Z87X-OC vs KHXB 2400C11 16GB

pgi947 · 16 Apr 2014 at 14:53

Afternoon pack,

About at the point where I run out of ideas and come for some advise!

I picked up 4 x 4GB of that HyperX Beast 2400mhz C11-13-13-30-2T, running 2 x 4GB is fine, throw in the other two sticks and things start going south.

4x4GB gives me BSOD's galore, no particular one error springs to mind, I must have had 5+ BSOD codes in the space of an afternoon.

4x4GB fails memtest hard with 20+ errors.

2x4GB - both kits - run flawlessly alone and pass memtest without a single error.

SO the dimms are perfectly fine.

Must be the motherboard or me?

I've set DRAM voltage to 1.7v, SA/IOA/IOD/PCH all to 1.2v no joy, still errors.

Currently working my way through bios revisions to see if thats the problem, even though the kits are listed on Gigas QVL.

F06 - Boots into XMP fine, BSODs and memtest fail
X02 - Fails to post, on anything other then 1333C9
X07 - Fails to post on anything other then 1333C9
F08 - just about to flash now and will report back

At the moment its looking like yet another absolute top notch gigabyte board, ruined by some small problem.

Googling around suggests the problem is not just limited to the OC but other giga boards on Z87 suffer the safe fate with 4 dimms.

Nickolp1974 · 16 Apr 2014 at 15:05

More ram Paul!! You must have quite a collection

Have you tried SA IO volts at 1.25v for testing and possibly couple of clicks to vcore??? Wouldn't of thought you would need extra dram V at there rated settings.

wazza300 · 16 Apr 2014 at 15:08

did you try this modded bios?

http://www.mediafire.com/download/2hidoijdyrivbpg/z87xoc_mod2_x08.zip

GA-Z87X-OC BIOS X08 mod2 (Special LN2)
Modified with :
Intel Legacy RAID ROM 12.7.0.1936
Intel UEFI SataDriver 12.7.0.1936
Intel Boot Agent PXE 1.5.04 to 1.5.48
Intel GigabitLan X64 5.1.00 to 6.0.24
Intel PCI Accelerated SVGA PC 2179
Intel GOPdriver 5.0.1035
Intel EFI VBIOS 1215 to 6767
CPU MicroCode Pack (6C307 to 317)
ME firmware 9.0.21.1462 to 9.0.30.1482
Modified splash logo 2

pgi947 · 16 Apr 2014 at 15:18

Didn't realise x08 was out will try that too, f08 is out of the window just now, @BIOS doesn't want to install.

Have around 6 kits now

Will try at 1.25v too though its a little drastic just to get xmp speed and timings running.

wazza300 · 16 Apr 2014 at 15:19

try running @BIOS installer as admin or win7 compat

pgi947 · 16 Apr 2014 at 15:25

wazza300 said:
try running @bios installer as admin or win7 compat

No joy, installshield opens, sits for a few seconds then closes its self without error

Honestly at the point of just boxing it back up and buying an M6E

wazza300 · 16 Apr 2014 at 15:29

ive asked stasio to look at this thread,it should be straight forward to flash with @BIOS and qflash

stasio · 16 Apr 2014 at 16:06

To flash newest Z87X-OC BIOS.....F8:

- @BIOS MUST be version B13.1112.1, on previous installed Microsoft .NET Framework 4 and latest APP Center.
or
- Efiflash.exe included in the zip. file, flashing with bootable USB in DOS.

pgi947 · 16 Apr 2014 at 16:20

Ahh app center may be what I'm missing!!

Just letting memtest finish up on f07 and I'll give it whirl thanks

Edit: F07 still bringing up the odd memtest error with all ram banks populated.

pgi947 · 16 Apr 2014 at 16:37

Sigh.

Ok APP center installed, is there anyway to tell what version of @BIOS comes with it? As I installed latest from gigabyte UK, then it asked me to update, so updated that and the above linked @BIOS still just opens install shield, then closes its self inside a few seconds. The only change is it now asks to close app center before it closes its self :confused:

dot net 4+ is installed.

Win 8.1 update 1 x64

Edit: nvm, hold mouse over @BIOS icon reveals it is the version mentioned above!

pgi947 · 16 Apr 2014 at 16:52

Ah well was worth a shot. To break down bioses so far:

F06 - BSODs & ~20 memtest errors
F07 - Single BSOD & 2 memtest errors
F08 - FAILED POST @ XMP, 1.7v, 1.2/1.2/1.2v
X02 - As above
X07 - As above

Do I have grounds for RMA on this as the memory IS on the QVL yet refuses to work with all banks populated?

Rroff · 16 Apr 2014 at 16:55

I had to use a very recent BIOS release with my X79-UD3 to get 4x4GB of 2400MHz KHX Beast working properly - tbh I found that 2133 with super tight timings gave me better overall performance anyhow.

Dunno if its a problem on the 87 boards like it is with mine but there was a very deep seated issue on my board with certain bands of RAM frequencies (straps?) where the VTT/IMC voltages would randomly (infrequently) drop to default settings for a few moments (or sometimes boot up and ignore the set values) which obviously results in the memory become unstable sometimes with a BSOD other times just crashes/failed memtest - the F18 BIOS for my board mostly fixed it.

EDIT: End of the day it might just be the IMC on your CPU can't handle it rather than being a board issue - I know mine struggles with 4x4GB and higher frequencies and needs a lot of voltage to be stable.

tipes · 16 Apr 2014 at 18:33

Paul,

Sorry to see you are having such bad issues, but perhaps Rroff has a point about the IMC. I feel that with a lot of tweaking to voltages you might get it working ok with all four, but you should not have to struggle like this - perhaps X08V2 might do the trick?

Mark

pgi947 · 16 Apr 2014 at 18:39

May be a point, running memtest now on profile 2 (2133c11) and everything's coming back clean.

Guess I'd taken my IMC for granted as with 2 sticks I've had no problem running 2400c7 & 2933c12.

First time I've used 4 sticks since 775 & ddr2

stulid · 16 Apr 2014 at 18:41

Strokes my 4670K with four sticks at 2800MHZ;p

Rroff · 16 Apr 2014 at 18:50

pgi947 said:
May be a point, running memtest now on profile 2 (2133c11) and everything's coming back clean.

Guess I'd taken my IMC for granted as with 2 sticks I've had no problem running 2400c7 & 2933c12.

First time I've used 4 sticks since 775 & ddr2

Mine do 2133/9-10-10-21 1t no hassle on stock voltage before any real tuning and CL8 is possible with extra voltage but I've not fully worked em timings wise as I'm not a big fan of extra dimm voltage and the performance gains drop off significantly once your at 2133 CL9 or 2400 CL9/10 (unless your running 6+ cores and ultra high end multi GPU).

pgi947 · 16 Apr 2014 at 19:10

I'm still going to do some testing as it makes no sense that F06/7 will post fine at 2400 and occasional BSOD, but F08 flat out refuses even if I manually slacken the timings out to 12-14-14

Edit: x08 ain't happening, the new qflash is stopping it as the bios is older then f8. Magic.

Edit 2: F8 is complete junk, it posted and checked out in memtest fine at 2133, untill I checked the timings it managed to post at...11-15-15!! The timing range probably doesn't go high enough to let it post at 2400

Back onto the other bios switch to F06.

pgi947 · 16 Apr 2014 at 20:58

Now firing out errors at 1333, 1600 & 2133 while all populated. I'm out, done, whatever, memory is going back/MM its a hassle I can do without. Starting to think it might not actually be on the QVL, as it lists KHX24C11T3K2/16X not the KHX24C11T3K2/8X kits I have.

Either way, lesson learned, stop buying gigabyte motherboards and kingston ram. Asus and Gskill only from here on in.

Final test of any chance of stability was:

1600
9-9-9-24-2T
DRV = 1.7v
SA = 1.25v
IOA = 1.25v
IOD = 1.25v
PCH = 1.25v
PCH IO = 1.8v

CPU at stock, still fires up 20+ errors on memtest.

And to top it off, what ever this ram has done to my system I now need to re-install windows as it takes about 10 mins to log in regardless of what ram is in and what slots are populated.

Doug2507 · 17 Apr 2014 at 08:28

Paul, if you want a shot of another board or another set of ram just let me know, i can easy drop some off or let you pick some up. (Kingswells).

Shouldn't need that much SA/IOA/IOD btw….In fact everything should be on auto for running cpu/mem at stock/xmp.

Not a great idea running 2 kits of 8gb to get 16gb.

Top tip, get a second ssd/hdd with fresh install for playing about with ram, likely hood of corrupting os whilst tweaking is quite high.

pgi947 · 17 Apr 2014 at 09:09

Doug2507 said:
Paul, if you want a shot of another board or another set of ram just let me know, i can easy drop some off or let you pick some up. (Kingswells).

Shouldn't need that much SA/IOA/IOD btw….In fact everything should be on auto for running cpu/mem at stock/xmp.

Not a great idea running 2 kits of 8gb to get 16gb.

Top tip, get a second ssd/hdd with fresh install for playing about with ram, likely hood of corrupting os whilst tweaking is quite high.

Sounds very helpful Doug, are you on steam/origin? If so add me (pgi947) and we can talk further