12gb RAM non OC'd. Best voltages?

jamieboo

jamieboo

jamieboo

Associate
Joined
29 Oct 2009
Posts
369
Hello all
My new machine is finally all put together and running nearly perfectly.
Nearly.
Its a i7 920, Gigabyte UD5 mobo, 12gb Corsair 1600mhz C9 RAM.
I think there may be a problem with my RAM. I had endless problems installing Windows 7 and it only worked when I took out all but 1 stick of RAM, and subsequent program installations have had a similar problem, with the same solution.
I haven't run memtest yet as I first want to make sure my memory is getting the correct voltage in bios.
I haven't overclocked anything, nor have I explored any of the 'tweaking' bios pages. I just plugged the memory in and started up.
I'm sure I can remember reading somewhere though that if you want to get 12gb working properly then you need to do a minor voltage adjustment even if you're not overclocking.
Is this true?
If someone could give me some advice on this I'd appreciate it. :)
Thanks
 
What frequency are you hoping to run the ram at? Setting the ram frequency to 1333 should be stable, but it might need to be slower than this in order to run at sane voltages. 12gb at 1600mhz is difficult, very unlikely to be achieved with a minor voltage adjustment.

The ram should be set to 1.66V while trying to get the system to behave, then reduced if possible. The voltage you're looking for in the bios is labelled qpi, but don't push it over 1.35V.

You should take out one of the sets of ram, voltage to 1.66V and memtest to see if stable. Then repeat with the other set, then try with both. If you fail either of the first two, rma the ram. If you fail the third only, increase qpi a bit and repeat.
 
Well, I haven't twekaed anything in bios so as expected the memory has defaulted to 1033mhz and for now I'm quite happy with that, but even at this lower speed I've heard a voltage adjustment might be necessary - more to do with the extra load of simply having 6 physical sticks installed rather than to do with speeds.
Thanks
 
Hang on though... you said it should be set to 1.66v initially, but then that it shouldn't be pushed over 1,35v.
I've always been a little daunted about bios tweaking, so I want to get everything completely clear before I begin tinkering!
Thanks
 
Apologies, the ram has a voltage associated with it, and the memory controller has another. The ram will have 1.65V written on it, this corresponds to "dram voltage" in the bios. This may well be fine at 1.5V at this speed, but while troubleshooting it can't hurt to set the ram to it's expected voltage.

The other one, qpi, is associated with the memory controller. Try 1.2V for this, increase one step at a time to a maximum of 1.355V to see if it resolves the issue. The bios is a lot less scary than it first looks, if everything goes terribly wrong the board refuses to boot, resets itself and turns on with a message saying you set it up wrong. When things are a bit wrong you get crashes, freezing and similar odd behaviour.

How did memtest go with the sets seperately?
 
Thanks JonJ678
Memtest hasn't worked yet. I use a burned bootable disk, but it just says 'Loading............' and doesn't do anything. I probably burnt it to the disk wringly or something. I'll try again later.
Thanks
 
Sounds to me like you just need to bump your NB voltage up a bit (as posted above) to cope with the load of all those dimms. That'd be the voltage tweak you heard about.
 
Thanks Devrij
So do you think it's possible that the problems I described earlier could just be due to my RAM being 'undervolted' rather than faulty?
I really hope so :)
 
Hello jamieboo,

Memtest86+ is a great test to run straight from a bootable CD-ROM *Before* you install your O/S . . .as if you don't and your Memory is unstable then . . .er well you know what happens! :o

jamieboo said:
I haven't run memtest yet as I first want to make sure my memory is getting the correct voltage in bios.
Click to expand...
That's a chicken and egg situation! :p

How you gonna know if your memory is getting enough juice unless you stress it with Memtest? :confused:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom