RipJaw F3-12800CL9-4GBRL Timings

[dmittner]

I'm pulling my hair out here.

I've had this memory for over a year and while my system has been mostly stable, it's also had periods of really bad performance. During that time I only had one of these DIMMs installed and now I've put my second one back in, and again I'm wondering: WTF timings am I supposed to be using?

Motherboard: MSI 990FXA-GD80v2 (just updated BIOS to most recent)
CPU: AMD FX-8150

BIOS auto-detect: 11-11-11-28-2
Stated Spec: 9-9-9-24-2
XMP: 9-9-9-25-2 (found via CPU-Z)

In all cases it's reading as 1600 fine.

I haven't tried the XMP stated setting yet, but everything else I've found has lead to memtest eventually freezing.

I've never actually used memtest before so maybe this is a common problem, but I hate letting my system sit in a state where it seems less than stable. It's gotten me tempted to buy new memory altogether, but I'm hoping not to have to.

Anyway... pointers?

Thanks

 

[knightdog56]

Run your memory at the stated spec. I have the same memory and have been running fine for the last two years, motherboard is Asus M4A87TD EVO, I had to set the memory manually in the BIOS, it defaulted to 1333MHz. If you have problems contact G.Skill, they should be able to help you out.

 

[dmittner]

Yeah, good idea. I'll try getting their feedback on this question.

I set the specs per XMP at 1.5v and ran memtest last night, hoping it would run through the night, but it froze up in under 5 minutes.

I upped it to 1.55v and ran it for a while earlier and it got up to 20 minutes and going, but I closed out since, well... I didn't want to stare at memtest all day. Still, 1.55 seems a bit more stable. I'll contact G.Skill and run memtest longer later.

 

[smorizio]

under spd info most time the xmp or over clock speed is 1.6v or higher depending on the ram chips they used. also with your mb make sure the mb has the newest bios code. a lot of times vendors drop cpu and newer ram code and bug fixes.

 

[dmittner]

under spd info most time the xmp or over clock speed is 1.6v or higher depending on the ram chips they used. also with your mb make sure the mb has the newest bios code. a lot of times vendors drop cpu and newer ram code and bug fixes.

XMP only shows 1.5v which didn't seem to cut it, so I'm slowly pushing that up to test stability. I also updated my BIOS last night to the latest available.

 

[gskill support]

Enabling the XMP/DOCP/EOCP performance profile alone should work fine.

Sounds like the module may be slightly failing, try the other module with the performance profile to see how it works. Raising DRAM Voltage may seem more stable, but the modules may contain errors that are uncorrectable, so an RMA may be necessary. So based on your testing, if one works fine and the other has issues, you will need to visit the RMA webpage:

http://www.gskill.com/rma.php

Thank you
GSKILL SUPPORT

 

[dmittner]

Well, memtest86+ still freezes up eventually, but everything else seems to be fine, so I'm calling this one done. The XMP settings with 1.55v seem stable, and both Windows 7's Memory Diagnostic and this other in-Windows MemTest package are reporting things as being alright.

And no Windows freezes or BSODs, so I'm really complaining about nothing at this point.

The only far-fetched theory I could come up with is that Memtest86+ stresses the memory so hard constantly that maybe the DIMMs, themselves, are overheating or something. I can re-encode video and max out my CPU at 100% for hours at a time and that only tops out at 55c (per Core Temp) so I don't think the issue is there, but I have no idea how to track memory temperature.

But nothing I do is likely to put that much strain on memory, so again, I'm good. I plan to upgrade my memory in a year, anyway, so this only needs to get me through till then.

Thanks all.

 

[dmittner]

Best answer selected by dmittner.