Overclocking memory and Blue Screen........Why?

[nevermore2782]

Hey folks.......I'm new to overclocking, but I had a concern about my memory and motherboard combo, I'm getting blue screens over and over. So I just added a new Mobo and new memory, system works fine and boots no problem. The motherboard is an ASRock 870 Extreme3 and is capable of 1600 DDR 3 Ram with OC. I purchased some G.Skill Ripjaw ram (4GB 1600) Using my BIOS i manually set the timings as listed on the sales page for the memory at newegg. I selected the 1600 speed and rebooted. Is there anything more to do? the computer boots into windows 7 and is fine but if I leave the PC idle for about 10 min or so it goes Blue Screen. I went back into BIOS and went down to the next lowest speed (maybe 1366) im not sure. Everything stable. Just wondering if I should have changed any other settings to get the full RAM prowess. BTW CPU is AMD Phenom II X4 840. Thanks for reading and appreciate any suggestions.

 

[cuecuemore]

You'll need to set your DRAM voltage to match the rating of the RAM. This should be in the BIOS on the same page as the speed settings.

 

[nevermore2782]

I think i remember seeing something about this a while back.......i should raise the voltage but not above 2.00 or something like that?

 

[pepe2907]

AA wait! 2v is actualy way too high for DDR3. It's OK for DDR2 /"a while back"/ but is dangerous for DDR3.

 

[jsc]

DDR2 voltage limit is 2.2 volts.

DDR3 voltage limit is 1.65 volts. Any higher and you risk burning out the memory controller, which will destroy the CPU chip.

 

[cuecuemore]

What is the exact memory kit you have? There are lots of different Ripjaws, and there's a big difference between 1.5v and 1.65v.

 

[geekapproved]

I think i remember seeing something about this a while back.......i should raise the voltage but not above 2.00 or something like that?

Woah woah, wait a minute. If you set it to 2.0v, it's going to fry in a few seconds.

You set it to whatever it says on the sticker on the ram, not to whatever you feel like setting it to.

If it's 1.65v memory, you set it to 1.65v. If it's 1.5v memory, you set it to 1.5v. I'm not understanding why you would want to set it to something different.

You need to manually set the voltage, timings AND speed, not just the speed. It's not going to run at 1600 if the timings or voltage are set wrong.

 

[yyk71200]

DDR2 voltage limit is 2.2 volts.

DDR3 voltage limit is 1.65 volts. Any higher and you risk burning out the memory controller, which will destroy the CPU chip.

My HyperX are rated for 1.7v, so it should be safe unless different RAM modules have lower limits.

 

[geekapproved]

My HyperX are rated for 1.7v, so it should be safe unless different RAM modules have lower limits.

I hope your not using that with a new sandy bridge processor.

 

[yyk71200]

I hope your not using that with a new sandy bridge processor.

Nope, Phenom X6 1090T.

 

[nevermore2782]

ok guys.....here are the specs
Timing 9-9-9-24
Voltage 1.5V
Speed DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)

I will try again, they way i did it before was with the timings set and the speed set, but voltage on Auto - now I have an idea on what to try....I will update you guys when I try it! Thanks for the tips

 

[geekapproved]

You want to manually set voltage, timings and speed.

 

[nevermore2782]

OK guys, I manually set everything from my Bios, It was actually pretty simple for the long list of values, but in front of the editable value, the correct value is greyed out (Ex. CAS 9(greyed out) 9 (white, editable) booted fine, and i left it running while i was reading.....about an hour or so later i noticed a change in the corner of my eye and looked, it has rebooted for an unknown reason. I left it going again overnight while I redownloaded some games and woke up and checked, and it appears to not have restarted anymore. So far as of this afternoon coming into work there have been no reboots. Any comments or suggestions? precautions?

 

[cuecuemore]

Hmm, that's strange. I'd keep everything where it is and run Memtest and then prime95. Memtest will stress your memory and check for errors, if that comes back clean, then you can run prime95 which will stress your CPU and you memory simultaneously. If you can do that for 20 minutes, you should be good to go.

http://www.memtest.org/

http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft/

 

[nevermore2782]

hey people, just an update, I got home from work and saw the message that Windows had just recovered from an error. Im working on the two tests above, but should those not tell me anything I can use, any suggestions? In the meantime, let me run the tests and let's see what they tell me. Thanks again.

 

[cuecuemore]

If it's your RAM, you can loosen the timings, up the voltage, or reduce the clock speed.

 

[nevermore2782]

update here guys, im doing memtest and it doesn't look good. I have almost 2000 erBrors. its just a long list of red errors Since i dont know how to add pictures I will be as descriptive as possible. Tst = 7, Pass =1, Bad = 00080000, Err-bits = mostly 00100000, CPU = 0 Anybody know how to read these? I snapped photos with my camera, in case i need to reference them. Lets say I go back down to the next lowest speed, how much of a hit to I take performance wise? or how about this, if I up the voltage a little bit, say from 1.54 to 1.58 for example, (i dont know the exact values) would it still be ok as long as it doesnt go to 1.6v?

 

[nevermore2782]

checking some forums, it seems its probably normal to set voltage from 1.6 to 1.8 for overclocking purposes, should be safe as long as the red disappears from memtest right?

UPDATE: well i'm using memtest for about 1 pass each time and I have upped the voltage twice, once to 1.58 and then to 1.64 and with each test the errors shrink substantially......once more to a higher 1.6 or take it to 1.7?

 

[nevermore2782]

so far so good with the voltage set to 1.64v, with no crashes or blue screens running at 1600

 

[nevermore2782]

Gah! Playing Oblivion and got a blue screen..........upping to 1.65v now

 

[cuecuemore]

Gah! You want to consider the possibility that you have a bad DIMM. If you had to up it to 1.51 or 1.52 to get it stable at stock settings, that would be one thing. But upping RAM rated @ 1.5v to 1.65 just for stability at stock is unwarranted. You could test them individually, but you'd still have to RMA them as a pair, I believe. It's either that or a setting that got messed up somewhere deep in your BIOS that is causing the instability.

 

[nevermore2782]

would this be true for my motherboard which states that it supports the 1600 speed through overclocking only? it seems that each time i bump up the voltage there are WAY less and less errors through mem test, and now the enexpected restarts are happening once every couple of days instead of once a day or even at its worst when it restarted every ten minutes. I will take it up a notch one more time and test, and if its still not stable, I will put it at 1333 speed which was completely fine, and Im not even sure I will even notice the performance increase, if any