Odd issue after cooler install and ram upgrade .

[Gmoney06ss]

So last night I decided to finally install my cooler master seidon 120v liquid cooler to see if I could get any higher on my overclock with better temps. I'm running an amd fx4350 and Asus crosshair formula mobo. Prior to the new cooler install I was running a cm hyper 212 and stabily overclocked to 4.8ghz, but was still messing without voltage and was still at 1.488v .Set at1.5 in bios. Was running perfectly stable.

Only changes I made were installing the liquid cooler and some new ram, went from 2x8 gb sticks to 4x4 gb sticks .After trying to boot with new cooler, it would not. It finally did and my screen came up and said overclock failure please enter setup and change. Reset to default all seemed fine .Except I lost my landriver .And it won't reinstall.

Going to reinstall Windows and all other drivers, hardware tonight and see what happens .Just wondering if anyone has any suggestions or clues as to what may have happened .

 

[geofelt]

A motherboard has to run all ram sticks at the same specs of speed, cas and voltage.
That is much harder to do with 4 sticks vs. 2.
Why did you change? 4 x 4 does not give you quad channel operation.
If your 4 x 4 is not from the same kit, you might be having ram incompatibility issues, that is why ram is sold in kits.
You could try increasing the ram voltage in the bios to see if it is more stable.
Test your ram with memtest86+. You should be able to do a couple of full passes with NO errors.
I think I would revert to your 2 x 8gb assuming it was a matched kit.

 

[Gmoney06ss]

The ram is a kit .Gskills ripjawz 1866; from crucial ballistic 1600. Would revert back, but have already returned the crucial. The pc did finally fire up, but seems to have wiped out my lan drivers . Also according to cpu-z all ram is at the proper speed, cas and voltage .

 

[Gmoney06ss]

Maybe I should try and remove two sticks and just run 8gb for now, until I can buy another 2x8 gb combo.

 

[geofelt]

I have no idea why your lan drivers are missing and can't be reinstalled.

I think your ram is probably sound.
Memtest86+ is the gold standard for testing ram.
If it passes, look elsewhere for your lan problem.

Perhaps a simple system restore to a previous good working date would solve the issue.

 

[Gmoney06ss]

Only problem is without lan drivers I have no internet .So icant download memtest .Small enough to email? Could possibly download on my phone and load it up .Hope rams good it is brand new .Will try system restore as well .If not, reinstall Windows, mobosoftware and all gfx software too. Again.

 

[Gmoney06ss]

Ok downloaded mem test onto my phone .Will try and get it on the pc later .Also will be trying to reinstall the water cooler and triple check that everything is properly hooked up .

 

[Gmoney06ss]

Any ideas about how all of asudden the overclock is bad? When the cooling should be better? Or probably all related somehow?

 

[geofelt]

There should have been a cd with drivers that came with your motherboard.
The lan drivers should be there. They might not be the very latest, but it should work.

 

[Gmoney06ss]

The mobo CD does have the drivers, but for some reason won't install them. I think I may have messed something up bad. I'm beginning to think a complete reinstall of everything is the fix .System restore is not working .

And apparently this cooler is subpar compared to the 212 .Looks like I may be looking at a case and better cooler now .That is if I can actually fix my problem and didn't destroy something.

 

[Gmoney06ss]

Well I spoke too soon. System restore worked .But I'm seeing a 2*c temp difference at idle at stock clock with this cooler .Was 39* overclock, now 37* at stock with new cooler. And for some reason my mobo is still reading the ram as 1600 and not 1866 .

Thinking it may be a good idea to go back to 2 sticks instead of 4. Going to try and overclock but don't think I'll get anywhere close to where I was on air .Kinda lame. Need to get a better case and cooler asap!

 

[Gmoney06ss]

Cooler seems to be working under load .But it will not let me manually overclock .Won't let me adjust voltage .If I try for 1.5 like it was it crashes the system and I have to do another restore to get my settings back .

 

[geofelt]

No cooler can get close to ambient temperature.
At idle, I would expect a good one to be 10-15c. over ambient. You look OK there.

 

[Gmoney06ss]

I'm just wondering now why it won't let me increase voltage without crashing and having to restore.

 

[Gmoney06ss]

The cooler does seem to be working better at load .Levels out at about 52*c running p95 .But that's with the fan at almost 100%, and stock clock. I think I might try a better fan or add a second fan. Cheaper than a new case and cooler.

 

[geofelt]

I'm just wondering now why it won't let me increase voltage without crashing and having to restore.

Overclocking is not a guarantee; not all get golden chips. You hear about the good ones, not the bad ones.

If you need cpu power, make plans for Intel of some sort.

 

[Gmoney06ss]

I completely understand that it's not a guarantee, but it was overclocking on air perfectly .My next real build will most definitely be Intel. But for now I'm rocking the amd and may even get a 8350, but sticking to the 4350 for now .I'm just stumped as to why a "better" cooling solution would yield worse overclocking results. I'm doing what I can though. I'll get it to work out somehow .

 

[geofelt]

I think the difference is related to the ram.
Higher speed ram will require higher voltage.
If your new ram requires higher voltage than the old, it may take away some of the ability of the cpu to increase the voltage required for a higher multiplier.
It may not be a big effect, but I saw this with intel 4790K.

 

[Gmoney06ss]

Ram is rated at the same 1.5v as previous ram, but again it's 4 stick instead of the 2. Never considered that part of the equation . I did get back up to 4.8 with less voltage, but seem to have hit a wall there and can't figure how to make it go any further. Any more than 1.45 volts crashes the system. Currently stable at 1.3875v. Want to go higher, but don't really know if it'll be beneficial or if I even can .Might need to start messing with other settings and see what I can do .Only thing I've done thus far is add voltage and adjust cpu ratio.

 

[Gmoney06ss]

Do you think it's the speed increase or the fact that I went to a 4 stick setup .I'm willing to go back to a 2 stick setup .As right now I'm thinking you're correct and the ram is drawing to much voltage. As it would now be using 6 total instead of just 3?

 

[geofelt]

How high you can go is determined by the quality of your particular chip.
The very best you could do with a golden chip might be close to 5.0
A FX-9590 5.0 is a specially binned chip and heavily factory overclocked. I think it can go no higher.

 

[Gmoney06ss]

I'm hoping it can go a little higher. Just wondering if I went back to the 2 stick setup of the ram would draw less voltage allowing me to add more to the chip itself. But you are probably right and I'll just leave it. But I may try and pull two of the sticks out tonight and see what happens and decide if I want to go back to the two stick setup from there. Thanks for all your help so far. I'm gonna keep on pushing it!

 

[Gmoney06ss]

Looks like 4.8 is it, nothing else I change will keep a stable overclock .Thanks for the help sticking to the 4.8 until I upgrade cpu to either 8350 or build a nicer Intel system.