Question Problem with Gskill memory reaching its rated speed.

[Kabalas]

Hello everyone,

Having no luck on gskill forum I figured I would ask here for advice. I think I have a bad batch of RAM and looking for thoughts before I submit an RMA.

I built my new machine back in May 2019. Here are the pieces of importance:

Intel i9-9900k processor
MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon AC motherboard
MSI Nvidia RTX 2080 video card
4x sticks of Gskill TridentZ RGB memory with part number F4-4000C19D-32GTZR

The memory came in 2 packs of 2x16GB modules for a total of 64GB.

Issue is I have never been able to get them running stable when I enable xmp mode. The motherboard reads all the info fine but when it tries to boot up the MSI board throws an error saying the config couldn't boot and prompts me to use a saved profile, load last known good, or load defaults. In all cases I end up back in the bios.

The only way I have been able to make them stable is to manually lower the speed to 3800 which does allow me to lower the timings slightly.

Also if I do not enable xmp they will run stable at 2133.

Things I have done off the top of my head.

-lower the speed as I mentioned.
-manually set the info.
-swap chips around and probably others that I don't recall.

Last night I decided to pull two of the chips. I noticed that even though they came in two sets the serial numbers of all four chips are in sequence ending in 315, 316, 317, and 318 and manufactured in may of 2019; which leads me to believe that they all came off the same assembly line one after the other and were not sitting on neweggs shelf for months.

Anyways, I put in only two chips and I can set the xmp profile and it boots up fine! So I thought I was on to something. Then I tried with the second pair and the same thing. It boots and seems happy.

Today I woke up to a blue screen which when looked up referenced the memory. So that was quite disappointing. I downloaded the latest memtest86 and booted that up with 2 chips and it ends up failing when it gets to test 6. I try the second pair and same thing.

I then try turning off xmp and memtest86 gets past that point with no issues.

On a side note I had tried Microsoft memory tester command they have in windows 10 and that also failed when xmp was enabled. The windows test didn't give any details, just that it failed.

So what do you guys think? Anything else I can try? I think I just got a bad batch off the assembly line and should RMA them. I have emailed gskill but no responses yet.

I paid good money for the fastest memory I could afford and wanted a lot for two main reasons. First I only build myself a new rig once every 7 to 8 years. Second is I want the large amount of memory as I have plans for Virtual machines also.

I'm at a loss of the behavior.

Thanks ahead of time for any advice.

 

[Kabalas]

Oh one other thing. I did update the bios. I've actually tried 3 diff versions. One when it came out of the box. A second that bwas released on MSI website and a third just released a couple of months ago.

 

[rgd1101]

return it and get 4x32GB in 1 kit. not 2 kits

 

[Kabalas]

return it and get 4x32GB in 1 kit. not 2 kits

I'll have to see if gskill or Newegg will even do that. At the time I made the purchase they didn't offer one kit that had 4x16.

But even so I'm testing now with just 1 kit so. 2x16 that came together. Xmp at the rated speed is still failing memtest86. Actually both kits, tested separately are failing. So if your goal is to have me try using one kit regardless of size that is what I am doing.

Not that it necessarily matters but I did find it interesting that the serial numbers of all 4 chips were sequencial. Doesn't necessarily mean anything as the first two could have been the last of one batch and the next two the first set of that batch.

So I guess let's remove the thought of all 4 working together happily since I'm focused on just each pair that came in their kits.

 

[rgd1101]

latest bios?
is there more than 1 xmp profile?

 

[Kabalas]

Yeah I posted above about the bios. It is the latest (but I've gone through 3....first one when I got the board, țhe next one when I got online to update it, and finally the latest released a couple of months ago.

I read through the help thread at the top of the page which is what gave me the idea to try running memtest86 with xmp disabled and that ran through all of the tests with no errors. With xmp enabled it error Ed out on text number 6.

Right now I am running it again with xmp enabled on one pair of sticks but manually bumped up the voltage from the xmp reported by 0.05 and testing again. So I have a decent wait for it to run through and see if that helps and will report back.

 

[Kabalas]

OK the last test with the slight bump in voltage ran clean in memtest86. Following the guide in the forum I downloaded prime95 before I try the other set. Hopefully this all narrows down to one particular module which would be great. Prime95 will be a while so I will report back with those results.

 

[dpegizkj]

I have a similar issue with G skill ram, except mine runs at xmp with only 3 sticks in, as soon as I put in the 4th... it won't post. I've tried raising the voltage up to 1.4v but no go.
The other thing I did have success with, was disabling xmp and changing the speed, voltage, and timings manually.
The XMP profile was 3200, 14,14,14,34 1.35v, but I found that it would only run at 2800,14,14,14,35 1.37v with all 4 sticks in.
Like you I bought 2 kits (2x 2x8gb) and they all play nice together but only 3 at a time, at the rated XMP profile.

I've decided to settle on 3 sticks(24g) at xmp speed/timing for now until a new bios release.
There seems to be quite a few people in the same boat with the same board. But now that I think about it, they have the same cpu too...9900k/kf

CPU: 9900KF
Mainboard: Gigabyte Aorus z390 Master
Ram: Gskill F4-3200C14-8GFX Samsung