Question Any XMP experts?

[slingsrat]

I have a gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming3 and 2x 8GB Gskill 3000Mhz memory. I can enable XMP in the BIOS

But occasionally the machine wont boot

This happens every 10 or so boots. The memory is not on the supported memory list but some Gskill 3000Mhz memory is. Do you think this is the issue? Like I said it does boot most of the time.

 

[Darkbreeze]

The fact that it is not on the QVL list is not the issue. It is never the issue. For any board.

The QVL list is absolutely not a exclusive list, nor is it a definitive inclusive list. It is merely a sampling of what they actually tested on that board and determined would be detected and run at the default configuration. It is not even indicative that any given kit will actually run AT it's XMP value. It is ONLY indicative that the kit will RUN, period, on that board, at the default configuration.

Your problem likely lies elsewhere.

Is the memory installed in the second and fourth slots over from the CPU? Those will be the two red slots. Those are the slots they should be installed in if you have two DIMMs.

Is the "Memory fast boot" setting enabled in the advanced memory settings enabled? Have you made ANY manual configuration changes to the memory?

Have you tried doing a hard reset of the BIOS and then RE-enabling the XMP settings? That would be where I'd probably start.

Power off the unit, switch the PSU off and unplug the PSU cord from either the wall or the power supply.

Remove the motherboard CMOS battery for five minutes. In some cases it may be necessary to remove the graphics card to access the CMOS battery.

During that five minutes, press the power button on the case for 30 seconds. After the five minutes is up, reinstall the CMOS battery making sure to insert it with the correct side up just as it came out.

If you had to remove the graphics card you can now reinstall it, but remember to reconnect your power cables if there were any attached to it as well as your display cable.

Now, plug the power supply cable back in, switch the PSU back on and power up the system. It should display the POST screen and the options to enter CMOS/BIOS setup. Enter the bios setup program and reconfigure the boot settings for either the Windows boot manager or for legacy systems, the drive your OS is installed on if necessary.

Save settings and exit. If the system will POST and boot then you can move forward from there including going back into the bios and configuring any other custom settings you may need to configure such as Memory XMP profile settings, custom fan profile settings or other specific settings you may have previously had configured that were wiped out by resetting the CMOS.

In some cases it may be necessary when you go into the BIOS after a reset, to load the Optimal default or Default values and then save settings, to actually get the hardware tables to reset in the boot manager.


Along with that, you might also want to manually bump the DRAM voltage up to 1.36v. On my Z170X Gaming 5 I had to do that or I did have infrequent problems with my Trident Z sticks.

What is the model of your memory kit? Did you buy both those sticks together in one kit or were they bought separately?

Is the CPU overclocked at all? What is your VCCIO voltage set to? What is your System agent voltage set to? What is your CPU model?

 

[slingsrat]

The fact that it is not on the QVL list is not the issue. It is never the issue. For any board.

The QVL list is absolutely not a exclusive list, nor is it a definitive inclusive list. It is merely a sampling of what they actually tested on that board and determined would be detected and run at the default configuration. It is not even indicative that any given kit will actually run AT it's XMP value. It is ONLY indicative that the kit will RUN, period, on that board, at the default configuration.

Your problem likely lies elsewhere.

Is the memory installed in the second and fourth slots over from the CPU? Those will be the two red slots. Those are the slots they should be installed in if you have two DIMMs.

Is the "Memory fast boot" setting enabled in the advanced memory settings enabled? Have you made ANY manual configuration changes to the memory?

Have you tried doing a hard reset of the BIOS and then RE-enabling the XMP settings? That would be where I'd probably start.

Power off the unit, switch the PSU off and unplug the PSU cord from either the wall or the power supply.

Remove the motherboard CMOS battery for five minutes. In some cases it may be necessary to remove the graphics card to access the CMOS battery.

During that five minutes, press the power button on the case for 30 seconds. After the five minutes is up, reinstall the CMOS battery making sure to insert it with the correct side up just as it came out.

If you had to remove the graphics card you can now reinstall it, but remember to reconnect your power cables if there were any attached to it as well as your display cable.

Now, plug the power supply cable back in, switch the PSU back on and power up the system. It should display the POST screen and the options to enter CMOS/BIOS setup. Enter the bios setup program and reconfigure the boot settings for either the Windows boot manager or for legacy systems, the drive your OS is installed on if necessary.

Save settings and exit. If the system will POST and boot then you can move forward from there including going back into the bios and configuring any other custom settings you may need to configure such as Memory XMP profile settings, custom fan profile settings or other specific settings you may have previously had configured that were wiped out by resetting the CMOS.

In some cases it may be necessary when you go into the BIOS after a reset, to load the Optimal default or Default values and then save settings, to actually get the hardware tables to reset in the boot manager.


Along with that, you might also want to manually bump the DRAM voltage up to 1.36v. On my Z170X Gaming 5 I had to do that or I did have infrequent problems with my Trident Z sticks.

What is the model of your memory kit? Did you buy both those sticks together in one kit or were they bought separately?

Is the CPU overclocked at all? What is your VCCIO voltage set to? What is your System agent voltage set to? What is your CPU model?

That's a lot of info thanks! I don't want to reset my BIOS yet I have so many settings that aren't default. I pumped up the DDR voltage 1.36 so we'll see if that fixes anything.

So what about "Memory Fast Boot"? I should disable that? Currently it is set to "auto".

 

[Darkbreeze]

Set it to disabled for now. Save settings, exit BIOS. Shut down. Start the machine and allow it to POST and boot into Windows. If you have no problems with the restart, then exit windows, back into bios and set it to enabled. Save settings and exit BIOS. Boot to Windows. That way, it's not trying to reconfigure the memory every time you boot or restart. With it disabled or on auto, it will likely run through the training process during every POST cycle.