Voltages set too high might cause instability?

[cje]

As thread title, I know VDIMM can cause instability in DDR3 modules. I've got 4x 1gb corsair xms3 1333mhz up to 1600 at stock timings. I set voltage to 1.7v initially, didnt even boot. But I've found stability at 1.6v.

Also, with NB voltage. I don't know if this is isolated to the ASUS striker Ii Extreme, or other 790i and Ultra chipsets, but I had set NB voltage to 1.44v.

My system was OCCT and prime95 stable, but sometimes got nvlddmkm.sys bsods. And if I left my pc alone to idle for 30 minutes, it would have restarted.

I have only 2 sticks of RAM installed, 1.44 is needed for 4, but since I had 2 I decided to see if the board might behave with "LESS" NB.

I set NB voltage to AUTO, and it the board sets it to 1.32 (actual 1.33/4).

Never had a bsod since. Does this make ANY sense to anyone at all?

Having said that, my board is quite "unique". If I get a failed overclock, it'll sometimes ignore my hard drives, and then refuse to boot with anything above 1333fsb. After some tinkering with various settings it'll come to and play nice again.

But it's stable now 1600 x8 with a Q6600, so happy, but at the same time totally confused with this crazy and temperamental board.

 

[porta]

hi, nvlddmkm.sys i think is a nvidia driver issue, have you changed driver as well.

 

[Meridian]

Yes, too much voltage can harm stability. Remember that extra volts means extra heat means extra thermal noise means less stability. So you only raise the voltages when you have to, and not before. A little extra helps, but going straight for the max overclock voltages will generally make things a bit flaky.


M