Spec Check and RAM Advice

Silvereye · 11 May 2018 at 17:37

So that was a frustrating afternoon trying to wrangle Nvidia drivers. Use Gigabytes install CD, Get the "I'm sorry Windows isn't a recognised OS" error. Go to nvidia website, download drivers. Run install. Get the "I'm sorry Windows isn't a recognised OS" error again. Went round and round in circles for a while, did a lot of googling, found my way back to the bad old 1990s way of installing drivers while windows was happily downloading updates. Decided to wait for windows to finish doing it's thing. So the April update eventually installs and it even brought some working Nvidia drivers with it which was nice.

I've got to ask though, did Nvidia fire their GUI team in the 1990s and not bother to ever replace them? That interface is positively ancient history after using AMDs and even Intels on my work laptop.

Will second DDU though. A really handy and easy to use tool - needs to be run in Safe Mode.

Thats certainly what I was expecting with the RAM. I was planning on follow your earleri advice about using the 3200 and 3600 timings as guidelines. Though I'll definitely see what happens with the XMP first.

In the meantime, back to installing stuff.

orbitalwalsh · 11 May 2018 at 18:48

Sorry forgot to say let update and use windows Update assistant instead of Control Panels auto update .
Lot quicker and normally jumps straight into it

I think AMD latest gpu drivers have issue with latest windows update , from what I've heard

Silvereye · 13 May 2018 at 00:23

Had to leave things alone today bit of an all day epic brithday party fest. However have managed to upload some photos for those that like to see the shiny inner bits, and general build progress from Friday.

Out of case building to test the bits to make sure they all work.

After stripping and cleaning the case, the new bits were transplanted in, wires hooked up and powered on.

The wifes putting up with me present arrived...

...and she was pleased with my offering. So no personal tour of the pit of misery to get in the way of building and tidying up.

Cables tidied and secured, before the last pannel is fitted.

Then it was back to reinstalling software and reloading settings.

I still need to poke around in the BIOS to tweak the RAM though. Hopfully will have time Sunday evening to make a start.

orbitalwalsh · 13 May 2018 at 07:15

Looking good !
Must say AMD cooler does look awesome, hats off to them !
Hope your happy with the work

Journey · 13 May 2018 at 10:21

Silvereye said:
Cables tidied and secured, before the last pannel is fitted.

Looks great, nice and understated - perfect for a PC that lives next to/under a desk.

Hopefully, you'll be able to get that RAM running at 3466MHz C14, or 3600MHz C16 without issue, and once you have some real spare time, look into getting the sub-timings sorted since the performance gains are worth while.

Silvereye · 16 May 2018 at 22:06

@orbitalwalsh & @Journey Many thanks for your help and feedback over this thread. I'm happily enjoying the new silence. And Ashes of the Suingulaity with graphics at Extreme (a bit of tinkering with the settings may get some of them up to Crazy while maintaing 60 fps). I'm beginning to wonder if it will also be able to play Crisis...

Been playing with the RAM and as guessed XMP was a failure. Keyed in the 3200 timings and that reset itself to default. Tried the EZ Overclock to see what it might suggest for timings and that went as well as XMP. So more tinkering with timings and voltages ahead. There has been a new BIOS release (F3g), is it best to use the APP Centre for updates these days, or stick to the old school methods of download it to boot media?

edit: corrected BIOS version

orbitalwalsh · 17 May 2018 at 06:10

Always download bios to usb stick

Just waiting for my board and should be able to help .
Long as fast boot is disabled to allow training and everyother setting left to Auto

Journey · 17 May 2018 at 07:47

Silvereye said:
Been playing with the RAM and as guessed XMP was a failure. Keyed in the 3200 timings and that reset itself to default. Tried the EZ Overclock to see what it might suggest for timings and that went as well as XMP. So more tinkering with timings and voltages ahead. There has been a new BIOS release (F3g), is it best to use the APP Centre for updates these days, or stick to the old school methods of download it to boot media?

Always USB, and flash from inside the BIOS just to be safe(r).

It's a real shame you are having such difficulties with the RAM, try 3200, 16-16-16-16? Let us know you get on with it, once you have had the time.

orbitalwalsh · 17 May 2018 at 08:16

Might help

https://www.vortez.net/articles_pages/team_dark_pro_8_pack_edition_review,1.html

Also Procodt value could be the issue , try setting 60/68/80 ohms

Silvereye · 19 May 2018 at 11:26

orbitalwalsh said:
Might help

https://www.vortez.net/articles_pages/team_dark_pro_8_pack_edition_review,1.html

Thanks for the link, it has helped a lot. Been dabbling a bit over the last few evenings (sunny days in Scotland were far too rare last year). Have managed to be stable at 2933MHz @ 16-16-16-16-36-62 without any noticable issues yesterday.

Turns out there was something in the Gigabyte App Centre (I installed some of it to see if it was useful) that was causing havok with storage, and interfering with memory. It has since been purged and the cd filed in the box of free crapware from motherboard vendors that should never see the light of day again. Will keep pushing the timings now my system is healthier.

orbitalwalsh · 19 May 2018 at 14:08

Good to hear , get my boards through on Monday so will get to it with timings .

Aberdeen here. Kids are loving the sun

Silvereye · 21 May 2018 at 21:05

Nice, been a few years since I was last up there. Pentlands and Ochils have been great the last few weeks.

Manged to get 3200MHz to boot at CL16, but the system really wasn't liking it. Will need to do some more reading and tinkering as I'm still very rusty with overclocking RAM.

Have fun with your builds.

orbitalwalsh · 21 May 2018 at 22:41

Silvereye said:
Nice, been a few years since I was last up there. Pentlands and Ochils have been great the last few weeks.

Manged to get 3200MHz to boot at CL16, but the system really wasn't liking it. Will need to do some more reading and tinkering as I'm still very rusty with overclocking RAM.

Have fun with your builds.

SoC voltage at 1.1v ? X370 you could push 1.2v
Might also need to run ram voltage at 1.4v

Silvereye · 22 May 2018 at 21:48

orbitalwalsh said:
ram voltage

D'oh! I forgot this had been reset when I flashed the new BIOS. Was running DRAM Voltage at 1.2V previously, I've now increased to 1.35V but I haven't changed SoC voltage.

So tweaked away and ran some tests in 3D Mark and I go my best results with 3200MHz (16-16-16-16-36-62 @ 1.35V) - Firestrike 18070 and Timespy 7639. Firestrike was about 600 points better than the 3200MHz 14-14-14-14-31-58 timings I tried, Timespy just a couple of points. Interestingly, the CL14 timings were also worse than 2933MHz results.

orbitalwalsh · 22 May 2018 at 21:55

Silvereye said:
D'oh! I forgot this had been reset when I flashed the new BIOS. Was running DRAM Voltage at 1.2V previously, I've now increased to 1.35V but I haven't changed SoC voltage.

So tweaked away and ran some tests in 3D Mark and I go my best results with 3200MHz (16-16-16-16-36-62 @ 1.35V) - Firestrike 18070 and Timespy 7639. Firestrike was about 600 points better than the 3200MHz 14-14-14-14-31-58 timings I tried, Timespy just a couple of points. Interestingly, the CL14 timings were also worse than 2933MHz results.

Might be factors to do with all the other timings that are left to auto as well as normally doing 5-10 runs and using the average .
But good to hear , managed to get my mobile out of the box and that's it . Son has run through the living with it, dropped it and shuffled on the rug ...

Silvereye · 22 May 2018 at 22:23

It's all those other timings that may as well be dark magic. There may be explanations on the interenet, but I'll probably still be going "what?" after reading them.

I was going to see if I can get a 33-3600MHz profile before letting them run to get enough results to make a meaningful comparison. That large a difference in Firestrike was a little suprising, I was only expecting a couple of hundered points. Timespy results are close enough that they may as well be identical.

Hopefully you'll get some peace to build and test when he's gone to bed, and the phone bounced.

orbitalwalsh · 23 May 2018 at 02:25

Silvereye said:
It's all those other timings that may as well be dark magic. There may be explanations on the interenet, but I'll probably still be going "what?" after reading them.

I was going to see if I can get a 33-3600MHz profile before letting them run to get enough results to make a meaningful comparison. That large a difference in Firestrike was a little suprising, I was only expecting a couple of hundered points. Timespy results are close enough that they may as well be identical.

Hopefully you'll get some peace to build and test when he's gone to bed, and the phone bounced.

Don't get to catch up , long as it's stable first , bios and micro codes will get platform stable