Ram wont stay at 3600Mhz

Nevakonaza · 3 Jul 2021 at 12:45

Hey guys,

Have the setup in sig,My ram is a 3600Mhz kit of Corsair LP and has worked flawless at XMP 3600Mhz in other boards (AMD & Intel) but i cant seem to get it to stay at 3600Mhz on this board.

I apply the XMP and it reports as 3600Mhz in windows, will be fine for a while then on another boot the bios will say its failed boot and restored bios to default and ram goes all the way down to 2400Mhz lol.

Is this a limitation of the new Z590 chipset or something? as i have installed the latest bios for my board which is suppose to make this board capable of 4600+.

Appreciate any help

mickyflinn · 3 Jul 2021 at 13:54

Is the cpu overclocked set it to default then try xmp.

Some boards may need tweaking your best bet is to set the values manually and add a bit more voltage, your good up to 1 4v.

Have you got the latest bios for your motherboard if not this is where to start.

Nevakonaza · 3 Jul 2021 at 18:38

Hiya mate,

CPU is stock, I never overclock any of my CPUs,Really no need to with a i7 11700K as it boosts up to 5Ghz on its own,ive seen it go to 5.2.
Latest bios is installed, Unsure where id start setting them manually..i thought that was the whole point of XMP.

t31os · 3 Jul 2021 at 19:05

Try adjusting the Memory Enhancement Settings, it defaults to Auto, High Frequency or Enhanced Stability might work better (no idea what Auto might be selecting for you).

https://download.gigabyte.com/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_z590-aorus-elite_ax_1002_e.pdf (see Page 34)

Also if you using 2 sticks, make sure you're in slots A2 and B2 as recommended in the manual for 2 stick configuration (page 12).

Joxeon · 3 Jul 2021 at 19:11

Does it work ok if you change to gear mode 2?

breadturbo · 3 Jul 2021 at 20:56

Nevakonaza said:
Hiya mate,

CPU is stock, I never overclock any of my CPUs,Really no need to with a i7 11700K as it boosts up to 5Ghz on its own,ive seen it go to 5.2.
Latest bios is installed, Unsure where id start setting them manually..i thought that was the whole point of XMP.

Could this be a reason? the 11700k only boosts to 5ghz stock. if it's hitting 5.2 then you perhaps have some auto-oc on thats maybe not fully stable?

Nevakonaza · 3 Jul 2021 at 23:01

Joxeon said:
Does it work ok if you change to gear mode 2?

Well I've just applied Gear mode 2 while set at 3600Mhz so lets see if it stays that way.

This is what confuses me,HWinfo states "Maximum memory supported clock 1600Mhz" Which i assume actually means 3200Mhz

But the latest BIOS for my motherboard says it now supports up to 5000 (i have this latest bios installed)

Joxeon · 3 Jul 2021 at 23:17

Looks like it's running at 3600mhz, the max supported is just the Intel official spec which is 3200mhz and the same as ryzen but you can run it faster. Under the max supported clock you can see the current clock which is showing 1800mhz which means it's running at 3600mhz as you double it for DDR.

Maybe your CPU just don't like doing 3600mhz at gear 1, you could try manually setting the speed timings and voltage and see if that helps or try lower the speed to 3533 as ideally you want to be running gear 1 unless your going over 4000mhz etc.

BallistixOnZ490 · 4 Jul 2021 at 03:29

'Gigabyte' is the problem here.

My Micron E die wouldn't even work at stock 3200 when I tried to replace an asus Z390 with a gigabyte one.

Regardless of whatever ram speeds are claimed by Gigabyte for their boards, they are mostly useless for overclocking ram.

t31os · 4 Jul 2021 at 13:18

I take it you mean DDR4 and/or more recent Gigabyte boards, because i've had zero issues getting XMP running on Gigabyte boards, system in sig has been running 2133 DDR3 for 7 years, as has my fathers DDR3 system (same gen, also 2133 memory and a Gigabyte board). Additionally i built an 8th gen Intel system for a friend a while back around a Gigabyte board, only 3200 DDR4, but that's running on XMP without issue to. I guess YMMV.

Nevakonaza · 4 Jul 2021 at 16:28

Changing it to Gear Mode 2 then selecting 3600 XMP seems to have worked, Its not reset back to 2066 since after about 4 shutdowns and start-ups at various times so hopefully that's sorted now.

Nevakonaza · 5 Jul 2021 at 19:05

Well that was short lived, Windows update today, Installed updates and system restarted (for the updates to apply) then upon restarting bios back to stock again lol.

Guess I'm going to have to downclock it to 3200Mhz and see if it stays there, Intel really must not like anything past 3200Mhz.

RipGroove · 6 Jul 2021 at 06:56

Same issue with my new ASUS z590 board, my RAM worked fine at 3600MHz XMP on my old z270 board with 7700k for nearly 4 years but will only run at 3066MHz XMP on my new board with 11900k. Latest BIOS at almost default BIOS settings etc.

I was told on here that if bumping up RAM Voltage didn't fix it (which it didn't) then maybe bumping up VCCIO Mem Voltage and CPU System Agent Voltage (terminology may differ between board brands) might fix it. Currently I can adjust the VCCIO Mem Voltage fine but I can't figure out how to adjust the CPU System Agent Voltage because you can't just change the figure itself, you have to use a drop down menu and input it as some kind of an offset which I haven't figured out yet because I'm I'm not all that clued up on overclocking and all that so I've not actually tried it yet. I can build and setup a PC usually just fine but not had much experience tinkering with board voltages and the like.

Start on page 4 of this thread for info: https://overclockers.co.uk/forums/threads/3090fe-low-gpu-usage.18931397/page-4

Doctord · 7 Jul 2021 at 09:34

BallistixOnZ490 said:
'Gigabyte' is the problem here.

My Micron E die wouldn't even work at stock 3200 when I tried to replace an asus Z390 with a gigabyte one.

Regardless of whatever ram speeds are claimed by Gigabyte for their boards, they are mostly useless for overclocking ram.

100% agree, I ditched my Gigabyte board after trying another.... drove me round the bend trying to get it running at a higher clock speed, even at stock speed it was a joke.

RipGroove · 7 Jul 2021 at 10:03

I think it's more of a z590 problem.

Nevakonaza · 9 Jul 2021 at 12:15

It has to be a Z590 issue, I've purposely left the ram at 2066 for a few days and seemed fine then bam this morning, Boot failure again bios returned to "stock" settings even though it IS at stock settings and has been at 2066mhz ram for a few days.

Il have to throw Gigabyte support a message see if they can look into this issue, I don't hold my hopes up though.

RipGroove · 9 Jul 2021 at 13:24

Nevakonaza said:
It has to be a Z590 issue, I've purposely left the ram at 2066 for a few days and seemed fine then bam this morning, Boot failure again bios returned to "stock" settings even though it IS at stock settings and has been at 2066mhz ram for a few days.

Il have to throw Gigabyte support a message see if they can look into this issue, I don't hold my hopes up though.

I'll contact ASUS as well but I'm sure they'll just say that because the RAM isn't on their compatibility list that it's my problem.

Soupy · 9 Jul 2021 at 23:48

I was having the same problem on my Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite board but the recent F34 bios update solved it and now the XMP option works as it should with ram at the advertised speed, a very welcomed update.

Danny75 · 10 Jul 2021 at 00:08

As @RipGroove said, System Agent and CPUIO2/Mem OC voltages (whatever they are called on Gigabyte Z590, find out) can play a big role in memory on Rocket Lake, and up to 1.5v for System Agent is safe (according to an OcUK technician). I believe 1.4v is safe for CPUIO2/Mem OC. The values are a lot higher than typical on other platforms.

Check those voltages, if they are say 1.2v start bumping them up by 0.05v.

I needed 1.3v for each of those with Ballistix 3600 on an MSI Z590. By default it set 1.6v and 1.4v respectively so the board makers reckon it needs plenty (I undervolted anyway) but it doesn't happen with every board + memory combination.

RipGroove · 15 Jul 2021 at 11:13

Danny75 said:
As @RipGroove said, System Agent and CPUIO2/Mem OC voltages (whatever they are called on Gigabyte Z590, find out) can play a big role in memory on Rocket Lake, and up to 1.5v for System Agent is safe (according to an OcUK technician). I believe 1.4v is safe for CPUIO2/Mem OC. The values are a lot higher than typical on other platforms.

Check those voltages, if they are say 1.2v start bumping them up by 0.05v.

I needed 1.3v for each of those with Ballistix 3600 on an MSI Z590. By default it set 1.6v and 1.4v respectively so the board makers reckon it needs plenty (I undervolted anyway) but it doesn't happen with every board + memory combination.

I still haven't gotten around to sorting mine out actually, I still have it running at just 3066MHz, I'll have a look at it on the next rainy day.