RAM upgrade question

[Drebin8]

A couple of years ago I built my own PC, mainly to use for MSFS. I'm defintely not an expert, but I followed the tutorials on how to build a computer, got it together, and it has been working great. Plus it was a fun project. My build used a Asus STRIX Z690-F motherboard, 12900k processor, with Trident Z5 32GB DDR5-5600 CL36 Memory. No overclocking or anything, the only change I made in the bios was to enable the XMP profile for the RAM.

I was recently travelling to a place where computer parts are much more affordable than where I live, so I thought I'd take advantage and upgrade to 64gb of memory as I moved over to MSFS2024. I found some Trident Z5 64GB DDR5-6400 CL32 Memory at a reasonable price, so I picked some up.

Switchng out the RAM was super easy and the computer booted fine. The problems started when I tried to enable the XMP profile. It booted into windows fine, but as soon as I clicked on anything I got a BSOD We've encountered a problem and will restart error. I tried again and it happened again so I started loking for a fix. I updated the bios, but now instead of botting to desktop and getting a BSOD, it just went into a cycle where it would alternate between no signal, wake up for 20 seconds with a black screen, then back to no signal. It would go straight to this sycle, with no option to get into the bios at the start, so the only way I could get it to boot was to put the old memory back in.

Aftre a whole bunch of googling, it sounded like my cpu couldn't handle the faster RAM, so I started lowering the RAM speed (starting with the original XMP) until the system would boot, and then until it no longer BSOD'ed when clicking on the desktop.  It only stabilised when I got the speed down to 5400, which is lower than the original memory I switched out from. When I ran memtest86 it passed with no errors at this speed, but anything higher and it would show errors.

I understand that the XMP profile can be somewhat aspirational, but I found many people on the forums with systems similar to mine that were able to run the XMP profiles or even faster without any problems. I'm actually not hugely fussed, I kind of doubt I'd even be able to notice any impact in MSFS if I got the RAM to run at its advertised speed, but if it's somehting I'm doing wrong with my setup or install I'd like to know so I can fix it and have it working properly. Any help would be appreciated!

Drew

[iwebber]

Check that the voltage required for XMP is being correctly set by the BIOS.

I had a board that said it was delivering 1.35v but the hardware monitor in the BIOS showed it as 1.32v. It gave me the kind of problems you're experiencing. When I bumped it up a bit (I think I typed in 1.38v which showed about 1.35v) everything worked as it should.

I've never come across an XMP profile that didn't work.

Failing that, test each stick individually, could be one of them is faulty.

Good luck,

Ian

[ryanbatc]

I have a Z690 Mag tomahawk wifi from MSI and recently went from 2x16 5600mhz to 2x32 6000 mhz.  I read on MSI forums that actually a fair amount of people were having issues with the max speed (with XMP) QVL stuff which was 6400mhz.  So I just found a nice pair with 6000 mhz - it's been running fine though.  I feel like XMP can be really touchy so yeah it certainly could be a voltage thing.  Mine is 1.45v for what it's worth.

[Drebin8]

Thanks for the advice. The XMP profile upped it to 1.40v but maybe I'll give it a small bump and see if that helps with the stability. If not I'll try testing one stick at a time and see if anything shows up with that. Thanks.

[AnkH]

Is this a four stick RAM kit or a two stick RAM kit? Some mainboards (CPUs) do not like full RAM slots and only work with 2 slots occupied when using RAM overclocking. But a good thing to slightly rise your voltage, but be careful, I would not go too high...

[Drebin8]

It's a two stick kit.

I tried turning on the XMP profile, but lowered the speed from 6400 to 5400 and raised the voltage from 1.40 to 1.41. I got a BSOD error instead of the non-stop booting cycle, which was better, but still not good.

I thought I'd do another stability test since I haven't done one since I built the computer, so I downloaded OCCT. I've always had some hints of instability but have been able to mostly run MSFS ok, so I didn't want to spend too much free time trying to track it down. I did the standard one hour test which went fine, there were no errors, but noticed high temps on some of the cores (a couple of p cores had a max of 92 degrees). Unfortunately ever since the test I've been having weird things happen - for example - I left the computer alone with nothing running for a little while, and when I came back, the screen was all scrambled into trippy colors.

I ordered some thermal paste, so I'm going to re-seat the cooler over the CPU - it sounds like sometimes the paste can go bad over time, and I wasn't 100% happy with how I seated it the first time. I'll also take that opportunity of having it apart to test each of the sticks separately.

[Drebin8]

Well it seems that I've completely stuffed things up. I re-seated the cooler with new thermal paste and that went fine. It ran fine for about a day, then I turned it on and got a blue screen error during boot (then is restarted and was ok). Today I went to try to test the sticks individually (in the a2 slot) and could not get it to boot at all. Switched it out for the other stick and same result. So I put the old RAM back in and still can't get it to boot at all.

So at this point it defintely seems like I've done something to mess things up, and it feelsl like the issue probably isn't with the RAM, if it ever was... 

[Republic3D]

If you can get into BIOS / UEFI, try resetting all of the settings and use the old RAM sticks. 

Then I would download any potential BIOS update and chipset update and install those. 

Then I would try the new sticks.

Sometimes a PC won't boot if the pressure on the cooler vs the CPU is too high. If you slacken the screws half a turn it might actually work. 

[Drebin8]

I loosened up the screws on the cooler a little and that seems to have done the trick, even though I didn't think they were that tight to begin with.

I was able to put the new RAM back in and it seems to be working ok. I updated the BIOS as part of my earlier trouble shooting, so for now I'm just going to leave it be and not bother trying to get the XMP profile working, since I'd rather be flying than meessing with it for what's probably only a couple of frames or so. But thanks for the help!

[flyinion]

19 hours ago, Drebin8 said:

I loosened up the screws on the cooler a little and that seems to have done the trick, even though I didn't think they were that tight to begin with.

I was able to put the new RAM back in and it seems to be working ok. I updated the BIOS as part of my earlier trouble shooting, so for now I'm just going to leave it be and not bother trying to get the XMP profile working, since I'd rather be flying than meessing with it for what's probably only a couple of frames or so. But thanks for the help!

You could try downloading and running Memtest86 off of a usb drive to check if the memory is bad.  It does happen.  I went to replace my CL18 32GB Gskill DDR4-3600 kit a month ago that had worked great for 4 years with the 64GB version but it was CL16.  Memtest86 failed 2 different tests on multiple runs.  Sent it back and picked up a CL18 3600 speed Corsair Vengeance and it passed 24 hours worth.  In your case it could be bad RAM or it could be the memory controller on your CPU just isn't capable of running at the rated speed of the new kit vs your older 5600 kit.  Not only did you go for faster RAM speed but faster timings as well and either or both of those could be the issue.  You could try setting the kit to 5600 in the manual settings and set the main 4 timings (36-??-??-??) to whatever is listed for your old kit and see how that goes.