Bluescreens with 4 sticks of F3-10666CL9D-8GBRL w/ASRock Z77 Extreme4

[UnskilledG]

I am now using an ASRock Z77 Extreme 4 motherboard, with the same Core i5-3570K CPU as before, BIOS version the latest one (2.00, 7/17/2012).

I originally bought two dual-channel kits of G.Skill F3-10666CL9D-8GBRL, for 16 GB total RAM. I had to RMA two of the sticks, as they caused bluescreens and prevented resuming from sleep when installed. The replacements for those sticks have been fine, but now I am having problems with the other two sticks (the pair remaining from my original order).

Now I get bluescreens at random, and when I attempt to reboot the machine after one of these bluescreens, the motherboard gives a "RAM not installed" error code. Even if I leave the system powered off for several hours after that, I have the same error again upon attempting to start up. The only way to use the machine is if I only have the two newer sticks (8 GB RAM) installed.

I had the RAM installed so that consecutive serial numbers were paired by channel (two in channel A, other two in channel B), and they do run in dual-channel mode.

I do not overclock and had done no adjustment of RAM settings in BIOS. Going into the motherboard's BIOS yesterday, however, I noticed that RAM voltage was set at 1.585 V by default. That seemed wrong, so I manually set it to 1.500 V. That didn't fix the problem, unfortunately.

Here are a bunch of other settings from my motherboard's BIOS, which are listed under overclocking settings:

CAS latency: 9
RAS to CAS delay: 9
Row Precharge Time: 9
RAS Active Time: 24
Command Rate: 2N
Write Recovery Time: 10
Refresh Cycle Time: 107
RAS to RAS delay: 4
Write to Read delay: 5
Read to Precharge: 5
Four Active Windows: 20
CAS Write Latency: 7
ODT WR A/B: Auto
ODTNOM A/B: Auto
MRC Fast Boot: enabled

This is all default settings. I haven't tweaked a single thing, except for lowering the RAM voltage to 1.500 V from the 1.585 V it was set to for some reason.

Any ideas?

[Tradesman]

Are the base timings set correctly? What are your secondary/advanced DRAM timings at?, with the change of sticks it may have thrown them off

[UnskilledG]

I have no idea what you're asking.

Everything is at default settings. Which SHOULD mean things work fine. Which is why I'm suspecting the 2 sticks of RAM have gone bad.

[Tradesman]

It's basically set up for 2 sticks (a result of mixing sets) Might try - DRAM voltage at 1.56

Write Recovery Time: 14
Refresh Cycle Time: 154
RAS to RAS delay: 5
Write to Read delay: 6
Read to Precharge: 6
Four Active Windows: 22
CAS Write Latency: 8

[UnskilledG]

You realize I'm not mixing sets, right? I have two pair of modules, each pair being of exactly the same model (F3-10666CL9D-8GBRL) and having consecutive serial numbers (for example, the pair that seems to cause crashes is numbered xxxxxxxxxxxx69 and xxxxxxxxxxxx70). Said consecutively-numbered pairs are installed in channels "A" and "B" respectively. I even went so far as to put the lower-numbered stick of a pair in slot 1 of its channel (A1 or B1) with the higher-numbered stick in the pair in the "2" slot (A2 or B2) just to make it easy to remember what was installed where.

My motherboard doesn't have any of the "secondary/advanced DRAM" timings you asked for above. In my first post, I listed every last setting that is available with respect to RAM.

Guess I'll give those other settings you listed a try. All it can do is keep crashing/refusing to boot.

[Tradesman]

Based on the model number you provided (F3-10666CL9D-8GBRL) with the '9D' indicating "CL9 DUAL" as in 2 sticks per package, ergo you have TWO SETS of DRAM, and are in effect MIXING SETS, which can be problematic, regardless that they are the same model #, or consecutive serial #s (i.e. if you buy 5 sets of the same model from NewEgg, chances are they will all be consecutive, because as the sticks come off the line their SPD is flashed for the type set they will be included in i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 or 8 stick sets. Then the sticks are tested to work together, here in 2 stick sets, if say sticks 1, 2 play well, they get serial number tags (say A1, A2), then say the 3rd and 4th sticks picked up are tested and don't play well, stick 4 is set to the side and stick 5 is paired with stick 3, if they play then they get serial numbers A3, A4 and they get packaged and added to the same box as the A1, A2 package and so on....stick 4 may not pair up with another stick at all, or may pair with the 6 or 10th one it's tested with, then it gets a serial #. This is actually fairly common, people buy a set of two and later on want to add additional DRAM or see 2 sets of 2 sticks is generally less than a four stick set and go that route, but that's the reason the 4x4 cost a little more, have to test and find 4 that play together...and also the SPD programming be different

If things were as in the old days (DDR, DDR2 (to a degree)) then DRAM makers could just sell sticks individually, but since DRAM (DDR3) has such higher tolerances, the various sets of different quantities are are all tested to work as a set, and are guaranteed to work as a PACKAGED SET. Another reason for this is XMP, the programming for XMP goes into each stick in a package and is for the packaged set, be it 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 sticks, programming for sets of different numbers of sticks is different, i.e. tRFC might be 170 for 4x4GB and be 278 for 4x8GB or maybe 100 for a 2X2GB set and 156 for a 4x2GB (why I suggested different timings.

Just for info purposes the 4 timings on the package i.e. 9-9-9-24 are the base timings, the rest are considered secondary or advanced.

Regardless let us know if the timings I suggested help any and we can and try and fine tune from there.

[UnskilledG]

I tried the settings you suggested above. Oddly enough, it seems to be working. Where the heck did you get those numbers from? Thanks.

At the very least, I was able to do 10 runs of Intel BurnTest at "Maximum" without a bluescreen. That was impossible with the default settings.

I also played a game for a while, again without bluescreening.

So far the system seems stable. Spooky.

But I won't really know until I've been using the system for a week or two with no further shenanigans.

[Tradesman]

mIGHT TRY DROPPING BACK TO THE 1.4 OR 1.6 bios......They had problems with earlier versions and they had the misfortune of me buying one and wanting to run 32GB of 2133, so we had at it for a while and they got the BIOS fixed, unfortunately 2.0 falls back to tsome of the same problems they had back in 1.2 and 1.3. As far as timings, I been working with sticks for a long, long time, and fortunate for you in this case have tested a number of sets on this mobo.....hope all stays well, if not give a yell...and keep in touch regardless

[UnskilledG]

Well, that didn't last long.

After running stable for a few days with the whole 16 GB, I started getting failures to resume from sleep. The only thing that would remedy it was removing two of the four sticks.

I also ran the system for a few days using only the two older sticks (the pair remaining from my original purpose). No good - I got bluescreens and failure to resume from sleep.

So it looks like I have 2 more defective sticks of RAM. Guess I'll RMA them until I get some that work.

[Tradesman]

Let us know how it goes