EZ XMP on Asus Z170 Premium not working

[El Vato]

Hello everyone,

I just about finished my first ever build and everything works fine save for one thing. The RAM I purchased is the G. Skill Trident Z 4000MHz but upon enabling the "EZ XMP" switch on my motherboard, the system becomes unbootable and I have to use the "MemOK!" button to restore the RAM to its default and therefore boot up my system. I already tried changing the settings in the BIOS by enabling the pre-loaded XMP profile and upon restarting the computer it simply does the same thing and becomes unbootable until I use the Mem OK button again which then restores the RAM to its default 2130-ish MHz. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

Components in my build:
-Corsair 750 D
-Corsair H100i v2
-Corsair HX1000i
-Asus Z170 Premium motherboard
-16GB G. Skill Trident Z 4000MHz (2 sticks of 8GB)
-Intel i7 6700K 4GHz
-Western Digital Black 2TB

 

[Tradesman1]

Do you have the latest BIOS? Will want that , also how much of an OC on the CPU do you have - will prob need 4.4 or better

 

[El Vato]

Do you have the latest BIOS? Will want that , also how much of an OC on the CPU do you have - will prob need 4.4 or better

Yes, I believe I do, I tried to update it and t said it was up to date. And no, my processor isn't overclocked yet. It's running at the stock 4 GHz.

 

[Tradesman1]

My bad on the BIOS, saw the 4000 sticks and knew it would be needing an OC on the CPU and would want latest. But yes guessing you'll need an OC of 4.4 or better to help the MC (memory controller carry 4000.

 

[El Vato]

My bad on the BIOS, saw the 4000 sticks and knew it would be needing an OC on the CPU and would want latest. But yes guessing you'll need an OC of 4.4 or better to help the MC (memory controller carry 4000.

Does the fact that I only have 2 of the DIMM slots populated have anything to do with why it doesn't enable automatically?

 

[Tradesman1]

XMP has to be manually enabled. It takes the settings from the sticks and put's those in place for the DRAM....However, for the higher bandwidths, the CPU may need an OC to carry the settings for the DRAM....On the mobo specs basically any DRAM that it is qualified to run will have an '(OC)' beside it which indicates an OC of the MC/CPU may be required. Most 6700K can up to to 2800-3200 with no OC but it all depends on the individual 6700K, most all need an OC for 3400 or higher

 

[El Vato]

XMP has to be manually enabled. It takes the settings from the sticks and put's those in place for the DRAM....However, for the higher bandwidths, the CPU may need an OC to carry the settings for the DRAM....On the mobo specs basically any DRAM that it is qualified to run will have an '(OC)' beside it which indicates an OC of the MC/CPU may be required. Most 6700K can up to to 2800-3200 with no OC but it all depends on the individual 6700K, most all need an OC for 3400 or higher

Ahh I see what you mean, I just OC my CPU to 4.4 GHz and it's running 4000MHz on my RAM now. But I am noticing that my CPU clock is fluctuating a lot. It goes from as low as 1.6GHz to 4.4 then down to 3 and so on. Is this normal? Sorry for all the questions, this is the first time I have ever done this.

 

[Tradesman1]

Yes it's normal it runs at what it needs, if it simply runs nonstop at 4.4 then the heat buildup would be humongous, 4.4 isn't a bad OC, but might monitor temps of CPU to ensure the cooler and thermal compound is properly applied and working, congrats and have fun 😉

 

[El Vato]

Yes it's normal it runs at what it needs, if it simply runs nonstop at 4.4 then the heat buildup would be humongous, 4.4 isn't a bad OC, but might monitor temps of CPU to ensure the cooler and thermal compound is properly applied and working, congrats and have fun 😉

Yeah, it's actually stays at or below 31 or 32 degrees Celsius surprisingly. One last question, I didn't change the stock voltage, just the clock multiplier. Should I have increased the voltage from the stock one?

 

[Tradesman1]

As long as stable, no need for it, sounds like you may have a lottery CPU, and can go even higher 😉

 

[El Vato]

As long as stable, no need for it, sounds like you may have a lottery CPU, and can go even higher 😉

Lol we will see in the long run. Thanks for all the help!

 

[Tradesman1]

No worries, have fun 😉

 

[El Vato]

No worries, have fun 😉

Sad to say it didn't last very long. It only works at 4000MHz until you have to reset the computer. After that I get either Q-Code 55 ("Memory not installed") or code 41 along with the "CPU_LED" lighting up and I have to crank teh RAM down to 3867MHz despite my processor operating at 4.5GHz.

 

[Tradesman1]

Try raising the VCCIO voltage + 0.05

 

[El Vato]

Try raising the VCCIO voltage + 0.05

I'll try it, but I don't want to damage my CPU. Right now it's currently at 1.312 V