Adding RAM upsets an OC?

Soebek

Soebek

Soebek

Associate
Joined
18 Jul 2009
Posts
18
Location
Kent
Hiya!

I'm having a bit of trouble at the moment as regards my PC, and since I'm not hugely good with OC's (read: not very good at all), I thought I'd ask for help. I'm fairly technologically literate, but I don't really know too much about hardware and the likes (although I do tend to catch on quickly when I'm doing something like this!).

However, I'm way out of my depth here and so any assistance would be appreciated!

I bought a PC from this lovely website three years ago, core i7 overclocked @ 3.6Ghz, 6GB RAM (3x2GB) and some sort of good GPU. I don't remember the original GPU 'cos I replaced it with a 6950 with a 6970 profile a year or so ago (again off this site!). The system came overclocked, with the profile saved in the BIOS, and has worked flawlessly.

However, I recently decided to upgrade my memory since a local shop here in my town was offering a really good deal on RAM when ordered with an SSD. I attempted to find the best match to what I had (Patriot Viper, DDR3-12000 8-8-8-24 1600MHz 1.65V) but that type of memory was no longer in production. So I bought what I guess is its replacement, also Patriot (the Viper II Sector 7) to try and keep things as close as possible. It's almost identical, except that its listed timings are 8-9-8-24 instead. Voltage is still 1.65, still DDR3-12000, still 1600MHz.

To cut a long story short, when I put it in my machine and booted up it simply wouldn't start. The machine powers on, hangs for a few seconds, and then restarts. After it's restarted it loads up Windows fine but my OC has disappeared, so I presume it's loaded "safe" settings in the BIOS. Loading up the BIOS on the next system start tells me that it failed to boot due to overclocking. Reloading the overclockers.co.uk profile causes the same issues (restarts and loss of OC) so it's almost certainly the overclock that's the problem.

So I guessed that I'd made a mistake with the memory, and clearly didn't understand as much about it as I thought I did in terms of matching what I had. However, just to test things, I took out all three sticks of the old RAM and replaced them with the new RAM (rather than having all six sticks running together for 12GB RAM). I then activated the overclockers.co.uk profile in the BIOS... and everything works fine.

So, the overclock works perfectly with just the old RAM, and it also works perfectly with just the new RAM, but it can't cope with all six sticks. The fact that it doesn't care which set is in there when it's only running one doesn't surprise me (since both sets of RAM are almost identical), but I don't know enough to troubleshoot why it won't accept both at the same time.

I'm really sorry for how long this post has gone on but I'm trying to give as much information as I can in case it's useful. Hopefully this is something simple and it's just me being a fool, or at least that it might not be something simple but it's something I can tinker with and fix, rather than the new RAM just being a complete waste of my money.

Thank you in advance to anyone kind enough to respond =)
 
Using your old ram kit, slacken the timings to 9-9-9-27 in bios, save settings to bios, shutdown and then install the new ram kit. As the two kits your trying to use have different timings they may not run together. Youll also have to increase the qpi/dram/vtt voltage as well due to using 6 memory sticks. This places a lot more strain on the integrated memory controller, (aka imc which is on the cpu). The amount youll need to raise qpi voltage will depend on your own particular dystems needs.
 
Thanks for the reply!

The thing with the timings is that the new RAM is working fine when it's in there on its own, and that's with the BIOS still being set for the timings of the old RAM. But I will slacken them as you suggest; I've been told it won't make any noticeable difference to my gaming or video editing in real life usage (rather than benchmarking, which I don't do!).

As regards upping the voltage, I'm slightly wary about upping it too far because I was told by someone that the x58 chipset has the memory controller on the CPU (as you suggest too) and that upping the voltage for the benefit of the RAM might fry the whole CPU, and I obviously don't want that. Will increasing the RAM voltage mean I need to tone down the voltage anywhere else (like the CPU)? Sorry for the fuss, but I don't want to fry my machine by doing something stupid!
 
You need more CPU imc voltage with 12gb due to overclocking through the bclk on x58,newer z68/z77 don't have this issue due to an unlocked CPU multiplier

You can safely use Upto 1.4v CPU imc or qpi/vtt on x58
 
You wont have to increase any other voltage except qpi-dram. The new ram on it's own may well run at the lower timings of the old kit, but again this could be hit and miss. Timings for ram on x58 make little difference in everyday tasks, only benchmarks will show slight differences. 1.35 is reputedly the max reccomended by intel for qpi voltage, but ive seen many users on here report no issues with it above that. Try increasing qpi voltage until you can boot succesfully into windows, then id suggest testing the overclock with a stress test program such as LinX/IBT, (intel burn test, 20 passes of either). Prime95 blend is another, but the former two are a bit quicker to test with.
 
Thanks for all the help guys. Unfortunately I pushed the QPI all the way up to 1.395V and it still crashed when booting. I guess my system just can't handle the extra RAM. Thanks for all the help, though, just a shame I spent forty euro on RAM I can't use!
 
Will that mean I don't have to raise the QPI so far? If so, I'll try it. I don't want to lose too much performance, though - I mean, I bought the RAM because I thought doubling my memory would be nice but I don't want to slow things down too much because then it'll hardly be worth it!

How much looser do you think the timings would need to be to make a difference?

Also, I noticed when I was raising the QPI that it was set to "auto" in the BIOS - does this mean it would have taken it all the way to 1.35V (its "safe" maximum) without me telling it to?
 
You'l still want to keep the imc volts upped. It might help, cant hurt to try.
You'l still have plenty of bandwith just slightly higher latency, so depends what your heavy duty uses are. I would go as loose as possible and see what happens, at least that way youl know straight off if it is worth bothering, you can then tighten them later.

btw what board are you running?
 
I'm running a Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5.

Most of my time is spent gaming, so that's really the heaviest duty use it gets where performance is an issue. But I'll give it a try, because as you say at least I can see if it works that way!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom