Question Manually overclocking DDR5 RAM on an MSI Z690-A motherboard ?

[awesome_dood_123]

I have an i9-12900k and Intel says it supports up to 4800 mt/s DDR5 memory with this CPU. In my ignorance at the time of building my PC, I tried to enable XMP and use my (4) 5600 mt/s rated DDR5 sticks with this CPU and fell into a mini boot-loop. After struggling for days, I decided to just use the sticks at 4000 mt/s and used the computer for about a month. Then I discovered the information about the 12900k supporting up to 4800. So I enter the BIOS looking to manually increase the frequency to be used at 4800 but dont quite understand which setting I should use for timings/frequency/etc. in the manual OC menu. Timings for the memory as far as I know are, Tested Latency: 36-36-36-76/SPD Latency: 40-40-40-77

MOBO: MSI Z690-A DDR5 (no wifi)
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 64 GB (4 x 16 GB) DDR5-5600 CL36
CPU : i9-12900k

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

Reset your bios to original settings. Put the ram in and see what the ram runs at natively. What speed is it running at?

 

[awesome_dood_123]

Reset your bios to original settings. Put the ram in and see what the ram runs at natively. What speed is it running at?

4000 is the default speed without any tinkering

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

Ok so in your bios, probably under the advanced page, find the line that says XMP profile/setting. It may say XMP 1 AND XMP 2 use the first one that says 5600mhz. Set that tab for 5600mhz. Save and restart pc. See if that works.

 

[awesome_dood_123]

Ok so in your bios, probably under the advanced page, find the line that says XMP profile/setting. It may say XMP 1 AND XMP 2 use the first one that says 5600mhz. Set that tab for 5600mhz. Save and restart pc. See if that works.

I had done that when I first put the PC together, causing the boot-loop, and if it didn't boot-loop then every game I would try and launch it would crash within a minute or not open at all. Reverting back to default 4000 worked, and haven't had issues since. Point of the post was to see if someone knew how to navigate the MSI BIOS to manually overclock it to the max speed the CPU can take, as I am not entirely comfortably doing so yet

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

I had done that when I first put the PC together, causing the boot-loop, and if it didn't boot-loop then every game I would try and launch it would crash within a minute or not open at all. Reverting back to default 4000 worked, and haven't had issues since. Point of the post was to see if someone knew how to navigate the MSI BIOS to manually overclock it to the max speed the CPU can take, as I am not entirely comfortably doing so yet

You know I missed that you are using 4 sticks of ram. That is why it will not run at 5600mhz. If you use 2 sticks of ram I beleive it would run at at Xmp 5600mhz dual channel .

 

[geofelt]

Ram is sold in kits for a reason.
A motherboard must manage all the ram using the same specs of voltage, cas and speed.
The internal workings are designed for the capacity of the kit.
Ram from the same vendor and part number can be made up of differing manufacturing components over time.
Some motherboards, can be very sensitive to this.
This is more difficult when more sticks are involved.
Ram must be matched for proper operation.

You have two kits so they are not matched.

To get it to work, you will have to set the ram specs (speed, cas..)explicitly in the motherboard bios.
When you set the ram voltage, you will need to bump it up past the xmp spec of 1.1v.
Perhaps as much as 1.4v