings that were... but nothing out of the ordinary I'd say)

I played around with timings a bit and am currently running Prime95 in Blend mode for about 30 mins with no errors yet, that's the best setting so far - keeping my fingers crossed.

[Tradesman]

I'm with you on the fingers, just got a Z77 and it's been a bear, BIOS was off on all the advanced timings

[Onimax]

...Sadly after about one hour of torture testing the errors start showing up again.
I ran Prime95 in Blend mode over night with the modules @800Mhz just to verify that everything is allright, no errors so far - must be something with the settings.

I am a bit afraid that if I supply the Memory Controller and DRAM modules with even more voltage that I might fry my rig, after all I want a fast _and_ stable system and not just some big numbers in some benches...

Interestingly though is that the system boots when I activate the XM-Profile and runs relatively stable with errors in Prime arising after about 15-20min of testing - the settings at the XMP must not be far from what seems to work...

[Tradesman]

So 32GB if I read right, can you post your advance timings, I might be able to see something

[Onimax]

Sure thing.








Everything other than Primary timings are currently set to "Auto" as I am running the modules @DDR1866 after a night @DDR1600 to see if that's stable, looking good so far.
Voltages are currently 1.65V for DRAM and 1.05V for VCCSA (seems to be enough for 1866).

I am sure they are able to work together at 2133 Mhz


Edit: Forgot to mention that I tried switching the modules around a bit to see if I could find two "better matching" ones per channel. I setup one channel with two modules of different kits each (i.e. I did not populate one channel with two modules from the same kit).

[Tradesman]

At 1866, the timings may be a bit loose, might try 8-10-9-28 with CR at 2T (or 2N) with the voltage you have

[Onimax]

Thanks, I will tighten up the timings a bit for 1866, after all I just was curious if the 8 modules were able to perform at higher clock speeds than 1600 "out of the box". Still everything seems stable here at 1866 Mhz.

But the final goal is still 2133 Mhz

Edit: The timings are now tightened up a bit @1866Mhz, now running Prime, again...

[Tradesman]

At 2133 and stock timings only other thing that looked off a bit was tRFC looked a bit low at 128, maybe 134 or so. Will try and take a closer look later tonight if I get a chanvce, otherwise it will be Wed afternoon, have a busy AM coming up

[Onimax]

Ah I forgot to mention:
Thank you so much for your time, your help is really appreciated!

Those 8 little dwarfes are giving me a bit of a headache for quite some time now.

And for the tRFC value: Yesterday when running the modules @2133Mhz I set those to 180-185 just to be safe. But again 1866 seems to be okay with this values.

[Tradesman]

I'll be out most of the morning and early PM, will see what I can find, back mid PM

[Onimax]

So, I ran Prime95 for 24h with all modules @DDR1866 with 8-10-9-28 (2T) timings and everything seems to be rock solid.
The only problem is that I am not able to push the modules to 2133 Mhz, even on stock timings.
I will try to lower the timings when running at 2133 Mhz over the weekend and see if that helps.

[Tradesman]

Let us know how it goes

[network]

2x 16GiB Ares PC3-1700 (F3-2133C9Q) ASUS P9X79

I've got the same Problem with the memory. It works stable with 1600MHz, but not with 2133 MHz. I run the test with memtest86+ V4.2. WIN 7 crashes sometimes with a blues-screen. Could it be a problem of the ASUS mainboards ? I think the board could not supply stable 1,65 V.