# New RAM chips XMP profiles not working



## RaZzZz (Jun 7, 2016)

Hi guys

I just received two 8gig chips of RAM, the Kingston Savage 2400 CL11 to be precise.. both chips are being picked up by my Asrock Z77 Pro3 motherboard, however they are both running at 1600Mhz CL9 no matter what I change.. I tried both XMP profiles and I set the timings manually but to no avail.. I've no idea what's going on so any help would be greatly appreciated.


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## P4-630 (Jun 7, 2016)

Is this memory on the motherboard QVL list?


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## EarthDog (Jun 7, 2016)

What do you mean by "to no avail"????

Does it set it there but is not stable?
Does it not set it at all?
Have you updated to the latest BIOS?
Not that the QVL least means much at all, but, is it on there?
What is the EXACT model of your ram?


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## RaZzZz (Jun 7, 2016)

EarthDog said:


> What do you mean by "to no avail"????
> 
> Does it set it there but is not stable?
> Does it not set it at all?
> ...




What I meant was that after setting the XMP profile or manually inputting the correct timings and then re-booting the system and re-entering the BIOS it shows up exactly the same as before.. DDR3 1600Mhz CL9.. even though my settings are still there.. XMP Profile 1/2 or even the manual settings.. it's all set but without the results that I expecte.. even CPUZ shows 800Mhz so something isn't exactly working correctly.

This precise RAM chip isn't on the list but the Beast version which is slightly faster is listed along with a slightly slower version,  2400Mhz CL11 8Gb chips do work on this motherboard.


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## cdawall (Jun 7, 2016)

If you manually set the ram clock and it doesn't set you are doing something wrong.


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## RaZzZz (Jun 7, 2016)

The exact model of the RAM chips are HX324C11SRK2/16


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## Caring1 (Jun 7, 2016)

Does it show the correct time and date when you first boot it up?


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## RaZzZz (Jun 7, 2016)

Caring1 said:


> Does it show the correct time and date when you first boot it up?



It does indeed :/


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## RaZzZz (Jun 7, 2016)

A few photos here..


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## Mussels (Jun 7, 2016)

2500K cant go above 2133, keep that in mind.

going by the first screenshot, set XMP to profile 2 and then change the ram speed off auto to 2133


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## RaZzZz (Jun 7, 2016)

Mussels said:


> 2500K cant go above 2133, keep that in mind.
> 
> going by the first screenshot, set XMP to profile 2 and then change the ram speed off auto to 2133




Tried that and still the same result.. it's as if the motherboard sticks to its default settings, anything I change will set at all ;s


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## RaZzZz (Jun 7, 2016)

The BIOS is updated to the latest version too lads.


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## animal007uk (Jun 7, 2016)

My bios looks the same as yours so can you try this.

Leave xmp on auto then set the memory speed to 2133 and then set voltage and timings then press F10 to save and exit then see what happens inless you have already tried this aswell.


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## RaZzZz (Jun 7, 2016)

animal007uk said:


> My bios looks the same as yours so can you try this.
> 
> Leave xmp on auto then set the memory speed to 2133 and then set voltage and timings then press F10 to save and exit then see what happens inless you have already tried this aswell.



Yeahh I've tried that too.. I just cannot understand what is going on.. maybe my motherboard is thrash now? I can overclock the CPU no bothers.. blarh!


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## EarthDog (Jun 7, 2016)

Well, its not like you are missing any performance running at 1600...


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## animal007uk (Jun 7, 2016)

RaZzZz said:


> Yeahh I've tried that too.. I just cannot understand what is going on.. maybe my motherboard is thrash now? I can overclock the CPU no bothers.. blarh!



Hmmm KICK it  joking aside i'm not sure what could cause the issue inless your mobo just does not like that ram. Have you tried with just 1 stick to see if that will run at 2133mhz?


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## RaZzZz (Jun 7, 2016)

EarthDog said:


> Well, its not like you are missing any performance running at 1600...



Wrong!  the reason why I went for the upgrade was indeed for the better performance  for CPU intensive games like Fallout 4, GTAV, the Witcher etc   current gen consoles use 2400Mhz RAM and most PC games are ported over to the PC, so 2400Mhz is the new 1600mhz in a sense


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## RaZzZz (Jun 7, 2016)

animal007uk said:


> Hmmm KICK it  joking aside i'm not sure what could cause the issue inless your mobo just does not like that ram. Have you tried with just 1 stick to see if that will run at 2133mhz?



Hang on now and I'll give it a kick xD  I'll give the 1 stick a go ^^


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## EarthDog (Jun 7, 2016)

RaZzZz said:


> Wrong!  the reason why I went for the upgrade was indeed for the better performance  for CPU intensive games like Fallout 4, GTAV, the Witcher etc   current gen consoles use 2400Mhz RAM and most PC games are ported over to the PC, so 2400Mhz is the new 1600mhz in a sense


There are VERY few games that respond well to an increase in memory speeds (GTA V is one of them!). You may gain 1% or so in the vast majority of titles if you are lucky.

I thought that the PS4 used GDDR5 while the XB1 used GDDR3?

EDIT: You may also want to edit your posts instead of double posting all the time.


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## RaZzZz (Jun 7, 2016)

animal007uk said:


> Hmmm KICK it  joking aside i'm not sure what could cause the issue inless your mobo just does not like that ram. Have you tried with just 1 stick to see if that will run at 2133mhz?



The one stick hasn't changed anything,, ah well.


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## RaZzZz (Jun 7, 2016)

EarthDog said:


> There are VERY few games that respond well to an increase in memory speeds. You may gain 1% or so in the vast majority of titles if you are lucky.
> 
> I thought that the PS4 used GDDR5 while the XB1 used GDDR3?



I think because of my older CPU though the increase in performance will be larger, my brother recently upgraded too and he uses a 6th gen intel CPU and he has been raving about the 10fps average increase in his games, plenty of YouTube benchmarks for you to check out for yourself 

I don't know too much about that now, I only go on what I've seen on YouTube channels, I remember that stat as it just surprised me that we're seeing improvements now.


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## Ferrum Master (Jun 7, 2016)

EarthDog said:


> You may gain 1% or so in the vast majority of titles if you are lucky.



Around 5-7% to be exact...(for me going from 1600MHz to 2400MHz) There is some sort of latency sweet spot for each system actually.

Mate, don't double post. Use EDIT!


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## D007 (Jun 7, 2016)

Might consider resetting factory defaults in bios, since u have added new ram..Might help pick it up better but you'd have to redo all your bios settings. 
Check if the memory is set to a linked speed to the CPU, try unlinking it.


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## EarthDog (Jun 7, 2016)

Or you know, just double post again......

I have checked out plenty of reviews... in fact, I am a reviewer (now, that doesn't mean I can't be wrong, please note). But that said, there are very few titles that respond to ram speed increases. You named some.

Here are some links: http://techbuyersguru.com/does-ram-speed-matter-ddr3-1600-vs-1866-2133-and-2400-games?page=1
DDR4 - http://techbuyersguru.com/gaming-ddr4-memory-2133-vs-26663200mhz-8gb-vs-16gb?page=1

EDIT: On that platform, or DDR3 in general, we always said the price to performance sweetspot was in the 1866-2133 Mhz range, above that the improvements are nill and not worth the cost. 

But seriously, mostly negligible improvements with ram speed outside of a few select titles.


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## jaggerwild (Jun 7, 2016)

Have you tired setting manually after turning off XMP profile?


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## Ferrum Master (Jun 7, 2016)

EarthDog said:


> I have checked out plenty of reviews..



I didn't read them, I loaded up my saves at same places... That applies for my system.

And.. for the sake of being a pain we shall summon @cadaveca. There is always a deviation. It just depends on the system tuning. Dunno what those chaps did do. As long the overall system latency goes down, it should bring few more FPS if a bottleneck somewhere else is not present.


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## Mussels (Jun 7, 2016)

EarthDog said:


> Well, its not like you are missing any performance running at 1600...



i have the exact same CPU as him, and going from 1600 to 2133 definitely boosted a few benchmarks of mine. When you have a CPU that can overclock to the moon and back, the extra ram bandwidth does not go to waste.


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## EarthDog (Jun 7, 2016)

Any may not have been the right word.. negligible may have been better. There are empirical tests all over the web guys... take a read... I already provided links. Again, there are a RARE FEW excpetions.. but the rule is maybe 1-2% if that. You are welcome to provide links so I can learn if my ways are wrong.. I provided a couple supporting my POV...................... Here is another from back when your CPU was new: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7364/memory-scaling-on-haswell/7

As i said, some games NOW may use it, but they are, by far, the exception.

Now, it DOES help with an iGPU (as it uses system ram) and with multiple GPUs (because of the sheer amount of data passing through). But this user is single GPU.


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## RaZzZz (Jun 7, 2016)

D007 said:


> Might consider resetting factory defaults in bios, since u have added new ram..Might help pick it up better but you'd have to redo all your bios settings.
> Check if the memory is set to a linked speed to the CPU, try unlinking it.



I've already tried resetting factory defaults believe it or not :/
Hmm how do I go about checking if it is linked? I haven't any knowledge on that whatsoever.



EarthDog said:


> Or you know, just double post again......
> 
> I have checked out plenty of reviews... in fact, I am a reviewer (now, that doesn't mean I can't be wrong, please note). But that said, there are very few titles that respond to ram speed increases. You named some.
> 
> ...



Ah yeah I know it's only the select few games that benefit at the moment but it is interesting to see that it's somewhat worth upgrading RAM nowadays, especially with my old i5 anyway 

I managed to avoid double posting this time around haha

I'm a dual GPU user, CrossFire setup.   I wish I could remember video clips that I watched on this subject but it was just after Christmas when I watched them.



jaggerwild said:


> Have you tired setting manually after turning off XMP profile?



I have indeed :/


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## Ferrum Master (Jun 7, 2016)

It ain't that bad. We are actually arguing about few matchsticks. The problem with reviewers is that they often take one module and just change the frequency and few first order timings and maybe actually... the other timings are actually very important too(often not even being told). You have to spend a hell of time to bring out the max of your set and prove it is stable afterwards.

This chap here actually is fighting the usual problem with insufficient VCSSA, that's why he cannot boot the sticks. Sandy bridges go to 2400MHz max, with rare examples capable of 2600MHz.

You have to loose up the timings to some 14-14-14-40, up the RAM voltage to 1.65V and VCSSA 1.2V at least for a first try, then drop to 1.15 if it boots at least on 2.4GHz. if it boots, try to lower timings until it bsods, then rise up and do some intel burn test, to check calculation errors.


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## D007 (Jun 7, 2016)

RaZzZz said:


> I've already tried resetting factory defaults believe it or not :/
> Hmm how do I go about checking if it is linked? I haven't any knowledge on that whatsoever.
> 
> 
> ...




If it's not an obvious setting in bios, it's not on your mobo.


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## Johan45 (Jun 7, 2016)

RaZzZz said:


> I've already tried resetting factory defaults believe it or not :/
> Hmm how do I go about checking if it is linked? I haven't any knowledge on that whatsoever.
> 
> 
> ...



Have you tried clearing the CMOS. That could be the problem, always a good idea when changing Ram


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## EarthDog (Jun 7, 2016)

Ferrum Master said:


> I didn't read them, I loaded up my saves at same places... That applies for my system.
> 
> And.. for the sake of being a pain we shall summon @cadaveca. There is always a deviation. It just depends on the system tuning. Dunno what those chaps did do. As long the overall system latency goes down, it should bring few more FPS if a bottleneck somewhere else is not present.


Memory is not typically a/the bottleneck... let me try to put it another way... if you have a outdoor water faucet and it puts out 1GPM (data), you attach a garden hose to it with the same flow rate its still 1GPM. Now, if you hook up a firehose to the same 1GPM flow, do you magically get more flow just because its a bigger pipe (bandwidth)??? (no)

This is PART of the reason why the increase in games are typically negligible... again there are exceptions. 

EDIT: As far as that testing above... Metro: Last Light getting 300FPS, even with a 980Ti, can only be done at lower resolutions than 1080... that is the point at which memory could see more significant improvements... that said, it isn't a realistic result running at such a low res or low settings (not sure how the hell he tests I can't see it in the reviews!!!).

Anyhoo, I think our points have been made.... I digress on that subject.


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## ZenZimZaliben (Jun 7, 2016)

I literally just went through this on my i7 2700k...just upgraded from a i7 950. lol... Anyways XMP did not work at all as there is NO XMP Profile setting for 2133Mhz. I had to manually set all timings...including advanced timings. Sandybridge doesn't support anything over 2133Mhz. See if you can run at 1333Mhz...If you can go lower, then you can go higher but you will have to manually set every timing and it took me a very long time to get my ram running stable at 2133 10,11,11,28.

One other note..if you are using any BCLK overclocking (In my case even +5 MHZ) it will make the system near impossible to get the ram stable. Keep BCLK at 100 and just use CPU Multi.


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## rtwjunkie (Jun 7, 2016)

RaZzZz said:


> Wrong!  the reason why I went for the upgrade was indeed for the better performance  for CPU intensive games like Fallout 4, GTAV, the Witcher etc   current gen consoles use 2400Mhz RAM and most PC games are ported over to the PC, so 2400Mhz is the new 1600mhz in a sense



Actually, memory speeds above 1600 are beneficial for AMD pricessors only, which are those consoles you speak of.

It's been shown time and again that for gaming, there is nearly nonexistent benefit to go faster than 1600 with Intel processors.

Finally, as has been noted, SB IMC doesn't like to go that high.


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## jaggerwild (Jun 7, 2016)

@OP
 did you set voltages accordingly for those sticks when trying over 2133(with out XMP) manually? +1 to any advantages of overclocking your memory, in game you wont notice one bit of it, that said hope you got the receipt most places will not take back memory for warranty(if its a store)


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## ZenZimZaliben (Jun 7, 2016)

jaggerwild said:


> @OP
> did you set voltages accordingly for those sticks when trying over 2133(with out XMP) manually? +1 to any advantages of overclocking your memory, in game you wont notice one bit of it, that said hope you got the receipt most places will not take back memory for warranty(if its a store)



That is another good point. XMP Profiles will set the Voltages to 1.65V and QPI/VTT to 1.2. You will have to do that manually also.


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## cadaveca (Jun 7, 2016)

EarthDog said:


> EDIT: As far as that testing above... Metro: Last Light getting 300FPS, even with a 980Ti, can only be done at lower resolutions than 1080... that is the point at which memory could see more significant improvements... that said, it isn't a realistic result running at such a low res or low settings (not sure how the hell he tests I can't see it in the reviews!!!).



Lowest settings possible.


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## EarthDog (Jun 7, 2016)

cadaveca said:


> Lowest settings possible.


Which exaggerates the difference quite a bit I would imagine....

Have you done this testing with the highest settings? If so, were the results similar as far as percent difference between the kits? I would be curious to see real world results. 


Damnit... I went OT again...sorry OP.


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## RaZzZz (Jun 7, 2016)

Cheers for the responses lads

I got it working now after clearing the CMOS.. lovely.. RAM working now at 2133Mhz with 9 11 11 25.. not bad.. 25-29FPS increase in GTAV for starters so I am as you can imagine very happy xD

Take that EarthDog


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## Ferrum Master (Jun 7, 2016)

RaZzZz said:


> Cheers for the responses lads
> 
> I got it working now after clearing the CMOS.. lovely.. RAM working now at 2133Mhz with 9 11 11 25.. not bad.. 25-29FPS increase in GTAV for starters so I am as you can imagine very happy xD
> 
> Take that EarthDog



Wut? How much did you got more?


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## EarthDog (Jun 7, 2016)

Lol hahahaha "take that" ?!!! What are you, 10?

25-29 fps increase eh? Curious how you measured that...before and after. And what the before result was in the first place. Do tell...

Edit: though one thing I JUST noticed (though I mentioned it much earlier anyway) I see that you have multiple gpus. Faster memory helps more with multiple GPUs than with a single.


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## Mussels (Jun 8, 2016)

Ferrum Master said:


> Wut? How much did you got more?



Even i said i got decent gains from the higher speed ram... once OC'd, these CPU's love the faster ram


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## Caring1 (Jun 8, 2016)

RaZzZz said:


> Cheers for the responses lads
> 
> I got it working now after clearing the CMOS.. lovely.. RAM working now at 2133Mhz with 9 11 11 25.. not bad.. 25-29FPS increase in GTAV for starters so I am as you can imagine very happy xD


Glad you got it working, I was going to ask if the Ram was an older set designed for Sandy Bridge, or for Ivy Bridge and newer as that could affect performance.
When I bought Ram for my Z77 it stated it had to be designed for that chipset as older Ram may not function correctly.


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## Ferrum Master (Jun 8, 2016)

Caring1 said:


> Glad you got it working, I was going to ask if the Ram was an older set designed for Sandy Bridge



I actually hated XMP since it came. For example on X58 XMP shot the uncore voltage to 1.35V with corsair XMS set... I know... it works on auto then... but I didn't like the idea really...


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## RaZzZz (Jun 8, 2016)

EarthDog said:


> Lol hahahaha "take that" ?!!! What are you, 10?
> 
> 25-29 fps increase eh? Curious how you measured that...before and after. And what the before result was in the first place. Do tell...
> 
> Edit: though one thing I JUST noticed (though I mentioned it much earlier anyway) I see that you have multiple gpus. Faster memory helps more with multiple GPUs than with a single.



Ahhh come on I was clearly taking the piss.. don't be so serious lad.

Anyway I measured it at a specific point in the game and I noted down my results before and after, I had my brother here beside me and his initial response was "WTF seriously?.. 30Frames!!"   I also got an increase in Far Car Primal where I was getting on average 40FPS before the upgrade and now I am comfortably playing at 60fps, when I take the fps cap off it went up to 65fps.



Caring1 said:


> Glad you got it working, I was going to ask if the Ram was an older set designed for Sandy Bridge, or for Ivy Bridge and newer as that could affect performance.
> When I bought Ram for my Z77 it stated it had to be designed for that chipset as older Ram may not function correctly.



I couldn't tell you to be honest, never thought to search for that information.


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## EarthDog (Jun 8, 2016)

Perhaps try running the built in benchmarking utility instead. 

EDIT: Another thing, what are the ACTUAL FPS you started with? Did you add 30 on top of 150 or add 30 from 50? Big difference there in % increase. 

Sounds like you found the magic unicorn if those results hold true with empirical testing!


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## lorraine walsh (Aug 26, 2016)

If a board gets overloaded with RAM, the board may have to down-clock the ram in order to maintain stability.

This is extremely prevalent in cases in which you have 4 DIMS populated by high speed sticks. The controller might not like it and down-clock itself if it can't support it.


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## EarthDog (Aug 26, 2016)

It doesn't down clock itself. It just doesn't work without adding other voltage. YOU can down clock it...otherwise on first boot, it uses JEDEC specs lime every other stick does. Then you switch to xmp profile and it should work. If not, you need to add SA or IO voltage to help it reach those speeds.


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