Ram reading at wrong speed
 

I have finally got around to bolting my pc together and a quick boot to check all was ok showed that my Corsair Vengance 1600mhz ram is only running at 1333mhz. The board supports well over that speed and a quick check in the bios and all seems well apart from the speed.

The computer has no hdd fitted yet and was just booted to test, any ideas on what the problem is as I have never been one for overclocking pc's so don't want to mess with all the voltage settings for the ram.

The motherboard is an Asus p8p67 board.

the boardds f/w up to date?

or could be this

If you have the exact specs of the RAM (voltage and timings), put them manually into the BIOS.

It could be the RAM you have is a lower speed RAM designed to be overclocked. As such its default auto-detect JEDEC timings (Industry standard) are slower than what the RAM is often advertised of being capeable of if used on its EPP settings (Enhanced Performance Profile) or XMP (eXtreme Memory Profile).

This is often the case with 'overclocker's' RAM. Some motherboard do have an option/setting to tell it to use EPP or XMP timings instead of JEDEC.

The RAM in my current system is like this: It is specced to run at 5-5-5-15 at 2.3 volts under EPP at 1Ghz, but using the default JEDEC timings it runs at 5-5-5-16 at 1.8 volts at 800hz (Its DDR2 RAM, so a bit old hat now, but it still follows true with the newer stuff).

Typical Asus. Advertsing spec saying it work with something, but not actually being able to make full use of it. :rolleyes:

If this is the case you'll have to overclock the system to get the RAM to work at its rated timings

PS: found this. I think this should be the timings for your RAM Steve:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/C...images/spd.jpg

So with it running at 1333MHz it looks like the board is using the JEDEC #4 timing settings instead of the XMP-1600.

I did see a.setting in the bios to enable xmp? In the overclocking part. I am just downloading a 64bit op system fir it them.I will install it and have a better look in the bios settings for the ram

Funny you mention this Steve, I'm using the Asus p8p67 LE too, last night I noticed the same my RAM was running 'default' 1333MHZ when it's capable of running 1600MHZ, I went into bios and changed it too 1600MHZ then went straight into a game (BFBC2), then minutes later my PC crashed big styleeee, have reset it too 1333MHZ again and all is fine.

Somebody have a look and tell me if everything is as it should be and if not how to fix it please.

http://imgf.tw/380562936.JPG

Specs

Windows 7 installed on Patriot Torqx 128 GB SSD

16 Gig, Patriot 8GB (2 x 4GB) PC3-12800 (1600MHz) Enhanced Latency Kit....... (I Think)?

Asus P8P67LE Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard ** B3 REVISION **

Asus GeForce GTX 580 DirectCU II 1536MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card [ENGTX580 DCII/2DIS/1536MD5]

Intel Core i7-2600 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail with FREE TrackMania 2 Canyon PC Game [BX80623I72600]

Yes enable XMP.

It'll probably have an option of DCOP or something, select that and it'll give the option to use different OC (overclock) profiles

It may allow you to select different profiles but looking at the CPU-Z timing tables they are probably both the same.

Dunk, is yours the b3 revision board or an earlier one ?

Wrong tab...that just shows what's installed, not what speed its currently running at: Click the tab labelled 'memory' to see what its running at present.

I'm not too sure TBH

http://imgf.tw/864777432.JPG

Maybe you might know by the serial numbers etc?

DoHH!! :D

http://imgf.tw/960322584.JPG

When you first install ram that isn't xmp compatible it'll run at 1333mhz. There's basically a setting in bios to set the clock speed of the RAM. Just have a scout around in there and you'll see it eventually. Your motherboard manual should say how to change the clock speeds also.

That's running its default JEDEC profile too: 1333MHz (well, 1337.8MHz to be exact as its 668.9 multiplied by two ) at 9-9-9-24 and 1.5v

Spec says it can run 9-9-9-24 at 1600Mhz (800Mhz bus speed) at 1.5v. here: http://www.corsair.com/vengeance-8gb...m2a1600c8.html Howver CPU-Z says your XMP profile runs it at 1.65volts. Maybe its a misprint on the website as the XMP profile should be correct because thats what the chip in the RAM is telling CPU-Z.

If you want it to run at 1600MHz you need to tweek in teh BIOS and enable XMP (somewhere in 'Ai tweeker' I think).

Obviously goes without saying on new PCs especially when using XMP/EPP speed settings you should run memtest+86 on its extended test mode overnight to ensure total stability (as well as making sure everything is fault free).

Being really honest I don't think you'll notice that much difference in speed. Only way to know is to try it on both JEDEC and XMP settings and use some software to benchmark them both.

Memory speed is the least important setting you have for a PC, some people sepnd £100's on faster memory, but it's of little benefit.

dunx

P.S. 1600 is still better than 1333... LOL

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/mem...andy-bridge/10

if you focus on the blue bars, as memory speed increases there is little change in performance.

Ive 1866mhz memory in my pc, on initial boot up it came up at 1333mhz, seems to be a standard setting on mobo's, just went in and changed the setting in the bios for the memory (gives you a list of frequencies to run, 1333, 1600, 1866 etc), runs 1866mhz now.

Simples :D (this is a z68 mobo though ;))

Tony:)

My PC crashed big time when I tried changing it though............

Did you change it in the bios though Dunk or through the Asus AI?
Should just be a simple change in the bios to up the frequency, also give memtest a shot or run prime95 for a few hours to check for stability, you may have a faulty dimm there and not know about it :(

Tony:)

I changed it in the Bios Tony, after the PC crashed I changed it back to Auto.

Are you using a sandforce (firmware) SSD drive?

Tony:)

Right I just double checked and I did change it in Ai Tweaker in bios, memory system or something like that.

Yes I think it is Sandforce and deffo SSD..

And just to top it off my PC just crashed ingame again, big style, I got an stop error on start up this time though.
http://imgf.tw/430324942.JPG
http://imgf.tw/844692548.JPG

Away to investigate this.

It may be your ssd that is giving you the bsod :( look for a firmware update as the sandforce firmware seems to have a conflict with the intel chipset(s) (though it has also been noted on AMD stuff too).

Tony:)

Ok cheers Tony, I've had nothing but bother since I've built this PC TBH, I was wondering after the last format a few days ago if it could have been the SSD, I'll update the firmware and if it's still running like a bag of hammers I'll delete the SSD drive and install Wndows on my other drive.

You really should be running memtest before allowing it to boot with altered RAM timings, as these crashes can really screw up the OS in a big way.

I once totally currputed my OS with a faulty RAM chip; I couldn't even run a repair install.

Ali, the Ram timings were changed then when my PC first crashed last night I changed them back after 20 minutes, I'm now back in Auto mode.

I thought the reason I had the crash last night was because I had changed the settings, which dosent seem to be the case, even with the settings back to default I'm still crashing, I suspect like Tony says it's the SSD or firmware.

I have managed to get the bios to see the ram as 1600 now but I had to dissable xmp as it was causing a conflict even though the ram supports it.

I don't know how well the settings are working as the pc is not letting me install an operating system on any of the drives :( I'm going to see if trusty XP will install then I will just use the upgrade option to get my copy of Windows 7 running :)

download "bluescreenview"

dunx

This is a great advert for why you should by A mac

:D

Or Dell, or a HP, or a Acer or any other off-the-shelf factory built computer :rolleyes:

Remember Apple were once DIY build computers too.