[SOLVED] RAM upgrade confusing problems

[der4twu]

Hello everyone,

I have just upgraded my total RAM amount to 64 gb RAM from 16gb, but it is giving me a headache to be honest.

First things first: my running setup with configured BIOS for the ram is:
Asus B450 Plus Motherboard
Ryzen 2700X CPU
G-skill 3066 MHZ 16-18-18-38 16gb RAM
550 Watt power supply
Gigabyte RTX 2080
Samsung ssd 850 Evo 256gb
WD 1TB HDD

I have decided to upgrade my RAM to 64 gb, as I am doing some heaver computations currently, so I bought another two 16gb sticks of the same ram in dual, and another 16gb single one.

The motherboard Ram slots are noted as A1 A2 B1 B2.
For single RAM it was advised to use A2 (worked fine), however, when I put in all 4 ram sticks the machine doesnt work anymore.
The computer boots and before it even shows the bios it shuts down again and reboots again and again. It eventually reboots on its own to a working state, and the BIOS then shows that the DDR Speed was set to 2133 MHZ.

What I have tried so far:
Setting the ddr speed to 3066 and...

• Memtest on the new DUAL Ram sticks in A2 and B2 respectively (otherwise the mainboard complains about ram being in unoptimized slots): NO ERRORS
• Memtest on the old and new SINGLE sticks in A2 and B2: NO ERRORS

Booting in either cases to Ubuntu 19.04 works fine

I have shifted the slots of the two new dual channel also around and that didnt seem to mitigate the issue.
Now I have run memtest with all 4 sticks and it crashes inbetween and just goes black. Running it a second time showed the same behaviour. I currently have all 4 sticks inserted and can boot (on 3066MHZ) until i see GRUB, but when i choose to boot to Ubuntu it only shows a black screen with a blinking underscore in the top left corner of the screen.

What can I actually deduce from this? Faulty ram or motherboard or...?

I hope you guys can help out. Thanks in advance.
Michael
..

 

[Diddly]

Start with two RAM sticks in A2 and B2. Switch off the XMP profile so the RAM runs at stock speeds (2133), check the PC boots in this configuation. Then try with XMP loaded. If that works try 4 sticks at stock. then try manually increasing the speed to 2400 then 2666 and so on. See how far you get=- good luck

 

[der4twu]

so i have tried this: Starting from 2133 mhz and going up. Turns out, only with 2133 mhz the system is stable. I can get it to boot with e.g. 2933 mhz and load ubuntu etc, yet it will randomly crash completely with a blackscreen after a few minutes. No error message or anything.
So now I have activated the XMP profile with 2933 mhz, but using ubuntu with dmidecode shows they are all running on 2133 mhz anyhow aagain.

could the ram be underpowered maybe? My power supply unit manages 550 watt.

 

[jeremyj_83]

With 4 DIMMs there is no guarentee that your RAM will run at the XMP. If I can remember you should be able to run 4 DIMMs of RAM at 2666MHz with the 2000 series.

 

[gn842a]

could the ram be underpowered maybe? My power supply unit manages 550 watt.

Go to PCpartpicker and in put your build and see what its power draw is. I like to be *at a minimum * 10% over whatever my voltage load is, so a 550 psu for a 500 rating, but given the importance of the psu and over a decade of using cheap psus that ruined my store-bought computers, I usually go for 50%, so, I would be a 750 watt psu for a 500 watt load. And nowadays I try to stick to brands recommended here at Tom's H.

https://pcpartpicker.com/

On my Asus x470 pro mobo you just switch on the DOCP. I never found individual settings in the UEFI. They may be there, but I never found them. I think you can control them through Ryzen Master but I never go near that stuff if I can help it.

I had multiple reboot issues when I was running 2x8 gigs of RAM but I put them in the A1 B1 slots instead of the A2 B2. I knew that the manual wanted them in A2 B2 but at the time I needed them moved forward to see whether there was space for the heat sink. Once the heat sink was in I just thought well why mess with it more and left them there which caused among other things multiple reboots and a warning beep that there was no ram in the computer and some curious grinding sounds I don't even know what that was. Could have been protests from the DVD drives or the HDD.

So all this is to say that slot balance issues can be pretty dramatic. I read your post twice and am not clear on whether you have all the same make and MHz RAM. While in theory people do successfully run, say, 2x8 gigs and 2x16 gigs in the same build, I'm too much of a twit to play those sorts of games. So I try to keep all one kind of RAM.

The probability of a bad stick of RAM goes up the more you buy. If you have one bad stick you might have symptoms similar to what I had when my RAM was in the wrong slots. So I would test your RAM one stick at a time.

In the UEFI I leave the TPU setting in default (which is setting I). Don't mess with mother nature.

The other thing that can cause anything from "no problem" to "weird stuff" to "catastrophic failure" is using modular cables from one company's psu in a different company's psu (and even within the same company it can be bad). As far as I'm concerned that is a lurking issue that can throw an unexpected curve into discussions like this.

Greg N

 

[der4twu]

Could you elaborate what you mean by that? I am aware that XMP may throttle where necessary but a constant reduction of nearly 1 Ghz (2933 to 2133) seems indicative of an issue, doesnt it? Furthermore, the system crashes arbitrarily when I set higher clockrates than 2133 manually without XMP.

@gn842a:
PCPartpicker says estimated wattage of 450 which should be fine for my 550 evo psu.
Sorry, if my post was confusing, all the RAMs are the same brand G.Skill Aegis 3066 MHz CL 16-18-18-18-38 RAMs, BUT 2 are bought as "dual channels" (2x16) and 2 were bought inidiviually, i.e. "single" Ram (1x16). I am unsure what to take from the rest of your post. I havent played around with any other settings in the BIOS, but the ones to configure the RAM. I am basically trying to evaluate whether the RAM I bought is faulty or whether I am missing some knowledge on RAM configuration.

 

[DMAN999]

The fact that you did NOT buy all those RAM sticks in one kit means that they are NOT guaranteed to work together at their rated speeds.
And if the EXACT model RAM is NOT listed on the QVL from Asus:
https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/..._QVL_For_AMD_Ryzen_2000_Series_Processors.pdf
Or on the G.Skill Memory Configurator then it may never run at it's full speed.
https://www.gskill.com/configurator?page=1&cls=1529635169&model=1532079137

And as was stated above 2666 Mhz is the fastest speed supported by your motherboard/CPU when using 4 sticks of RAM

 

[gn842a]

I was getting a bit upset that my RAM was not showing the 3200 speed at which it is sold and advertised. But it turns out that these are basically overclocked settings. When I put my bench mark tests up for it, it was, the wise heads here assured me, exactly normal. I think you may be having the same thing.

But that doesn't account for your boot issues. I do think you need to boot with only one stick at a time and get back with the results, when you have tested all four.