Question Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000 DDR4 running at 2133Mhz on Asrock B450M Pro4-F?

[mossi]

Hi,
I recently bought a new rig and upgraded to Ryzen 2600 with 4x4Gbs of DDR4 Vengeance LPX rated as 3000Mhz (CMK16GX4M4B3000C15) on an Asrock B450M Pro4-F.
However if I load XMP the PC boots 3 times (like it does when it doesn't like the overclock settings) and it tells me the RAM is running at 2133Mhz..
In the BIOS it's saying that it XMP is loaded but even when I load 3000mhz as the speed it still defaults to 2133Mhz..
I have a feeling I'm missing something important here.. any ideas?
Thank you all!

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Update your bios to the latest non-ryzen 3000 version and try again.

Ryzen has issues with 4 sticks of ram, especially when XMP is enabled. You should have gotten 2x8GB as it has a greater chance of working and will be faster than 4x4.

 

[mossi]

My bios is version 1.30 currently for this motherboard:
https://www.asrock.com/MB/AMD/B450M Pro4-F/index.asp#BIOS

If I understand what you said correctly then this is the version I need (before Ryzen 3000 which would be 1.50?)

Or should I just update to 1.50?

I bought the 4x4 sticks because they were cheap on ebay.
Would it be better to sell them and buy 2x8 instead?

 

[clutchc]

Yeah, my 300-series board was picky with faster RAM. Even with just 2 sticks. The later AGESA updates in the newer BIOS fixed that. I suspect that is all you need to do. Update the BIOS.
Although I'm surprised that the 400-series boards aren't OK with all DIMM slots populated by this time.

 

[mossi]

I updated the bios to 1.50 and changed again the settings to XMP and again it did the same thing.. it rebooted 3 times and when I go back into Windows it still does the same.
The menu at the BIOS seemed a bit different after the flashing and it showed how XMP would be upping the RAM voltage to 1.35 from 1.20
Is there anything else I need to be doing other than just selecting XMP?
Do the 3 consecutive reboots indicate that it doesn't like the change to XMP?

 

[mossi]

I saw someone in youtube had the same issue sort of but with 2 sticks.
The suggestion from someone in the comments was to switch the sticks to A2 and B2 instead so I took out 2 of the sticks from A1 and B1 but it still did the same thing (the 3 boots loop) and the RAM is still at 2133mhz..

 

[clutchc]

I've built a few Ryzen systems since they came out. I don't remember any issues quite like you describe. I wonder if you simply have a bad board or bad RAM stick(s)? Is anything still returnable?

 

[mossi]

I don't know to be honest.. without another motherboard to try or another RAM set to swap out it's hard to say.. the only thing about this motherboard is that it's quite new. It's the Pro4-F version not the usual Pro4. In hindsight maybe I should have invested into something more established so to say. I'm not sure where to go from here.. I think I'll be raising a ticket with Asrock unless someone else can think of anything else? I mean everything else about the system works fine without any issues. I'm leaning towards an issue with the motherboard having a set of 4 sticks..

The sticks were bought 2nd hand from eBay before anything else. I think that if they were faulty I'd be seeing some errors.

Not sure where else to go from here..

 

[clutchc]

Have you tested the RAM with Memtest? Running each stick individually for at least one full pass?

 

[mossi]

I haven't done that on the basis of not having any error messages or BSOD coming up.

However.. do you think there is value in doing in it? Have you seen cases where errors have appeared for sticks that otherwise seem to function ok?

I mean I can try it, I don't see any harm other than that it's going to be a bit of a faff and I won't have access to the PC during that period

 

[mossi]

I got the following reply from Asrock:
The AGESA code which is part of the BIOS for this newer motherboard model is a new line of AGESA code, introduced by AMD to support Ryzen 3000 series. It is still rather immature and RAM compatibility/performance can still be improved.

A new BIOS was released today:
https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/B450M Pro4-F/index.asp#BIOS
Can you please try this? Perhaps it will accept the DDR4-3000 XMP profile as it is.

The Pinnacle Ridge CPU officially supports maximum DDR4-2933 with 2 modules, and possibly lower with 4 modules:
https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/B450M Pro4-F/index.asp#Specification
With 2 modules it is usually possible to exceed this official maximum. With 4 modules it can be more difficult.

Besides that DDR4-3000 is not a native frequency for Ryzen. DDR4-2933 is, so it might be easier to reach that.

Please test with 2 modules, in slots A2 and B2 (2nd and 4th slots from the CPU).
In BIOS load default settings via F9.
Then select the DDR4-3000 XMP profile.
And after that change the DRAM frequency to DDR4-2933.
Save via F10.

Does this work? Of not then please repeat those steps, but in the end set the DRAM frequency to DDR4-2667.

With 4 modules you can follow the same steps, but the results might be different.

But this has a warning of not doing it if I have a Pinnacle Ridge CPU which I do.. go figure.
I'll try other speeds but what I'm seeing here is that 3000 doesn't work for AMD and I tried 2933 and it didn't boot either so I'll try other speeds..
I'm leaning towards buying a different RAM set of 2 chips this time..

 

[mossi]

So I did what Asrock said.
I took 2 chips out from A1/B1 and left A2/B2.
I switched to XMP and then changed the RAM speed to 2400 and 2666 and it booted normally.
When I changed the speed to 2933 it didn't boot and eventually reverted back to 2133.
The results were the same for all 4 chips. Still booted with 2400 and 2666 but not with 2933.

Does this mean that the motherboard can't cope with 2933 speed?
Or the RAM chips are not good enough for 2933?
I would think it's the motherboard as the chips are rated 3000 from Corsair.
Then again I haven't done the RAM test yet.
Am I missing a trick in terms of playing around with the timings or would the XMP sort that?
Then again if XMP is intended for Intel timings of 3000 does it also mean it changes timings?

I guess the question is do I buy another RAM set which could have the same results or stick with 2666 and be content with that?
My only concern is for gaming..
There is another 2x8GB kit I can get (again Corsair LPX) but I'm thinking that there is possibly no guarantee that it will work for 2933?

Unless someone knows of a 2x8 kit that works as 2933 with this motherboard?

 

[clutchc]

Once you verify with Memtest on each stick individually for at least one full pass that one of the sticks isn't bad, I think you can eliminate the RAM as the cause. I'd have to assume at this point that the board just can't handle it. I notice Asrock has several disclaimers on the board's specs page about using 4 sticks and whether they are single rank or dual rank. I suspect that is what the problem is.

If you can return or sell the RAM, grabbing 2 sticks of 8GB might allow you to at least get 2933 if not 3000 MHz.