Sabertooth P67 & i5 2500k lost a ram channel

Sabertooth P67 & 2500k lost a ram channel FIXED (CORRUPT BIOS CHIP)

Hi All,

New to the forum, not new to overclocking. Just looking for a bit of help to see if I can get my rig working fully again.

It’s a Sabertooth P67 with 2500k stock and 4x2gb F3-12800CL7-4GBRM (on QVL list - two pairs of 4gb).

Never had a ROG board before so was playing with the OC tuner in the BIOS – didn’t realise it goes STRAIGHT into auto overclocking…

By the time I hard reset the BIOS with the RTCLK jumper, I had lost two DIMMS / one channel.

Things to note:

I’m running Win 7 64-bit,
My boot.ini is fine,
The 8gb were all working in POST/BIOS/Windows before this amateur error :-/

Now I spent a couple of hours last night moving all 4 dimms around in every permutation I could think of in different pairs across both channels and rebooting– the BIOS sees every stick in the Advanced > Tool > SPD information, but on the front BIOS screen it will only ever state 4096MB. Windows only sees 4GB too. The ram has always been running @1333, so I tried running the XMP profile of 1600 @ 1.6v but it won’t even boot with that (checked the timings and they were correct to ram spec). I took a picture of the socket without the cpu in but I can’t for the life of me see any dead pins (please check!). I also wiped the back of the cpu down with isopropyl alcohol and a microfiber cloth before blowing it off.



I haven’t run memtest yet, that is next on the list for tonight. I got the board at BIOS 2001, updated to latest (3603?) which was working for a few weeks (not had the rig long – used to be on Nehalem) downgraded to 3303 and then back up to 3603 last night to no avail. The cooler is NH-C13 downdraught, I tried slacking that off a little on its mounting bracket but no change to the situation.

I’m starting to think I have fritzed the IMC on the i5 – My theory is the motherboard must be sound if the BIOS can still see all the RAM sticks – maybe there is some fluff in amongst the pins? I didn’t actually blow the pins out with air. None of the slots are dead – it always posts with a pair of DIMMS in and goes all the way into windows. I even ran Prime95 blend last night for a while with all 4 sticks. Obviously CPU-Z just reads SPD info from BIOS(?) so that can see all 8gb too.

Edit: on the off chance anyone is local and has a spare lga 1155 cpu and some ddr3 (pref 4 sticks to test all slots), I'm in brackley so would love to check whether it's the IMC or mobo at fault.

As I mentioned I know my way around settings and BIOS stuff so please feel free to mention anything, and I’ll try to respond with what I have tried.

Sorry that picture isn't great for seeing bad pins :-/ think i'll have to get the magnifying glass out and have a proper look.

Just to confirm if you use 2 ram sticks across the channels (i.e. slots B1 and A1) then the system only sees half the ram - 2gb. If you put a pair in the same channel, then it will see all 4gb.

So any 2 sticks in a1 and a2 work, as will any 2 sticks in b1 and b2?

As soon as you mix dimms in a slots and b slots it cannot see the dimms.

Hate to say it but the damage may have been caused by your hard reset happening at the wrong time.

Thanks for the reply disco p. It's good to know, I thought it may have been that.

Yeah if you spread sticks between the different colour slots or channels it only sees half the ram (2gb if 2 sticks in, 4gb if all sticks in).

I ran memtest off a boot usb for 9hours overnight with 2 sticks in the primary channel. 11 passes, no errors. But I guess that doesn't really prove anything?

I still couldn't see anything wrong with the socket so perhaps I have gimped the 2500k.

So I guess my options if I want to resume normal service are:

Replace the CPU,
Swap out the 4 sticks of 2gb for 1 or 2 sticks of 8gb, and use half the slots.

I imagine those are the only 2 ways I can run 8gb+ on the sabertooth now. Hmm.

It seems a shame that the Asus Auto OC in bios is such a hardware killer, I'll have to put that down as a lesson learned.

If the 2500k still overclocks to ~4.5, i will prob keep it for now.

Extract from HardOCP http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1789323:

"If your board had your chip at 1.6v for even a split second, regardless of whether you told it to or not... But it does sound like that CPU is toast. No modern CPU should be run at over 1.4Vcore. Some motherboards do pump a ton of voltage in auto mode and that is absolutely unacceptable - but it's not Intel's fault whatsoever.

Also, what voltage is your memory rated for, and what were you running it at? 1.65v is the absolute maximum for modern Intel CPUs, but even then I highly recommend using 1.6v tops if possible. I typically recommend people get rid of 1.65v memory if it won't work at <=1.6v. The memory controllers on these chips can be damaged at higher levels and may be what happened. And if so, again, it's unethical to RMA it to Intel. Whether they would replace it if you RMA'd it anyway, I don't know.

Personally, if I could prove that the Asus mobo ran that kind of voltage in auto mode (which might be difficult), I would be going after Asus for this. I would possibly go as far as speaking to a lawyer about it, though even that's not guaranteed to get you anything. I doubt they'll accept responsibility for anything, especially since you got it used. But if their motherboard ran 1.6v in auto mode, there's no doubt that it caused issues from poorly written BIOS/EFI code. "

Pretty clear cut I guess.

I accidently used the auto OC on my Sabertooth Z77 and it didn't do any harm but they possibly refined the feature.

I hope that a new set of ram will solve the issue. CPUs are very hard to kill. I've tried. Worst case is that the motherboard refuses to work with more than 4GB of ram as 1155 boards are hard to get nowadays.

Yeah, I really want to get another 1155 cpu just to check whether it's the IMC. I'm half temped to buy the lowest compatible chip (celeron G470?) and throw it in, they're only about £15 on ebay.

Ram testing will be harder - i don't think i know anyone with 4 sticks that I can borrow.

I must have thought the Auto OC had failed - it just kept turning the computer off and on 20+ times, and the last time there was no post or display. I must have yanked the power and hard reset it - perhaps that did it, or perhaps it was too late already.

Edit: going back to the ram thing, i did think it was odd how the ram didn't want to work on XMP 1 (didn't even post) and tbh I've had bad experiences with g skill ripjaws on old builds.

I'll run the other 2 sticks of ram through the memtest boot usb overnight again and if they pass I'll put them all up for sale and get a stick of 8gb I think.

Probably a wise choice. A 2500K overclocked plus 8GB of ram is a very strong combo to this day.

Well I rand the 2nd pair of sticks overnight in the secondary channel, 11 passes, no errors.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but this now plainly points at the 2500k IMC being at fault? I would have expected at least *some* errors if the RAM or the motherboard were the problem.

I've ordered a single stick of 8gb hyperx fury which should be in tomorrow, and i'll put the 2 4gb kits up for sale.

Someone was telling me that the latest P67 BIOS disallows overclocking? I was having a look last night and I can't for the life of me find the turbo ratio to increase - seems I have to downgrade from BIOS 3603 to 2xxx for the features to be there. Found a few threads last night which say the same thing (either that or buy a new BIOS chip).

Anyone had any experience on this?

4x2gb rams have been sold - £25 seemed a good price as not many people would want that ram setup. Stick of 8gb shoudl arrive today so I shall see if it's all working again.

Having a read on various forums it does seem like some of the BIOS updates for Asus P67 broke stuff or removed features. I'd try 3302.

Yeah I tried 3302 with the ram issue and no dice. The 8gb stick will come today and even though I've got my can of air and magnifying glass now, I can check for bent pins on the socket but no way to test if it fixed anything as my 4-stick ram set has been sold!

I did wonder why the PO left it on BIOS 2001 - maybe due to overclocking options. UEFI BIOS is new to me - my old i7 920 on X58 still had the lovely Blue 'dos' looking BIOS.

Well, the 8gb stick works fine, so at least I can read 8gb per slot which is good news.

I had a look at the socket pins and found one a bit off and tweaked it back with a pin, but it didn't change anything - still only read 2 of the 4 2gb sticks.

Feels weird having a board which won't overclock - I guess this is what it must feel like owning a non-k 2500. I found a way of downgrading BIOS back more than one release, but a lot of people have said they have bricked the Sabertooth that way - there's always the option of spending a tenner on a replacement BIOS chip and just not updating to the latest BIOS.

Really strange that ASUS did this imo.

I've opened a support(!) ticket with Asus UK to see what they say about overclocking on that BIOS revision. They will prob say that board is discontinued and do nothing. We'll see.

ASUS fobbed me off with their overclocking disclaimer when I was just asking BIOS questions. Sad. However I did some more research, seems like missing BIOS options are a common issue for a corrupt BIOS flash. Going to try this (bottom post) and hope it doesn't brick my board:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1288431/solved-p8z77-v-pro-cant-set-cpu-multiplier

I still have no idea if this 2500k overclocks worth a damn!

I'm starting to wonder whether my RAM problems would have been solved by a proper uncorrupted BIOS update too - seems like other people were having issues with ram timings and sticks not showing up/working properly. Perhaps the OC tuner running through a bad BIOS flash made it all go screwy.

Does the P67 have the bios flashback option? I know my Z77 has a button that load a bios from a USB stick in the event it gets bricked by an awry update. I have flashed many boards and never had any issues though.

No I don't think it does, I kept searching for it but kept coming across the Z77 stuff! That must be quite useful

I've never had a BIOS flash that has provided almost full functionality but missed some features out! It either works or it doesn't.