Memory oc help

Shazzer2406 · 15 Jul 2020 at 21:22

Ok so I'd like to pick someone's brains, I'll start with system spec.

10700k, asus prime a, corsair 32gb 3200mhz 16-18-18-36, 2070 s, 750w psu

Now my cpu is oc'd to 5ghz all core and cache is 4.7. Now here's where the fun starts, I have 4x 8gb memory sticks with xmp enabled, now when I try to push past these settings with speed or timings it fails with a dram voltage of up to 1.5v and system 1.3 (haven't pushed past these) so I look into it further and find out that occupying 4 dimm slots could be my problem, so ok I take 2 out and try 16gb now my computer won't boot, I remove oc and xmp and it boots, thinking maybe it just needed to be booted to calibrate to 16gb I restart load bios and enable xmp, still no oc on cores and low and behold it won't boot with just xmp, add all memory and it boots fine lol
Now I'm new to memory overclocking so could be missing something obvious but for the life of me I can't figure out why 16gb won't boot with just xmp.

I'll also add taiphoon burner tells me I have Samsung b-die

Shazzer2406 · 15 Jul 2020 at 22:25

PieEater said:
If you are using 2 sticks of RAM you should be using them in Slots A2 & B2 so from the CPU the second and fourth slots, anything else may be unstable.

Asus manual reccomends a1 & b1 I double checked cause I thought it was 2 and 4 as well

Shazzer2406 · 16 Jul 2020 at 06:59

PieEater said:
I assumed you had the Asus Prime Z490-A, The manual on the Asus site says to use A2 & B2 !?!

Ok then I'm an idiot lol because like a child I looked at the picture instead of reading the writing which to me the pic looks like 1 and 3 but yes you're right it clearly says 2 and 4 lol I'll try that and report back.

In fact I can clearly see picture 2 and 4 haha so I put it down to be tired, only thing ‍

Shazzer2406 · 16 Jul 2020 at 08:09

Ok so think I need to admit defeat, I put sticks into correct slots, xmp works but soon as I try to change timings or increase frequency I get no post no matter how much voltage I put in, I'm either unlucky or missing something

Shazzer2406 · 16 Jul 2020 at 12:05

PieEater said:
You're probably being too ambitious with your changes or possibly not waiting long enough for it to boot (assuming the board has some kind of memory training). Don't just assume that throwing more volts at the memory will equate to stability either as this isn't always the case. I would go with 1.42v and leave the speed at 3200 and set the primary timings to 16-16-16-16-32 just to see if it will accept the changes from XMP. To be honest the impression I have is the newer Intel chips don't benefit hugely from memory tweaking like the Ryzen chips so you may be flogging a dead horse anyway especially with 4 sticks as this will probably be restricting your options.

Well after a lot more reading and learning I managed to get 3800mhz with 17-21-21- 40
No idea if that's any good or not but benches do show a slight increase

Shazzer2406 · 16 Jul 2020 at 13:47

PieEater said:
Well done you're making good progress It would be interesting to know whether your benchmarks are better or worse if you kept memory speed at 3200 but tightened the timings down to 14-14-14-14-28 if you could manage it.

I refused to let it beat me lol, so that was my next goal, I got 15-17-17-34 So far pushing down to 15-16-16 has got me and I can't figure out how to push past, I have dram voltage set to 1.45 vccio 1.25 and system 1.25, learning from past lessons keep pushing voltages doesnt seem to be the answer so I'm trying to stay there but unsure on next move.

Edit that's 3200mhz I did get it to 14-18-18-34 but saw no improvement so need to figure how to get the other timings down