# Is my 5820K this crappy or am I missing something?



## AndroidVageta (Jul 4, 2015)

Recently upgraded to a 5820K, Asrock X99M Killer, and 2x4GB Crucial Sport DDR4-2400 RAM.

Problem I'm having is that no matter the voltage I can't seem to get my system stable and just having weird issues over all.

For instance, I have about a 90% failure rate on manually overclocking (won't even get past BIOS start up let alone Windows) but if I load a predefined OC profile the computer boots up just fine.

So I think, "OK I'll just use a profile then!". The 4.4GHz profile (with 1.31v and 1.9v input) worked fine all last night, no problems. I gamed, ran Prime95 for an hour, watched videos with Chrome and about 10 other tabs, etc. Seems to be solid! I go to shut down the computer and it freezes on the shut down screen. Not as solid as I thought?

So I get up this morning, reboot, and these settings don't seem to work anymore...I get the same problems as I do when I manually try to OC.

So I get into the BIOS, load the 4.4GHz profile again but lower the multiplier to 4.2GHz. I think that everything being higher than needed for 4.2GHz that this must work, right?

Again, PC runs fine. All day today. Playing GTA 5, game crashes, click on "End Program"...bam...frozen. Reboot the PC...same problem as before.

So yeah...I know for a fact that mine...or any 5820K...should be able to handle freakin 4.2GHz at 1.31v with 1.9v input.

What's the deal here? Am I missing some setting? Anyone else have a similar setup? It's pretty aggravating.

Also, Windows takes, like, forever to load now. I'd swear it's running off of a 5400RPM hard drive or something. Where on my Z77 system it would be done before the logo could even form now it sits there...loading...for at least a good 8-10 seconds or so.

Anyways, thoughts?


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## AndroidVageta (Jul 5, 2015)

Here's pics I took of the BIOS. This is the 4.4GHz pre-made profile. Excuse the flash in the center, only way I could get lighting good enough to see the screen haha!

























http://imgur.com/a/K8x8Y

The first and second pic are continuations of each other.

Let me know if there's something I missed.


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## OneMoar (Jul 5, 2015)

sounds like PSU instability to me ...
fill out your specs ....


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## AndroidVageta (Jul 5, 2015)

OneMoar said:


> sounds like PSU instability to me ...
> fill out your specs ....



Oops! Done!

Oh also, on the PSU, I suppose it could be. Shouldn't 1000 watts be enough though? I don't know...it's a tad old and bought used so for all I know it could have been folding or mining or something.


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## cadaveca (Jul 5, 2015)

AndroidVageta said:


> So yeah...I know for a fact that mine...or any 5820K...should be able to handle freakin 4.2GHz at 1.31v with 1.9v input.




FIrst, update BIOS if possible.

Second, 5820K is 3.4 GHZ on all cores stock. SO 4.2 GHz...yeah....not all will do that, for sure.

Third, try lowering the cache ratio to 30. 


Bad PSU wouldn't make windows take long to load. Sounds like normal stability issues on this platform, to me.


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## AndroidVageta (Jul 5, 2015)

cadaveca said:


> FIrst, update BIOS if possible.
> 
> Second, 5820K is 3.4 GHZ on all cores stock. SO 4.2 GHz...yeah....not all will do that, for sure.
> 
> ...



Updated to the latest BIOS last night...v1.9. Before doing that it was running v1.6 and was having the same issues then too. 

Is 4.2GHz really out of the question with some of these? 

Also, even at stock settings in the BIOS I still have the long boot times...starting to suspect this might just be how it is perhaps???


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## cadaveca (Jul 5, 2015)

Get a memtestX86 disc/USB and run that and see if it pops up errors.

No, boot times should no be long. I have many X99 boards, 10 seconds from pressing power to hitting desktop on a SATA 6 Gb/s SSD is normal boot time for me.

I'd start by running the memtest on stock, after "loading defaults" in BIOS.

I'm also curious about your cooling.


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## AndroidVageta (Jul 5, 2015)

cadaveca said:


> Get a memtestX86 disc/USB and run that and see if it pops up errors.
> 
> No, boot times should no be long. I have many X99 boards, 10 seconds from pressing power to hitting desktop on a SATA 6 Gb/s SSD is normal boot time for me.
> 
> ...



I'll try Memtest though I don't think the RAM is the issue as I've never had a BSOD on this system...just hard lock ups or freezing BIOS.

I have the hard drives running in RAID mode due to the dual 500GB's I have in RAID. Could that be the issue?


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## OneMoar (Jul 5, 2015)

AndroidVageta said:


> I'll try Memtest though I don't think the RAM is the issue as I've never had a BSOD on this system...just hard lock ups or freezing BIOS.
> 
> I have the hard drives running in RAID mode due to the dual 500GB's I have in RAID. Could that be the issue?


should't be unless the RAID driver is taking ages to load
your SSD is your boot drive correct ?
make sure you are using ACHI and that write-caching is enabled for the SSD but DISABLED for the RAID
last time I tried to use write caching with RAID 0 it resulted in dismal performance but that was on SSD's tho so flip the settings around via the device manger and see what you get .
10 seconds is pretty optimistic especially for a aging vertex drive


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## cadaveca (Jul 5, 2015)

AndroidVageta said:


> I'll try Memtest though I don't think the RAM is the issue as I've never had a BSOD on this system...just hard lock ups or freezing BIOS.
> 
> I have the hard drives running in RAID mode due to the dual 500GB's I have in RAID. Could that be the issue?




Just to start at the basics, yes, I'd run memtest to ensure you have that angle covered.

Running RAID will add some time to boot as the controller is initialized, but that would all be prior to the windows "loading circle" appearing.

if memtest passes, then I'd boot into the OS and try SuperPi 32M, then try wPrime and ADIA64 Stability test (both with the top four tests selected, and then with just PFU selected), and if that all passes, then it's on to 3D testing.


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## OneMoar (Jul 5, 2015)

cadaveca said:


> Just to start at the basic, yes, I'd run memtest to ensure you have that angle covered.
> 
> Running RAID will add some time to boot as the controller is initialized, but that would all be prior to the windows "loading circle" appearing.


he didn't say if it was slow though post or just slow booting to windows


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## AndroidVageta (Jul 5, 2015)

OneMoar said:


> he didn't say if it was slow though post or just slow booting to windows



Ehhh...both...to a degree. 

When I turn on my PC it sits doing nothing other than being on for about 4-5 seconds...then keyboard lights up then immediately after the RAID setup pops up then BIOS screen then to Windows which takes a lot longer to boot than previous systems.

Also suspecting RAM or PSU now. Just a while ago my system froze on shutting down and that was with everything at defaults/stocks expect the RAM which was running XMP.

So I guess all I can do is run Memtest overnight and see if anything pops up. Report back tomorrow I suppose.

Would bad RAM cause the BIOS to freeze and all that though?


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## OneMoar (Jul 5, 2015)

AndroidVageta said:


> Ehhh...both...to a degree.
> 
> When I turn on my PC it sits doing nothing other than being on for about 4-5 seconds...then keyboard lights up then immediately after the RAID setup pops up then BIOS screen then to Windows which takes a lot longer to boot than previous systems.
> 
> ...


sounding more and more like a hardware fault 
double check your cooler mounting and make sure its not overly tight (which should be impossible with a H70) but I would check and make sure the screws aren't torqued vastly different


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## cadaveca (Jul 5, 2015)

AndroidVageta said:


> Ehhh...both...to a degree.
> 
> When I turn on my PC it sits doing nothing other than being on for about 4-5 seconds...then keyboard lights up then immediately after the RAID setup pops up then BIOS screen then to Windows which takes a lot longer to boot than previous systems.
> 
> ...


IT could, as if it is unstable, this can affect onboard devices and memory training.


And honestly...oi... H70 for cooling? Yikes. 4.2 on Haswell-E. NOPE. Big fat NOPE.


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## Bad Bad Bear (Jul 5, 2015)

AndroidVageta said:


> Recently upgraded to a 5820K, Asrock X99M Killer, and 2x4GB Crucial Sport DDR4-2400 RAM.
> 
> Problem I'm having is that no matter the voltage I can't seem to get my system stable and just having weird issues over all.
> 
> ...



Hey mate, sorry to hear you're having issues. My first 5960X would not overclock at all, no matter how much much voltage I pumped through it. I returned it and_* voilà*_, happy overclocking goodness ensued with number 2.

I'm thinking you have a bad overclocker there. Try running it at 4 GHz and see if you still have the instability issues. Just the "silicon lottery" as they say.


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## AndroidVageta (Jul 5, 2015)

Yeah, this is just getting weird. Just shut her off to check tightness of the mount as it's an older H70 and isn't native 2011. I got it working as I had proper length screws that worked. I didn't put it on very tight to begin with (not new to this stuff guys!) but, just to be sure.

So I start up the computer and all I'm met with is a black screen with a blinking "_" in the top left corner. Just sitting there. Restart the computer and it boots up normally.

Now, my question is...why would it do that? If nothing was changed or anything like that why would it boot to a blank screen and a under score for no reason then boot up fine upon restart? Could that be RAM related? 

If the RAM is the problem why no BSOD? Every RAM issue I've ever had in the past always resulted in those at some point.

Hmm...


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## OneMoar (Jul 5, 2015)

AndroidVageta said:


> Yeah, this is just getting weird. Just shut her off to check tightness of the mount as it's an older H70 and isn't native 2011. I got it working as I had proper length screws that worked. I didn't put it on very tight to begin with (not new to this stuff guys!) but, just to be sure.
> 
> So I start up the computer and all I'm met with is a black screen with a blinking "_" in the top left corner. Just sitting there. Restart the computer and it boots up normally.
> 
> ...


if fiddling with the mount changed something then you either have to much or too little pressure on the socket could very likely be the problem
I would pull the cpu inspect the socket and re-install the cooler taking care too evenly tighten the screws down but not to tight a 1/2 turn pasted "snug" is usually sufficient
over-tight is worse then not tight enough


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## AndroidVageta (Jul 5, 2015)

OneMoar said:


> if fiddling with the mount changed something then you either have to much or too little pressure on the socket the incorrect mounting screws could very likely be the problem
> I would pull the cpu inspect the stock and re-install the cooler taking care to evenly tighten the screws down but not to tight a 1/2 turn pasted "snug" is usually sufficient



Perhaps...it's about right now though. No tighter than any other AIO I've used. I mean, I could be wrong but it's certainly not excessive and the temps are well within safety limits. Running Prime95 now at stock and seeing mid 60's.

So it being too loose and/or hot isn't the cause...neither is being too tight.

Speaking of which though, does anyone have a 2011 mounting kit for these round coolers? Wouldn't mind an actual 2011 kit regardless. 

So yeah...at this point I'm at a loss...could it be a possible motherboard issue? Might better explain the sometimes locked up posts?


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## OneMoar (Jul 5, 2015)

AndroidVageta said:


> Perhaps...it's about right now though. No tighter than any other AIO I've used. I mean, I could be wrong but it's certainly not excessive and the temps are well within safety limits. Running Prime95 now at stock and seeing mid 60's.
> 
> So it being too loose and/or hot isn't the cause...neither is being too tight.
> 
> ...


its not about temps intel engineers there sockets with a certain amount of pressure too much WILL cause issues it will cause everything from no post to ram not working to pcie slots not working and random instability
there is a reason the proper LGA2011 kit comes with the correct length screws and spacers/shims
take a one or half of  a turn out of the screws and re-test if it gets worse go tighter


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## AndroidVageta (Jul 5, 2015)

OneMoar said:


> its not about temps intel engineers there sockets with a certain amount of pressure too much WILL cause issues it will cause everything from no post to ram not working to pcie slots not working and random instability
> there is a reason the proper LGA2011 kit comes with the correct length screws and spacers/shims
> take a half of turn out of the screws and re-test if it gets worse go tighter



I think I'm going to just try and find a 2011 mounting kit for these Asetek coolers and get it done right.

If anyone has one let me know!


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## OneMoar (Jul 5, 2015)

if any of the above makes a a difference but you can't pin it down then its a good bet that the board may be defective


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## AndroidVageta (Jul 5, 2015)

OneMoar said:


> if any of the above makes a a difference but you can't pin it down then its a good bet that the board may be defective



Yeah I'm going to test everything that I can. Give the RAM a good run through tonight in Memtest and get a proper 2011 kit. 

I did buy the board used through a reputable member who said his 5960X overclocked mighty fine on it but who knows what happens during shipping and handling, etc.


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## OneMoar (Jul 5, 2015)

AndroidVageta said:


> Yeah I'm going to test everything that I can. Give the RAM a good run through tonight in Memtest and get a proper 2011 kit.
> 
> I did buy the board used through a reputable member who said his 5960X overclocked mighty fine on it but who knows what happens during shipping and handling, etc.


running a memtest is not gonna do you any good until you eliminate  the socket as possible cause
pull the cpu inspect the pins and try again ...


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## xkm1948 (Jul 5, 2015)

For 5820K 4.2GHz should be a walk in the park. With two of the eight cores disabled and only 28 PCI-E lanes you should have better OC headroom when comparing with 5930K or 5960X.

First thing I would check is make sure you are having OK CPU temp. You need to keep those Haswell-E chips below 80C for long term stability.

Second thing is check to make sure the RAM you have is approved by your MoBo manufacture. There should be a QVL for the RAM. 

If you have good temp and the RAM checks out then there is a very high chance your 5820K is just one of those stinkers. You can always sell it and grab one from "Silicon Lottery"  It is a small company that bin through tens of hundreds of CPUs to make sure what you get will be a champ overclocker. 


My current 5820K handles 4.2GHz on air with only 1.2V vCore. I can reach 4.8GHz with around 1.36V vCore but the temp will be too high for air cooling.


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## OneMoar (Jul 5, 2015)

xkm1948 said:


> For 5820K 4.2GHz should be a walk in the park. With two of the eight cores disabled and only 28 PCI-E lanes you should have better OC headroom when comparing with 5930K or 5960X.
> 
> First thing I would check is make sure you are having OK CPU temp. You need to keep those Haswell-E chips below 80C for long term stability.
> 
> ...


please read the thread before replying ...


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## xkm1948 (Jul 5, 2015)

Here, check your mem support list on this page:
http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Fatal1ty X99M Killer/?cat=Memory


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## xkm1948 (Jul 5, 2015)

OneMoar said:


> please read the thread before replying ...



Eh what did I do wrong?


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## AndroidVageta (Jul 5, 2015)

xkm1948 said:


> Eh what did I do wrong?



Your points have been covered.


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## AndroidVageta (Jul 5, 2015)

xkm1948 said:


> Here, check your mem support list on this page:
> http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Fatal1ty X99M Killer/?cat=Memory



BLS4G4D240FSA is on that list and I've got two so...yes it is.


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## xkm1948 (Jul 5, 2015)

So are you going to try the Silicon Lottery?

http://siliconlottery.com/collections/frontpage/products/5820k46g


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## xkm1948 (Jul 5, 2015)

AndroidVageta said:


> BLS4G4D240FSA is on that list and I've got two so...yes it is.



You may find something useful here among your fellow Asrock X99 owners:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1515832/asrock-x99-motherboard-owners-club


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## AndroidVageta (Jul 5, 2015)

Don't wish to speak too soon but I bumped the RAM down to 2133 and I've had no crashes yet. Exited a few games (which caused crashes pretty consistently) and have restart a couple times, etc. Nothing that's caused freezing before is doing it now. Too soon to tell but that might be the issue.

Oh, running the system at 4.4GHz as well.


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## AndroidVageta (Jul 5, 2015)

Well I spoke too soon. Restarted after typing that just to see and the PC restarted about half a second into the Windows loading screen. 

What's weird though is that upon restarting I didn't stop it and it loaded into Windows fine...and did it faster than I've seen it get into Windows so far. I was only at the fully formed logo for like 2 seconds maybe?

So yeah...weird. I really don't know at this point what the problem could be.


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## HWTactics (Jul 5, 2015)

I didn't see you mention anywhere that you've tried using the PC without overclocking the CPU.

Why not run it at stock clocks to establish a stable baseline first?  It seems like you may have jumped to a high OC too quickly.  Take your time and think it out.  Baby steps.


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## kn00tcn (Jul 5, 2015)

disable loadline calibration... or put it to the max, adjust voltages accordingly (with it disabled, you might have to raise your settings)


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## AndroidVageta (Jul 5, 2015)

HWTactics said:


> I didn't see you mention anywhere that you've tried using the PC without overclocking the CPU.
> 
> Why not run it at stock clocks to establish a stable baseline first?  It seems like you may have jumped to a high OC too quickly.  Take your time and think it out.  Baby steps.





> Also suspecting RAM or PSU now. Just a while ago my system froze on shutting down and that was with everything at defaults/stocks expect the RAM which was running XMP.



Got you covered!


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## AndroidVageta (Jul 5, 2015)

kn00tcn said:


> disable loadline calibration... or put it to the max, adjust voltages accordingly (with it disabled, you might have to raise your settings)



I've already tried it both ways...no go.

As said previously though I'm having the same issues at stock clocks...so it's certainly not overclock related. I don't believe at this point.


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## Aquinus (Jul 5, 2015)

AndroidVageta said:


> When I turn on my PC it sits doing nothing other than being on for about 4-5 seconds...then keyboard lights up then immediately after the RAID setup pops up then BIOS screen then to Windows


You just described how my machine boots every time. RSTe waits for all the drives to spin up before the entire OPROM is loaded and it can sometimes take 4-8 seconds for RSTe to detect all my drives. Sometimes it takes 1 second. Once the bootloader is hit, the machine is at login screen within 10 seconds but I'm also booting off SSDs.

Are you booting off that RAID-0 or the SSD?


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## AndroidVageta (Jul 5, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> You just described how my machine boots every time. RSTe waits for all the drives to spin up before the entire OPROM is loaded and it can sometimes take 4-8 seconds for RSTe to detect all my drives. Sometimes it takes 1 second. Once the bootloader is hit, the machine is at login screen within 10 seconds but I'm also booting off SSDs.
> 
> Are you booting off that RAID-0 or the SSD?



Booting off a Vertex 4 128GB. Have dual 500GB hard drives in RAID 0.


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## Aquinus (Jul 5, 2015)

kn00tcn said:


> disable loadline calibration... or put it to the max, adjust voltages accordingly (with it disabled, you might have to raise your settings)


Do you know what LLC does? If you did, you wouldn't make a recommendation like that as LLC helps keep you from killing your CPU at higher voltages. Maybe a description of what it is and what it does is in order:


			
				LinusTechTips said:
			
		

> *Background on LLC:*
> 
> For those of you who don't really know what LLC is: LLC was a featured added to motherboards several generations ago to combat vdroop.  Vdroop is a drop in voltage supplied to the CPU as load increases; basically when you go from idle to load, the voltage would decrease.  Given the small voltage tolerance that overclockers are working with (increased voltage is proportional to the CPU frequency/multiplier that an overclock can achieve), a droop in voltage applied to CPU can make a theoretically stable overclock unstable (dropping the voltage below that required to achieve the set frequency).  LLC applies additional voltage to the CPU to combat vdroop so that when switching to load, there is sufficient voltage to keep that frequency stable.  So LLC is great and you want to turn it on? Yes, but...
> 
> For most modern motherboards, there are different levels of LLC that you can set in your bios.  At certain levels of LLC (these may be different for each motherboard), the LLC can overcompensate for this vdroop, and actually apply vboost.  Vboost is when the voltage actually supplied to the CPU is above the value that you set in your bios.  This can be a nice way of ensuring that your overclock will be stable, but you have to be careful, because each CPU has a death voltage (the voltage where, if applied to your CPU, it will likely die).  If you are toeing the line near your CPU's death voltage to try to squeeze every last MHz out of your overclock, LLC can bring your actual voltage above this level, which is a great way of killing your CPU (or making it degrade much faster).  So although LLC is great for overclockers, it should be used with care, because you may just end up killing your CPU.


Source


AndroidVageta said:


> Booting off a Vertex 4 128GB. Have dual 500GB hard drives in RAID 0.


Hmmm. Is the SSD on the RAID controller or is it on its own controller? It's entirely possible that TRIM commands aren't getting to the SSD and write performance has gone to crap. How's the SMART attributes look on the SSD and is the SSD close to full?


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## AndroidVageta (Jul 5, 2015)

So it would appear that something is majorly wrong here. I can't even get the system to boot any longer. It now either freezes at the Asrock boot screen (after the RAID screen) or restarts during Windows loading within a few seconds. This is at stock speeds, RAM running as low as DDR4-800, BIOS defaults, etc.

Going to try and reseat the CPU but I doubt that's the issue.


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## qubit (Jul 5, 2015)

AndroidVageta said:


> So it would appear that something is majorly wrong here. I can't even get the system to boot any longer. It now either freezes at the Asrock boot screen (after the RAID screen) or restarts during Windows loading within a few seconds. This is at stock speeds, RAM running as low as DDR4-800, BIOS defaults, etc.
> 
> Going to try and reseat the CPU but I doubt that's the issue.


I've just seen your thread and immediately thought "bad mobo". Reading your OP and the first handful of posts and the last few, especially your last one only confirmed this to me.

Also, as your PSU is old and bought second hand, it's possible that it's faulty. Even a 1KW PSU won't power your system properly if there's something wrong with it and you can see some weird shit very similar to this if it's bad, especially when it's intermittent. I have a handy PSU tester made by Thermaltake bought for the princely sum of £23.99 a few years ago and recommend that you get something similar.

It could be the CPU, GPU, PSU or the RAM perhaps, but it's much more likely to be that mobo, so I recommend getting a new one and seeing if it cures your problem. Make sure that you buy it online so that you can try it first and return it easily for a refund if it doesn't fix the problem. Amazon tend to be my retailer of choice due to their superb customer service and no quibble refund policy.

However, only do this after getting the PSU tester (also from Amazon!) and checking your PSU with it. Don't worry about using that gadget "only once" either, as it's useful in a surprising number of situations.


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## AndroidVageta (Jul 5, 2015)

qubit said:


> I've just seen your thread and immediately thought "bad mobo". Reading your OP and the first handful of posts and the last few, especially your last one only confirmed this to me.
> 
> Also, as your PSU is old and bought second hand, it's possible that it's faulty. Even a 1KW PSU won't power your system properly if there's something wrong with it and you can see some weird shit very similar to this if it's bad, especially when it's intermittent. I have a handy PSU tester made by Thermaltake bought for the princely sum of £23.99 a few years ago and recommend that you get something similar.
> 
> ...



I think you might be right. When it wasn't booting right now I forgot to mention that I changed the boot SSD to a S_SATA port in order to run it AHCI to see if that would help with boot speed. When I switched it back to it's original port Windows booted again.

HOWEVER...that still doesn't explain, in my mind, why the BIOS screen froze 50% of the time just now. I mean, if it was 100% Windows crashing I could understand because of the port switch (which I read multiple places shouldn't matter?) but it wasn't Windows crashing 100% of the time...

So yeah...this sucks...I just simply don't have the money for this haha! I'm tapped out! Guess I'll just stick to stock speeds, hope my PC boots up after I shut it down, and just deal with it freezing here and there.


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## qubit (Jul 5, 2015)

That's a shame that you can't try a PSU tester and mobo, as that's really needed to get to the bottom of this.  Can anyone loan you the money, perhaps?

Is your mobo still under warranty? If so and you can live without your PC for a while, then perhaps try an RMA?

You can also try a bit of underclocking and see if that helps. If it makes no difference, you could try reducing the voltages a bit, as that would take some pressure off possibly faulty mobo power regulation components.


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## AndroidVageta (Jul 5, 2015)

qubit said:


> That's a shame that you can't try a PSU tester and mobo, as that's really needed to get to the bottom of this.  Can anyone loan you the money, perhaps?
> 
> Is your mobo still under warranty? If so and you can live without your PC for a while, then perhaps try an RMA?
> 
> You can also try a bit of underclocking and see if that helps. If it makes no difference, you could try reducing the voltages a bit, as that would take some pressure off possibly faulty mobo power regulation components.



Yeah I can go without for a little while. I bought it used and through PayPal so I can probably just get my money back. We'll see what happens.


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## Solaris17 (Jul 5, 2015)

cadaveca said:


> Get a memtestX86 disc/USB and run that and see if it pops up errors.



This ^


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## AndroidVageta (Jul 5, 2015)

Solaris17 said:


> This ^



I am going to tonight before starting the process of motherboard return. Meant too last night but spent the night elsewhere.


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## qubit (Jul 5, 2015)

AndroidVageta said:


> Yeah I can go without for a little while. I bought it used and through PayPal so I can probably just get my money back. We'll see what happens.


Ah, that explains a lot.



AndroidVageta said:


> I am going to tonight before starting the process of motherboard return. Meant too last night but spent the night elsewhere.


It doesn't hurt to try it, but note that memtest is hardly definitive when interpreting its results. The takeaway message is that if it picks up errors then you have bad hardware, but if it doesn't then you may still have bad hardware as it can't pick up everything.

I know, because this happened to me with some new memory sticks I bought some time ago for one of my old Athlon 64 systems. I bought 1GB DDR2 x4 but when all 4 sticks were plugged in, Windows would freeze solid from anywhere between 30 seconds to 5 minutes, at random. Maddening. I tried different combinations of sticks and they all worked - except all 4 together. The PC worked fine in the BIOS too and memtest gave it a clean bill of health, even when run overnight. I tried a different installation of Windows on a different HDD and that did the same thing.

I eventually got it to run stable by setting "weak drive" in the BIOS memory settings, but that didn't last. I gave up in the end as the fault could have been in the mobo or the memory sticks so I just went back to my old memory sticks (2GB).

I recently tried those 4 sticks in a vintage system belonging to a friend of mine as he wanted to upgrade it and lo and behold, this time one of the sticks definitively showed up as bad since the PC wouldn't even post - no beep, nothing, just fans spinning, even when plugged into a different slot and on its own. Remove it and all was fine.

If I could have had a definitive result like this back then, I would have returned the faulty stick for a refund. Alas, it's been years now and hence too late.

Treat memtest "good" results with skepticism!


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## Solaris17 (Jul 5, 2015)

qubit said:


> Ah, that explains a lot.
> 
> 
> It doesn't hurt to try it, but note that memtest is hardly definitive when interpreting its results. The takeaway message is that if it picks up errors then you have bad hardware, but if it doesn't then you may still have bad hardware as it can't pick up everything.
> ...



Not really memtest is great at detecting errors with memory. TIs common knowledge that fully populated channels stress the NB and or memory controller more which is probably why your 2x2gb worked fine. In that case I am certain it was a motherboard issue. But thats exactly what memtest will do just that. If the memory passes fine the error is elsewhere.


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## qubit (Jul 5, 2015)

Solaris17 said:


> Not really memtest is great at detecting errors with memory. TIs common knowledge that fully populated channels stress the NB and or memory controller more which is probably why your 2x2gb worked fine. In that case I am certain it was a motherboard issue. But thats exactly what memtest will do just that. If the memory passes fine the error is elsewhere.


No, because I confirmed the bad memory in another mobo, which gave me that verify. Until then I couldn't be sure.

I initially had 4x512MB in there not 2x2GB that you assumed, so that is perhaps what confused you?

And yes, I know about populating all slots putting more physical stress on the memory controller, bu that's not the issue here. I should also stress that there was no overclocking involved.


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## AndroidVageta (Jul 5, 2015)

qubit said:


> No, because I confirmed the bad memory in another mobo, which gave me that verify. Until then I couldn't be sure.
> 
> I initially had 4x512MB in there not 2x2GB that you assumed, so that is perhaps what confused you?
> 
> And yes, I know about populating all slots putting more physical stress on the memory controller, bu that's not the issue here. I should also stress that there was no overclocking involved.



Running Memtest now before I nap 

Won't be mad thorough but maybe it'll pick something up before the overnight test this evening.


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## qubit (Jul 5, 2015)

Hopefully you'll see something solid. If you do, try running with less RAM and see how that goes, then memtest it again.


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## cadaveca (Jul 5, 2015)

qubit said:


> No, because I confirmed the bad memory in another mobo, which gave me that verify. Until then I couldn't be sure.
> 
> I initially had 4x512MB in there not 2x2GB that you assumed, so that is perhaps what confused you?
> 
> And yes, I know about populating all slots putting more physical stress on the memory controller, bu that's not the issue here. I should also stress that there was no overclocking involved.


did you run memtest for 9 days? because until the most recent release, that's how long proper testing took. You can not expect testing to work properly if you don't do it properly. Now it takes 4 passes...and it shows "1/4" when it starts. Then there's all these people complaining about how their ram doesn't pass the "Hammer" test, and how that's OK...actually... it's not.


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## OneMoar (Jul 5, 2015)

cadaveca said:


> did you run memtest for 9 days? because until the most recent release, that's how long proper testing took. You can not expect testing to work properly if you don't do it properly. Now it takes 4 passes...and it shows "1/4" when it starts. Then there's all these people complaining about how their ram doesn't pass the "Hammer" test, and how that's OK...actually... it's not.


go home dave you are drunk
memtest x86+ ftw
and yes I am in camp bit-rot/hammer test errors mean jackshit because I have yet to hear,see or readable a stability issue caused by bit-rot outside of a database server thats not running ECC


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## cadaveca (Jul 5, 2015)

OneMoar said:


> go home dave you are drunk
> memtest x86+ ftw
> and yes I am in camp bit-rot/hammer test errors mean jackshit because I have yet to hear,see or readable a stability issue caused by bit-rot outside of a database server thats not running ECC


..yet every single ram kit I have passes the hammer test... DDR3 from 1333 to 3100 MHz, and DDR4 from 2133 MHz to 3200 MHz...

Point is, the new UEFI-capable Memtestx86 takes only 4 passes (still takes well over a day), and does a much better job than past versions.


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## OneMoar (Jul 5, 2015)

cadaveca said:


> ..yet every single ram kit I have passes the hammer test... DDR3 from 1333 to 3100 MHz, and DDR4 from 2133 MHz to 3200 MHz...
> 
> Point is, the new UEFI-capable Memtestx86 takes only 4 passes (still takes well over a day), and does a much better job than past versions.


none of my systems passed the hammer test and they aren't crashing left and right so ...
and yea a complete cycle of memtest would take untill the next ice age
but generally if the ram is suspect and is indeed the issue it will show within the first 4 to 6 hours and likely a lot sooner if the ram is indeed at fault


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## AndroidVageta (Jul 5, 2015)

Well that was helpful. I go to turn on my monitor only to see that Memtest is "Out of Range" according to my monitor. The fuck is that about??? Goddamn...so now I'm running it AGAIN and will make sure to keep the monitor on...


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## cadaveca (Jul 5, 2015)

Yeah, there is no "initialization" signal upon turning on the monitor that tells it what resolution to run (hence the "out of range").


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## qubit (Jul 5, 2015)

cadaveca said:


> did you run memtest for 9 days? because until the most recent release, that's how long proper testing took. You can not expect testing to work properly if you don't do it properly. Now it takes 4 passes...and it shows "1/4" when it starts. Then there's all these people complaining about how their ram doesn't pass the "Hammer" test, and how that's OK...actually... it's not.


9 days, seriously? Who's got that kind of time? That sounds really excessive and I've never seen that requirement stated anywhere. I've seen you talk about memtest before and I've not seen you say it before either, although I obviously don't see every comment you make lol, so I could have missed it.

Anyway, I ran mine for over 24 hours and on more than one occasion, along with various quickies and it passed every time. Dodgy sticks normally fail within a few minutes to hours, so 24 hours is pretty thorough. I also swapped the sticks round and fiddled with the BIOS memory settings, wiggled the modules with the computer running and generally faffed around quite a bit with it before giving up in frustration. If you're curious, the mobo was an Abit AN8 Ultra with the latest BIOS and not overclocked while I was testing.

I bought the RAM in February 2011 and ran the tests at the time, when it didn't work properly, so quite a long time ago as you can see. After not using the RAM for all those years, I then tried it in a different mobo belonging to my friend* a few months ago and that's when I discovered that one of the sticks wouldn't even let the PC post. Now, whether that stick degraded in the meantime or just works marginally on one mobo and not at all on another one I don't know, but I'm not bothered finding out as it's academic now. btw, he just bought some cheap and nasty HP prebuilt after that, which has very little upgrade potential, even though I said I'd help him put a PC together. Oh well. 

*It was an Asus A8N-VM CSM. Yes, it was my mobo too until I gave it to my friend a few years ago to keep his PC building costs down as it was only for the common internet and email usage. Oh and I've got this PC back now, bought 4GB RAM for it the other day, plugged it in and it works. It's just that it reports that it's got 4GB RAM and 3GB useable in Windows 7 64-bit and the BIOS shows 3GB. Nice, lol. The manual of course says nothing about this problem. It runs well enough as it is, though.


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## cadaveca (Jul 6, 2015)

I have said it before, but yeah, test #7 alone takes like 9 days to fully test like 8 or 16 GB, can't remember. You can find the post by the software's author on his forum explaining why when he was asked why the software didn't indicate true stability. It is still a good indicator to proper stability, and the new version works fairly well, but still has some detection bugs to work out.


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## hat (Jul 7, 2015)

And here I thought once it made a full pass, taking quite a small amount of time, it had tested all the RAM and it was good to go. Multiple passes just to be sure it didn't miss something. 9 days??


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## AndroidVageta (Jul 7, 2015)

hat said:


> And here I thought once it made a full pass, taking quite a small amount of time, it had tested all the RAM and it was good to go. Multiple passes just to be sure it didn't miss something. 9 days??



If I have to test my RAM for 9 days I'm just buying new RAM!


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## qubit (Jul 7, 2015)

hat said:


> And here I thought once it made a full pass, taking quite a small amount of time, it had tested all the RAM and it was good to go. Multiple passes just to be sure it didn't miss something. 9 days??


I don't think it misses anything as such ie the RAM is completely tested.

Flaky hardware has a tendency to work intermittently, whether it's a car, a clock or computer gear etc, so it could work 100%, then suddenly show a glitch for a moment, then go back to being good and pretending like nothing happened. Over time, these glitches get more frequent and last longer until eventual and inevitable complete hardware failure. Dry solder joints are notorious for this behaviour and also make the device temperature sensitive. I think the 9 days of testing, as crazy as it is, is designed to tease out problems like this. I'm not convinced that perfectly good hardware wouldn't actually develop faults after being stress tested so intensively over an extended period of time however. Heck, I might just try this out with my spare computers and let you all know how it goes.

@cadaveca This is my interpretation of the rationale for the extended testing. How do you see it?


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## cadaveca (Jul 7, 2015)

Different areas of the ram are tested in different ways with each pass. With the older version, you can see this with just two passes..the first is a preliminary pass that takes about 15 minutes, but the second, when testing 8 GB, will take nearly 45 minutes. 

So no, it's not about forcing out issues...it's that parts of the ram just weren't tested yet.

The latest version shows 4 passes as sufficient, but ultimately, proper testing devices for memory cost a significant amount of money that no free software is going to replace.


----------



## RichF (Jul 7, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> LLC helps keep you from killing your CPU at higher voltages.


Anandtech's article on it suggested the opposite: that transient spikes are higher with LLC enabled which is more risky than having vdroop cause you to set a higher voltage in BIOS for the same stability that LLC provides with a lower setting.


----------



## OneMoar (Jul 7, 2015)

cadaveca said:


> Different areas of the ram are tested in different ways with each pass. With the older version, you can see this with just two passes..the first is a preliminary pass that takes about 15 minutes, but the second, when testing 8 GB, will take nearly 45 minutes.
> 
> So no, it's not about forcing out issues...it's that parts of the ram just weren't tested yet.
> 
> The latest version shows 4 passes as sufficient, but ultimately, proper testing devices for memory cost a significant amount of money that no free software is going to replace.


so nothing we didn't already know about memtest or any software stability testing in general
I fail to understand your point also I would think that running a mem-test for days on end would have the potential to induce errors that would normally never occur under normal operating conditions e.g how the hammer test checks for bitrot/leaking


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## MxPhenom 216 (Jul 7, 2015)

xkm1948 said:


> Eh what did I do wrong?



Feeding false information


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## AndroidVageta (Jul 7, 2015)

So I'm chalking this up to bad RAM. My friend and I are having the same issues basically and we're both running the same RAM (he has 1 and a half kit and I have the other half) and if I lower the RAM speed stability increases. Not perfectly, mind you, but going from 2400 to even 2133 nets me MUCH fewer crashes. Things that before were nearly guaranteed lock ups are now not a problem.

Even someone on Newegg said they had to run the RAM at 2000 to achieve stability. Makes sense.

So yeah I know think the motherboard and CPU are fine, it's just some bonk ass RAM.


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## OneMoar (Jul 7, 2015)

I don't think its the ram I think its the IMC trying feeding the system-agent some more  voltage


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## R-T-B (Jul 7, 2015)

Is this an X99-A with Crucial Ballistix Sport?  Yeah I have the EXACT same issue.  I run at DDR4-2000 with lower latency and it works fine.  Go to 2400 and I have issues.  I think it's a combination of flakey ram and a sensitive mobo.

EDIT:  Nvm, this is an Asrock I see.  But I do have a similar issue with the same ram for whatever it's worth.


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## AndroidVageta (Jul 7, 2015)

R-T-B said:


> Is this an X99-A with Crucial Ballistix Sport?  Yeah I have the EXACT same issue.  I run at DDR4-2000 with lower latency and it works fine.  Go to 2400 and I have issues.  I think it's a combination of flakey ram and a sensitive mobo.
> 
> EDIT:  Nvm, this is an Asrock I see.  But I do have a similar issue with the same ram for whatever it's worth.



Yeah, think the RAM is either shitty or the motherboard is possibly picky. Either way I doubt it's a mobo issue. Friend of mine went through four motherboards before we started looking into RAM...there's no way he had that many bad motherboards. Even exchanged his 5960X for good measure. So that's 4 motherboards, 2 CPU's, and a new 1300 watt PSU that he went through while still having the same issues as I am.

It's the RAM, no doubt. What else could it be that explains why my system is running perfectly with lower RAM speeds and nothing else changed?


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## OneMoar (Jul 7, 2015)

AndroidVageta said:


> Yeah, think the RAM is either shitty or the motherboard is possibly picky. Either way I doubt it's a mobo issue. Friend of mine went through four motherboards before we started looking into RAM...there's no way he had that many bad motherboards. Even exchanged his 5960X for good measure. So that's 4 motherboards, 2 CPU's, and a new 1300 watt PSU that he went through while still having the same issues as I am.
> 
> It's the RAM, no doubt. What else could it be that explains why my system is running perfectly with lower RAM speeds and nothing else changed?


there is a reason intel specs the 5960x to run at a maximum speed  of  for the ram 2133 anything above that and you are _expected_ to need to manually tweak the voltages and or timings 
XMP is by no means perfect id bump the system-agent by +0.050 to +0.100 and see if helps I would also do as dave suggested and put everything on manual and set things by hand


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## cadaveca (Jul 7, 2015)

I am actually more inclined to think it's the board's BIOS tuning myself.

But what model of ram exactly are we talking about... I just might have a set...


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## OneMoar (Jul 7, 2015)

cadaveca said:


> I am actually more inclined to think it's the board's BIOS tuning myself.
> 
> But what model of ram exactly are we talking about... I just might have a set...


you have so many kits around if there was ever a dram shortage you could be a very rich man :lol:


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## AndroidVageta (Jul 7, 2015)

cadaveca said:


> I am actually more inclined to think it's the board's BIOS tuning myself.
> 
> But what model of ram exactly are we talking about... I just might have a set...



The Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4-2400 2x4GB to be exact. 

And it might be settings, etc...all I know at this point is that it is a RAM issue. As long as it's not the mother board or CPU I'm OK haha!


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## MxPhenom 216 (Jul 7, 2015)

AndroidVageta said:


> The Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4-2400 2x4GB to be exact.
> 
> And it might be settings, etc...all I know at this point is that it is a RAM issue. As long as it's not the mother board or CPU I'm OK haha!


2x4gb? I know your friend has the other half of the kit, but why?


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## R-T-B (Jul 7, 2015)

AndroidVageta said:


> The Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4-2400 2x4GB to be exact.
> 
> And it might be settings, etc...all I know at this point is that it is a RAM issue. As long as it's not the mother board or CPU I'm OK haha!



Yeah, ram is certainly cheaper, so here's hoping it's ram.



MxPhenom 216 said:


> 2x4gb? I know your friend has the other half of the kit, but why?



It's actually easier on the mem controller that way, but he does lose quad channel ability...  kinda sucky to lose that yeah.


----------



## AndroidVageta (Jul 7, 2015)

MxPhenom 216 said:


> 2x4gb? I know your friend has the other half of the kit, but why?



Well he had a X99 system first...bought the quad channel kit and his system kept messing up (doing the same stuff mine is). So he bought another to see if it had the same issue.

Long story short he found that six sticks worked and just gave me the other two. Problem is that he's getting issues again, same as before, so it's a RAM issue for both of us at this point.


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## OneMoar (Jul 7, 2015)

AndroidVageta said:


> Well he had a X99 system first...bought the quad channel kit and his system kept messing up (doing the same stuff mine is). So he bought another to see if it had the same issue.
> 
> Long story short he found that six sticks worked and just gave me the other two. Problem is that he's getting issues again, same as before, so it's a RAM issue for both of us at this point.


when posting ram kit please provide the whole product number


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## AndroidVageta (Jul 7, 2015)

OneMoar said:


> when posting ram kit please provide the whole product number



Here you go!


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## qubit (Jul 7, 2015)

cadaveca said:


> Different areas of the ram are tested in different ways with each pass. With the older version, you can see this with just two passes..the first is a preliminary pass that takes about 15 minutes, but the second, when testing 8 GB, will take nearly 45 minutes.
> 
> So no, it's not about forcing out issues...it's that parts of the ram just weren't tested yet.
> 
> The latest version shows 4 passes as sufficient, but ultimately, proper testing devices for memory cost a significant amount of money that no free software is going to replace.


It takes 9 days to check all parts of RAM?


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## R-T-B (Jul 7, 2015)

qubit said:


> It takes 9 days to check all parts of RAM?



Ram is weird.  It can write a flat set of 1s or 0s to a block correctly and then completely fail when that becomes a certain pattern.  You really need to try all sorts of different results and read them back to know it's truly stable.  9 days is probably excessive for a consumer but it is certainly a solid amount of time to test for good stability.


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## qubit (Jul 7, 2015)

R-T-B said:


> Ram is weird.  It can write a flat set of 1s or 0s to a block correctly and then completely fail when that becomes a certain pattern.  You really need to try all sorts of different results and read them back to know it's truly stable.  9 days is probably excessive for a consumer but it is certainly a solid amount of time to test for good stability.


So it's all the miriad different patterns that need to be tested, that makes sense. The point I made in post 63 still holds true though, so now we have at least two good reasons to soak test the RAM.

I do wonder how many of my old rigs would actually pass such a thorough test.


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## cadaveca (Jul 7, 2015)

qubit said:


> I do wonder how many of my old rigs would actually pass such a thorough test.


100% of mine will. But I've always been hardcore into ram stability, and it is also why I suggested memtest first when other were looking elsewhere.

In the end, I wouldn't even blame the ram. I'd blame the platform itself, and likely the combination of parts just won't play well together, but on their own, they will all test out as perfectly fine. WHen we build computers we are actaulyl building a complex electrical circuit, and sometimes the load placed on certain parts of the circuit causes weird issues that are unexplainable.

I have that ram, yep. It works fine, tested quite a few boards already, actually.


What really gets me is that for sure, some boards with OC socket makes some CPUS nice, but other CPUs are down-right horrible. Take that horrible CPU, but it in another board wit ha different OC socket, or a normal socket, and it works GREAT....


----------



## kn00tcn (Jul 8, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> Do you know what LLC does? If you did, you wouldn't make a recommendation like that as LLC helps keep you from killing your CPU at higher voltages. Maybe a description of what it is and what it does is in order:
> 
> Source


i know what LLC is, look at anandtech instead http://www.anandtech.com/show/2404/5

with LLC on, the PEAK voltages are going beyond recommended spec during the transition points, the intel spec is designed for vdroop & LLC goes against intel

anand was also more unstable as was i on my q9550 overclock, therefore i am not a fan of LLC

i dont see why people think vdroop is a bad thing, just change the settings for slightly 'more' voltage... it's not like you're gaining 15 degrees from LLC off with slightly more voltage vs LLC on with supposedly lower voltage

your second paragraph of the quote even says how LLC on has the chance of killing or deterioating your cpu, quite the opposite of 'helps keep you from killing your cpu at higher voltages', all it does is a motherboard maker's attempt at trying to provide flatter voltages due to people's perceptions (maybe it helps when you're on the extreme edge, professional overclocking, world records, etc)

i will check the rest of that post & i do like that there are measurements charts, science is the only way


----------



## qubit (Jul 8, 2015)

@cadaveca

Well, good for you that all your PCs are that rock solid. 

The old geriatrics I'm thinking of are things like P3s, P4s, Athlons (32 and 64-bit) some of which were work discarded prebuilt machines and potentially had some abuse, hence I wouldn't be surprised if they fell over when stressed too hard. In fact some are not even full PCs, being just a case, mobo and CPU in some cases, with the parts robbed to feed something else, lol.

+1 on perfectly "good" parts not working together. Sure, standards are created to ensure they do, but they sometimes won't as we know to our cost. Some reasons being things like standards that aren't quite robust enough, aging components which are drifting out of spec or components that just aren't made that well and therefore don't quite meet the spec in the first place or have loose tolerances within the spec. That's a great example with the mobo, since there are just _so many_ components on it which need to work to spec for it to go and of course the errors tend to accumulate rather than cancel out.


You'll like this story.

It's the summer of 2003 and instead of having a life like normal people, I build my first gaming PC based around a 32-bit 1.8GHz Athlon 2500+ CPU (ran reliably at 2.2GHz "3200+" speed with just a multiplier adjustment) an Asus A7N8X Deluxe mobo, an FX5200 AGP card (yes, yes, I know now, lol) and Windows XP Pro. I initially got 2 x DDR333 256MB modules for it. I did overclock them and I don't remember the exact speed reached, but it was slower than DDR400.

I then bought a DDR400 module of the same size some time later and sold one of the DDR333 modules (the poorer overclocker). Pair that remaining DDR333 module with the DDR400 one and I could overclock both sticks to something like DDR440, which was really impressive for the DDR333 module. However, run that DDR333 module on its own and it would fall over well before DDR400 speed. This even happened when I set the memory timings manually in the BIOS to match those set automatically by SPD when running the DDR400 stick. However, if I ran the DDR400 stick on its own, it unsurprisingly ran fine at its rated speed and I think hit DDR440 on its own, I don't quite remember now. The DDR333 stick I got rid of however, never did overclock reliably to DDR400 let alone to DDR440, regardless of the mobo slot I used. It might get to DDR400 speed, but then crash quite soon after. Note that the DDR333 sticks were matched pairs in terms of brand and model numbers, but bought as single packs, not in twin packs back then.

It looks like having a second stick in there running in dual channel mode somehow helped that superman of a DDR333 stick to run really fast and reliably overclocked and to this day I have no idea why this was the case. Any ideas?


----------



## AndroidVageta (Jul 9, 2015)

R-T-B said:


> It's actually easier on the mem controller that way, but he does lose quad channel ability...  kinda sucky to lose that yeah.



Do you mean I loser quad or my friend does? According to the manual for his motherboard (MSI Gamer 7) he can run 6 sticks in quad-channel. Look it up. Mad weird...didn't know that was possible as I would have assumed quad channel would require 4 or 8 sticks. Multiples of 4.

Either way, I found out my issue was the RAM. Have it at 2133MHz right now with no issues. Even overclocked to 4.4GHz with no issues.


----------



## sneekypeet (Jul 9, 2015)

I'm with @cadaveca it has to be a bios memory timing issue.

On the Asus I used I had no issues with that kit.


----------



## AndroidVageta (Jul 9, 2015)

sneekypeet said:


> I'm with @cadaveca it has to be a bios memory timing issue.
> 
> On the Asus I used I had no issues with that kit.



Perhaps. Motherboard timings are correct with RAM spec. 2133 works though, so while it might now be the normal 2400 it at least works now so I'm OK with it.


----------



## sneekypeet (Jul 9, 2015)

the AUTO settings for the memory would also change for said setting. All I am saying is that to get 2400MHz to run right or attempt to clock them at all, the secondaries may need relaxing a bit to make it run correctly with that motherboard. Also make sure you are on the latest BIOS, and look around in the memory section, there may just be an extra XMP profile, various settings for certain IC types, just maybe they have a built in answer to your issue.


----------



## cadaveca (Jul 9, 2015)

That board isn't too intelligent... ram OC needs fully manual settings, including RTL tweaks.


----------



## sneekypeet (Jul 9, 2015)

cadaveca said:


> That board isn't too intelligent... ram OC needs fully manual settings, including RTL tweaks.



Didn't even look TBH, thanks for the correction and time savings for them.


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## cadaveca (Jul 9, 2015)

It's a gaming product, not OCF, so it is not tailored for other than CPU clocking, IMHO. Same as most board, really, as few contain added memory profiling. It is the same with ASUS X99-A, which seems to be popular but has common reports of similar issues with Crucial ram.

Heck, I got a $1200 Corsair 2800 MHz DDR3 kit (retail, not review sample) that only works on X79... any other boards... no boot. Ram is fine, board is fine, CPUs are fine... but sometimes the right mix of parts is nothing but problems.


----------



## AndroidVageta (Jul 9, 2015)

cadaveca said:


> It's a gaming product, not OCF, so it is not tailored for other than CPU clocking, IMHO. Same as most board, really, as few contain added memory profiling. It is the same with ASUS X99-A, which seems to be popular but has common reports of similar issues with Crucial ram.
> 
> Heck, I got a $1200 Corsair 2800 MHz DDR3 kit (retail, not review sample) that only works on X79... any other boards... no boot. Ram is fine, board is fine, CPUs are fine... but sometimes the right mix of parts is nothing but problems.



Yeah, it's working fine now but I'll probably get something different on down the road. I'm sure I could tweak it here and there but that's not really my forte and I'd probably cause more hard than good haha! 2133 is fast enough really. It has my 5820K solid at 4.4GHz so I'm happy, it's all I really wanted.


----------



## cadaveca (Jul 9, 2015)

I'm glad you got it sorted to your satisfaction!


----------



## heky (Jul 12, 2015)

Have the same board (x99m extreme4 is phisicaly the same), same ram (the full 16gb kit), and the same proc.(5820K)

Am running the ram at 2400 with the timings tightened to 15-15-15-35, the proc overclocked to 4.5ghz(cache to 3.5).
Input voltage set to 1.9V, vcore set to adaptive - 1.244V, cache voltage set to adaptive - 1.199V, DRAM voltage 1.25V, SA voltage offset +0.100V
Every other voltage at stock setting and its rock solid(asus realbench stress test24H)

Just my 2c


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## AndroidVageta (Jul 15, 2015)

This stuff exactly:

http://www.crucial.com/csrusa/en/bls4k4g4d240fsa

Two sticks in Dual Channel? No problem. XMP works fine. 

Triple sticks in Triple Channel? No problem. XMP works fine.

Quad channel? Ain't happening. Even at 2133Mhz and 1.3v (rated for 2400 @ 1.2v). System will either hang on post, system reboots during Windows startup, or system will crash when in Windows. CPU overclocked or not, doesn't matter.

This has been in two different systems...FIVE different motherboards...three different CPU...TWO different kits...same problem. Get a EVGA 4x4GB DDR4-2800 kit? No issues...booted right up and been working for a couple days now intensively. 

So what gives? Even with motherboards that are certified for the RAM (Asrock X99 Extreme-4 and Arock X99M Killer) same issues. RAM been Memtested...all of it. No physical issues with the RAM. No errors.

Yeah...it's something to do with this model, these kits, and quad channel. Makes no sense to me!

Thoughts?


----------



## OneMoar (Jul 15, 2015)

AndroidVageta said:


> This stuff exactly:
> 
> http://www.crucial.com/csrusa/en/bls4k4g4d240fsa
> 
> ...


probly just down to the peculiarities of the IC's in those sticks
I am sure dave would love to see the list of boards you tried and the corresponding bios revision


----------



## AndroidVageta (Jul 15, 2015)

OneMoar said:


> probly just down to the peculiarities of the IC's in those sticks
> I am sure dave would love to see the list of boards you tried and the corresponding bios revision



But across two different kits and 5 different motherboards? Isn't that a bit excessive? Especially considering some of those motherboards were specifically rated for this exact kit.


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## OneMoar (Jul 15, 2015)

AndroidVageta said:


> But across two different kits and 5 different motherboards? Isn't that a bit excessive? Especially considering some of those motherboards were specifically rated for this exact kit.


Well its entirely possible that a few of the combinations you tried where down to the cpu's IMC being weak ... to much tension on the socket,incorrect bios config or any of the other 50 things that will cause issues ... 

shit like this has been happening since the the era of SIMM Ram
some combinations of ram,cpu,board just will not play nice
regardless of what the specs and the QVL say ...


----------



## AndroidVageta (Jul 15, 2015)

OneMoar said:


> Well its entirely possible that a few of the combinations you tried where down to the cpu's IMC being weak ... to much tension on the socket,incorrect bios config or any of the other 50 things that will cause issues ...
> 
> shit like this has been happening since the the era of SIMM Ram
> some combinations of ram,cpu,board just will not play nice
> regardless of what the specs and the QVL say ...



Well this was with two 5960X's and a 5820K. Exact same symptoms on all systems, on all boards, in all settings. Only thing that was a constant was quad channel. 

I mean, hey, you could be right...but the number of configurations and the consistency of it just seems weird. It's like, what configuration does this RAM work in???


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## OneMoar (Jul 15, 2015)

AndroidVageta said:


> Well this was with two 5960X's and a 5820K. Exact same symptoms on all systems, on all boards, in all settings. Only thing that was a constant was quad channel.
> 
> I mean, hey, you could be right...but the number of configurations and the consistency of it just seems weird. It's like, what configuration does this RAM work in???


idk send it to @cadaveca  I am sure he will find some combination of board,proc that will work
the man has more boards in stock then newegg


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## hat (Jul 16, 2015)

Come to think of it I seem to recall issues with crucial ballistix sport ddr3 back on x58...


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