Getting the most out of my memory ?

Darkst4r

Darkst4r

Darkst4r

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I recently got my new build up and running and wanted to check my RAM is running at optimal performance. I had to do a voltage tweak to get it running atall so I'm concerned it may not be running at CAS7 timings or at 1600mhz, how can I check and adjust this ?

My mobo is an ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO and my RAM is 4GB of OCZ pc3-12800 DDR3 Dual channel.
 
hyperst said:
download cpu-z, will give you the info you want, or head into the bios
Click to expand...

If you download cpu-z, then it will even tell you which settings to change in the bios.

23th9vk.png


Obviously you will need to put
7 7 7 24
for your RAM though.:)
 
OK heres what I got :

ram.jpg


Doesnt look like its running at 1600mhz though. Can you navigate me through changing it in the bios ? as Ive had a quick look but dont want to mess anything up.

Cheers :)

EDIT: not running dual channel either :(
 
Last edited:
If you have a look at pages 2-10 and 2-11 in your motherboard manual, it should tell you where you need to go in the bios.

By the looks of it, you only need to change the TRAS to 24, although I would recommend manually putting in all the settings (7 7 7 24).

In my bios I had to tell it what speed to run at as well, so you might need to put that in.

Why are you only running single channel?
 
dandos23 said:
Why are you only running single channel?
Click to expand...

Because I'm a total noob from noobsville Tennesee ! I had it in the wrong slots. I made a post yesterday about it and was asured it was in the correct slots but it evidently wasn't. I put both chips in the a1/b1 slots and am now getting dual channel with similar or the same settings as before. Ill have a fiddle in the bios and see if I can fathom it. Cheers for the help :)
 
Well I found what looked like the right bit, it asked me if I wanted to change DCT 0 or DCT 1 or BOTH so I chose BOTH. Changed the timings to 7 manually and then the TRAS to 24 and got this result :

Capture-1.jpg


The frequency has hardly budged :confused:

There was a setting called memory clock mode that I saw but didnt change, the only options in that menu were 400mhz,533mhz,667mhz or 800mhz. Should I change that setting ?

Also I dont seem to be getting near the 1600mhz I should be getting, could my RAM be poorly compatible ?
 
Darkst4r said:
There was a setting called memory clock mode that I saw but didnt change, the only options in that menu were 400mhz,533mhz,667mhz or 800mhz. Should I change that setting ?

Also I dont seem to be getting near the 1600mhz I should be getting, could my RAM be poorly compatible ?
Click to expand...

There should be a setting to chose the speed manually. 400mhz, 533mhz and so on should be the default settings. You might have to enable advanced oc'ing in the bios to show the setting though.
 
Cant see a setting where it lets me put it in manually, just those 4 pre-sets. Cant see where advanced OC'ing is either. Im a total newbie to tweaking things in the bios, the most I've done before is change the boot order ! Maybe it's better for the RAM to be running like crap than not atall, I'll probably end up frying it :(
 
In your bios do you have an "Ai Overclock Tuner"?

In my one I have to set that to "manual" to get the setting up for "DRAM Controller configuration" and all my setting go in there.
 
I think that I have found it for you.

In my bios, it will actually say "1600mhz", in your one it will say "800mhz" meaning that it will apply that to each channel and you will be getting 1600mhz.

You did find the right bit. All you need to do now is change it. :)
 
Darkst4r said:
There was a setting called memory clock mode that I saw but didnt change, the only options in that menu were 400mhz,533mhz,667mhz or 800mhz. Should I change that setting ?

Also I dont seem to be getting near the 1600mhz I should be getting, could my RAM be poorly compatible ?
Click to expand...

set it to the 800mhz setting, it doubles to 1600mhz which should be visible at boot in one of the post screens, cpu-z will show around 800mhz, ddr stands double data rate so you have to double it(something like this anyway)
 
I tried it at 800mhz and my system froze on boot-up. I'm running the memory at 1.75 volts if that makes a difference ?. The default value was 1.5 volts but I couldn't get my system to boot up or install windows on that so I had to change it to 1.75.
 
Checked the voltage and it was still set at 1.75v. 800 mhz isn't happening, my system gets to the swirly windows 7 lights but then freezes. I tried 667mhz instead which allowed me to boot into Windows fine but the DRAM Frequency is still staying at 669mhz. I'm wondering if I increase the voltage to 1.8 maybe I could run 800mhz with some stability ? Or could this be too much to put on my system, I dont want to frazzle anything, I've only just built it.
 
One their website, if you read the reviews, there are some people running that memory at 2.25v (I would not recommend that though).

One of the reviews said

"OCZ XTC Platinum PC3-12800 DDR3 modules performed really nicely during our testing. We tested OCZ?s memory from CL 5-5-5-15 timings (CAS-TRCD-TRP-TRAS) to the frequency of 1660MHz and 7-6-6-18 timings. The kit actually works with 7-6-6-18 timings and an effective clock frequency of 1660MHz, while beating factory timings of 7-7-7-20 and DDR3-1600 frequency at only 1.9V."
Click to expand...

I would have thought that you could go a little higher with the volts, just don't go crazy!
 
Tried running 800mhz @ 1.8v but it still froze. So then I tried 667 @1.8 volts and that actually gave me a lower DRAM Frequency :confused:
 
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