Enabling XMP on Gigabyte X99-SLI causes boot failure

[PCHelpSeeker]

Hey,

Just for starters, I looked up a lot of possible solutions for this (including many threads on these forums) and found none that worked for me.

Possibly relevant Specs: CPU - I7 5930k @ 3.5GHz (turbo 4.0, 1.2V), 32GB 3200MHz G.Skill Trident RAM, X99-SLI 2011-3 Motherboard.

So I recently upgraded to some Trident 3200mhz DDR4 RAM. In particular, I ordered 2 sets of 2x8GB sticks for 32GB total and have replaced my old RAM in a Gigabyte X99-SLI 2011-3 mobo. The mobo's BIOS is F21a, so I haven't updated it further yet.

Anyway, due to the default settings this RAM runs at 2133MHz (which I thought my old RAM was, however I'm now thinking it may have been faster than I suspected). When I first noticed that, I looked for solutions and found out about XMP. I attempted to enter the BIOS and enable "XMP Profile 1", which then caused my PC to fail to boot and show this message. I further found that manually setting RAM speed, voltage, and timings might fix this and attempted that (please ignore that it says XMP is disabled; I tried a lot of configurations and this was the last one before giving up. These same settings were also tried with XMP enabled). Unfortunately it did not work.

I also took a look in CPU-Z, and these are the relevant images. From what I can tell, the fourth stick is being correctly read as 3200MHz and the other three are not. Timings also appear to be different than shown by the manufacturer's Amazon page.

Additional information: I tried setting the BCLK to 105MHz from 100MHz; this caused me to have to reset the BIOS by removing the CMOS for a short period in order to boot. This was probably my fuckup because I did not increase the CPU's voltage at the same time.

I was trying to install this memory so I could confirm the system was stable (variety of stress testing programs + monitoring temperatures) and then possibly overclock the CPU utilizing Intel Extreme Tuning Utility, however I would like to have the RAM running at full speed first.

If anyone has any ideas on how to possibly fix this, I would be very appreciative.

 

[Tradesman1]

The XMP programming is for the packaged set, you have two sets which is never a good idea, many do it save a few bucks over a four stick package. The thing is the sticks in the 4 stick package are tested to ensure all will play nice, no guarantees when mixing sets, items 6 and 2 in my article.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ddr-dram-myths,4155.html

Another thing with X99 is for 3200 you will probably need an OC on the CPU to carry 4 sticks, you may also need additional voltage to the VCCSA (system agent voltage). I'd try OCing the CPU, then start with 1 set of DRAM, enable XMP and raise the DRAM voltage to 1.4 and set the VCCSA voltage to 1.23, save, exit, shutdown and add the other two sticks and give it a try (also make sure you have the latest BIOS)

 

[PCHelpSeeker]

The XMP programming is for the packaged set, you have two sets which is never a good idea, many do it save a few bucks over a four stick package. The thing is the sticks in the 4 stick package are tested to ensure all will play nice, no guarantees when mixing sets, items 6 and 2 in my article.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ddr-dram-myths,4155.html

Another thing with X99 is for 3200 you will probably need an OC on the CPU to carry 4 sticks, you may also need additional voltage to the VCCSA (system agent voltage). I'd try OCing the CPU, then start with 1 set of DRAM, enable XMP and raise the DRAM voltage to 1.4 and set the VCCSA voltage to 1.23, save, exit, shutdown and add the other two sticks and give it a try (also make sure you have the latest BIOS)

Thanks for the response! It's a bit late here, so I'll try out some of your suggestions after I get off work tomorrow.

I'm hoping they'll be able to play nicely, but unfortunately based on what you have said that could be one of the causes of the issue I'm having. I just wanted to ask, what would you recommend OCing the CPU to (4GHz? Higher?). If that continues to not work out, I'll try updating the BIOS. I mostly held off on the BIOS update because the description sounded like it was irrelevant and I've heard that if an issue happens when flashing the BIOS it's not good, to say the least. That said, I have a UPS unit that should prevent most issues from happening.

I'm also kind of nervous about overclocking due to the issue where I had to reset via CMOS, however like I said I'm fairly certain that was caused by my failure to raise the voltage after raising the base clock rate.

 

[Tradesman1]

Let me know when you get to it, and we can try other things also, I'm in and out during the day 😉

 

[PCHelpSeeker]

Ok, so before I take any steps that might brick my PC, I wanted to post these shots of what I have available to work with in my BIOS.

The VCCSA seems to cap out at "+.500V"; I can raise the VCore and DRAM though. I'm just unsure of how to continue with regards to the VCCSA.

 

[Tradesman1]

+ 0.20

 

[PCHelpSeeker]

Sorry I didn't respond sooner, but I've been a bit busy at work and will be a bit busy for tonight as well. I haven't quite had the time to remove one of the RAM sets, but I'm going to try it tomorrow.

I did try to set the voltages as suggested with all 4 sticks in, but enabling XMP still causes a boot failure. I tried to overclock without using the turbo multipliers (and disabling turbo), but unfortunately that doesn't seem to work over 4 GHz. If enable turbo, it will let the CPU go over 4GHz, but I was getting worried about the temperatures I was seeing with it at higher frequencies and so I set it to 42/42/42/41/40/40.

While running Intel Burn Test with all cores turbo max set to 4.4 @ 1.275V, they were getting into the low 90s C by the second pass and Prime95 got up there pretty quickly as well. Setting all cores turbos to 4.2 had similar effects, though slightly slower. On further examination, I think I'm going to see if there are some fan settings in my BIOS (not sure) as I never hear the fans speeding up much and OpenHardwareMonitor only detects one...I mostly thought of this when I first set it to 4.4GHz and the fans would spin up to 100% on start-up for a few seconds; it was much louder than I've ever heard them previously.

Anyway, aside from seeing if I can modify the fan settings in the BIOS tonight, I'll attempt it with only one set of RAM in tomorrow; I really do appreciate the help!

 

[Tradesman1]

Will keep an eye out for an update 😉