Pairing an i3 with DDR4 3000

[Aceina]

So before anyone says anything, i know there are a number of similar posts to this, yet everything they say I've tried (except overclocking the i3) and i still cant get my system to work right.

I have an i3-6100, an Asrock z170 Pro 4 motherboard, and 2x8gb sticks of Team Vulcan DDR4 3000 MHz ram (Cas 15).
I've played with a whole bunch of settings like the VCCIO, VCCSA, manually setting ram timings, increasing the BCLK to 102.5. I've updated the bios to the latest 3.50 version. I've tried XMP settings in two different ways. The two weirdest issues I'm running into however, don't seem to be talked about anywhere.

First of all, there's no 3000MHz setting in the bios. there's 2933MHz and there's 3066MHz, and i've also tried both of those to no avail.

The second issue, is that every time I set the xmp profile up, and then set the frequency to Auto, it will say in the top bit of that menu that the target frequency is 3000MHz. however, once I try to boot, it will say system failed to boot several times, press F2 or Del or return to bios, or UEFI will boot in 10..9..8.. etc...
once I get back into the bios, it says the target frequency is once again at 2133.

At the moment, it does boot into windows with the setting at 2133, so it is usable, but by all accounts, i should definitely be able to use 3000MHz Ram with a skylake i3, cause every other person on the planet seems to have gotten it working.

I haven't found a setting to change the IMC in bios (i think someone said it might also be called DDRVTTT which i don't see either) so that's the one other thing i have been unable to change.

Does anyone have any idea what i could do to get this thing set up right?
Thanks in advanced

 

[Tradesman1]

Can look for VCCIO and take it to about 1.2 to try and help, but basically few i3s are going to be able to carry 3000, or 2800 or possibly even 2666. On the mobo specs for generally 2400 and up it will show an '(OC)' next to it which indicates and OC of the CPU/MC (memory controller) may be required and usually is meaning an OC of the CPU (which generally calls for a K model CPU). With an i3 you are best off with the entry 2133 or 2400. As mentioned haven't seen many at all even running 2666

 

[BadActor]

The memory is listed in the QVL, but not sure if they overclocked it to get it to those speeds. I don't know if that board can still overclock the i3 with a modified Bios, but you might try it. If you can't, try one stick in the A1 slot and increase the VCCIO by .05 to see if it will run at speed.

http://overclocking.guide/download/asrock-z170-pro4-non-k-oc-bios/

 

[Tradesman1]

For QVL testing it is normally done with the top of the line CPUs (i.e. i7 K model) so they can find the highest data rates they can run. The true determning factor of WHAT you can run is the MC in the CPU, not the mobo

 

[Aceina]

So I've been through a bit of trying things out in the last couple of hours.
At first, i went ahead and tried overclocking the CPU. I downloaded that modded bios and tried a whole bunch of overclocks, none of which seemed to be able to get past the windows loading screen, but I'm 90% sure that's cause I'm still waiting on my GPU, and supposedly iGPUs don't work with that overclock.

So after I set all of those back to the defaults, i started up, and realized that the memory was still slightly overclocked from what I had tried with the CPU overclock (it was left at around 2400 or something). this gave me bit of hope, since nothing else i had tried was working at all. after climbing my way up incrementally, I was able to settle at 2800MHz with a VCCIO of 1.15 and VCCSA at auto.
When I tried to go to the next step at 29xxMhz it would go back to what it was doing before with setting the frequency back to 2133 in order to boot, even when i tried several different VCCIO's and VCCSA's.
I'm guessing there's a few other settings i could change to get there but I don't have a clue what they could be.

I left all of the timings at the XMP profile timings. Does anyone know if it would be a good idea to lower/change some of them to match my 2800MHz frequency? (considering its cas 15 at 3000 I'm not sure if it scales downwards, or what).

If anyone knows what could help me get just a bit higher, (I'm frustratingly close!) let me know, and thanks for your input guys!

 

[Tradesman1]

To get higher may have to loosen timings to say 1 above the spec and add in some VCCSSA (system agent voltage) to 1.2 or so