Vengeance RGB PRO & Asrock x470 k4, Posting problems

RAM: vengeance RG PRO 4x CMW16GX4M2C3000C15, MOBO: ASROCK x470 Fatality Gaming K4, CPU: Rzyen 2600x

 

Issue: memory will not post well, and will not run in dual channel

 

Background: Have tried the XMP 2.0 settings and it will fail posting, until it goes into safe mode and sets it at 2133mhz, but will not run in dual channel mode. Have tried all different speeds and timings and will not post with any of those.

 

Have read to try and enable SPD Write, but going through all the menus and looking at the literature this does not seem to be an available option. BIOS is 12/18/18 P 1.90 - AMD AGESA PinnaclePI-AM4 1.0.0.6

 

Has anyone else run into this issue? Thank you!

-ML

Your motherboard looks to be the issue here,

 

https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/Fatal1ty%20X470%20Gaming%20K4/index.asp#Specification

 

it only supports

2 sticks at single rate for 2933mhz,

2 sticks at dual rate for 2400mhz

 

4 sticks single rate for 2133mhz

4 sticks dual rate for 1866mhz

Hey Tealsteam,

 

Thanks for the reply. The mobo will not post at any of those speeds and will not go into dual channel for the memory with the loosest timings at 2133 nor 2400.

 

I too read that manual section, yet there are plenty of users posting at those rates in addition to their QVL memory list posting at those rates.

I have a vary similar setup and had an initial problem getting to post as well.

 

I initially had a bad memory stick.

 

ASRock X470 Master SLI/AC (BIOS/UEFI version P1.9) with Ryzen 5 2600 (AMD AGESA PinnaclePI-AM4 1.0.0.6) and 2 x CMK16GX4M2A2400C16 (ver 5.30, 4 sticks / 32GB)

 

Unplug all devices except power supply, CPU, needed fans, graphics, monitor, keyboard, mouse.

 

Start with only 1 ram stick in slot A2, enter UEFI/BIOS and reset to defaults then in overclock menu reset all memory options and memory sub-options to AUTO. Reboot, confirm BIOS settings saved properly, save current settings in profile 1, now reboot and run memtest86 from USB stick or external HDD enclosure. Test all your memory sticks individually to ensure they are good before we continue to troubleshoot.

Tested each stick individually. I believe its a hynix ram issue. I have CMW's which are Hynix C die, and they are a bugger with rzen and ASROCK.

If the memory tests completed all 4 passed with no errors with all sticks of memory that's a good start! There are some Hynix C die listed in the QVL so I think there is hope you can have a stable setup.

 

I will lead through some steps that I performed and hopefully that will help you as we go along.

 

First sorry if this is all a bit long winded. I'm just trying to be as detailed as necessary including for any other readers who may find this helpful. I spent about two weeks fiddling with my memory in various configurations so I'm hoping my experience can help others.

 

Some things to keep in mind.

- Make sure your CPU is running at stock speeds for this troubleshooting. If you OC your CPU then you may have to go through a process of finding stable timings again.

- For our ASRock motherboards Ryzen 2000 processors supported frequencies are 1866, 2133, 2400, 2933. Anything over that is considered an overclock so best of luck in that as success may vary. The speeds reduce as you fill DIMM slots too!

- Ryzen 2000 processors supported frequencies are 1866, 2133, 2400, 2667, 2933. Anything over that is considered an overclock so best of luck in that as success may vary. (2933 requires at least 6 PCB layers) The speeds reduce as you fill DIMM slots too! I couldn't find any info on the PCB layers for your or my motherboard but mine will do 3200(2/4) and 2933(4/4) so I think there is a good chance it can work since they are similar.

- Possibly 2933 may be your maximum. I've seen other posts on the internet of people who could only reach 2933. This was my maximum as well with all 4 slots filled.

- I read on the internet that the increased electrical load of more installed DIMM's factor into the stability and speed reductions needed for stability. Also single rank modules are likely easier to overclock and dual rank modules also reduce rated speeds as can be see in specified ASRock and AMD Ryzen 2 specs.

- I have read XMP is an Intel (or at least started out that way) driven feature so it's highly possible that XMP settings may not be compatible or optimal for AMD systems. Various motherboard manufacturers seem to have a way of dealing with this. MSI with A-XMP, Asus with DOCP, Gigabyte with EOCP, etc...not sure of ASRock's solution but in my BIOS/UEFI it seems to be reflected in the "Load DRAM Profile" option when available.

- When overclocking you may need to adjust voltages. Keep in mind when adjusting voltages the maximums, and that depending on the motherboard, just because you set it to a particular value doesn't mean it will precisely match that voltage 100% of the time. Depending on the quality of the board and the electrical load it may go under or over. Reading on the internet many people prefer not to get too close to the maximums for this reason (fear of over volting). For the memory voltage I think between 1.35v to 1.40v should be safe but it is best to get the spec if possible for your memory to know the max. For me the 1.35 was the sweet spot with not too much added heat and I was happy at least to get to 3200(2/4) and 2933(4/4) with that all things considered.

- Of course you paid for 3000 CL15 memory but be prepared to accept the reality you may not be able to achieve that depending on the combination of mb-cpu-ram and quality of particular units you have. In terms of frequency Ryzen does better with higher frequency. In terms of timings synthetics may prove what timings are better but you may not be able to tell the difference as a user between something like 16-18-18-36-54-1T and 20-20-20-48-68-1T (realistically make no difference to most people in my opinion)

 

Ok lets start with only 1 stick in slot A2 for the time being.

The goal is to reach the rated speed with stability but with only 1 stick. (single channel in A2)

If we can do that then

The next goal is to reach the rated speed with stability but with only 2 sticks. (dual channel in A2 + B2)

If we can do that then

The next goal is to reach the rated speed with stability but with all 4 sticks. (dual channel in A1, A2, B1, B2)

For me 20-20-20-48-68-1T worked in 4/4 configuration 2933MHz @1.35v maybe this is close to where you need it?

 

1) Set bios defaults included auto memory settings and test all ram. Any ram that fails set aside.

 

The purpose of setting the auto settings is to see what the BIOS/UEFI decided the memory timing should be.

 

I'm going to make an assumption here at this point your BIOS/UEFI has been reset to default including auto on all memory items where applicable. If necessary to a hard reset and battery pull if you have any doubts. Interestingly enough with my ASRock board even after a battery pull it did not forget my saved memory profiles.

 

We are going to ignore setting XMP profile (leave it to AUTO) since it is obviously not working.

 

On thing you may want to set is the memory automatic retry. I found when using the automatic retry sometimes the motherboard can figure out the correct timings for a successful post. I set mine for 10. After the retries are exhausted the motherboard will reset the memory configuration to post.

 

2) Gather information from BIOS/UEFI

 

What does the BIOS/UEFI decide for memory timings when all memory settings are set to full auto? In my BIOS/UEFI it will display current configuration values for most items next to the configured values. Start with the primary timings. CL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS-tRC including tRFC and CR. Let's compare those timings to your rams specs and see what matches up.

 

Go to the hardware monitoring section. What are your voltages across the board? Let's make sure the voltages look ok before proceeding. If you have a problem with your PS supplying voltage that can cause instability and we might as well stop here until that is what it should be.

 

In particular the voltage for your ram should match the voltage required by your ram. The auto mode should have detected this correctly. (I would hope so anyway.)

 

3) Setup OS for testing / troubleshooting (activation not required)

 

Because your ram configuration is potentially unstable I would start with a fresh Win10 18xx install (not activated) unless you know your current OS is not damaged from the unstable memory and any BSOD's you may have encountered previously. It's will just make things easier plus if it blows up nothing lost. Since your memory tests did not return errors this part should be successful.

 

Once the OS is installed install any drivers needed. Because your OS file system can be damaged during memory troubleshooting be sure to keep fresh uncorrupted copies of your drivers (on USB stick) and copy those to the disk and install from the disk (not from your safe copy).

 

In my case I had an unused SATA hard disk and installed the latest Win10 18xx from USB (not activated because we are troubleshooting). This provides an clean OS for the time being until we achieve stability. I have found that using even older Win10 (even after updated) was unstable but when I installed a fresh Win10 18xx it was stable.

 

Then install the latest AMD chip-set drivers on the fresh OS (get the latest ones from AMD not ASRock). You may install other drivers if needed. For networking get "Intel® Ethernet Adapter Complete Driver Pack 23.5" directly from Intel driver website (not ASRock). The ASRock RestartToUEFI utility is helpful to have as well. For me I had no issues using drivers directly from AMD and Intel. Note if your memory is unstable (encountering errors that memtest86 would have reported) the OS may throw BSOD's especially when installing drivers. This happened in my case with a bad memory stick but also if the memory settings are not stable (confirmed by errors thrown by memtest86). It would be helpful to know at this part of the process if this goes smoothly for you. If you don't encounter any BSOD's then we may have good starting point for stability to fall back on. This is why I recommended to save the memory setting to profile 1 in the BIOS/UEFI so we can reload them when needed.

 

4) Gather information from SPD of ram module

 

The purpose here is to collect on hand as much information about the ram module that you are using. This may help eliminate choosing choices for memory settings that are likely to fail but also guide you to memory settings that are likely to work or should work.

 

Do you know how to get the SPD data from your ram? One option is running HWiNFO64. I think memtest86 might have that option built in also there is Thaiphoon as well. In particular it will help you confirm the chip* used (samsung, micron, hynix, etc...) and rank* (dual/single) if you don't know for sure. This information will come in handy when using DRAM Calculator for Ryzen to try and find some stable settings.

 

5) Gather information from Ryzen Timing Checker

 

The purpose here is to collect/confirm what the BIOS/UEFI decided to do for any memory settings we did not explicitly set. By capturing this data as memory settings are changed we can observe how the BIOS/UEFI is attempting to auto configure timings. It may be doing something likely to work or likely not to work.

 

Run Ryzen Timing Checker and save the results. At this point initially the values here should match what the BIOS/UEFI reported and then some additional values which the BIOS/UEFI doesn't tell us. Assuming our default timing here is stable (verified by memtest86) this is our baseline settings for stability regardless if it recognized the speed of the memory correctly.

 

6) Gather information from DRAM Calculator for Ryzen (safe mode settings)

 

The purpose here is to see what DRAM Calculator for Ryzen thinks what settings should be stable for your memory.

(I confess I am not actually sure if this utility absolutely must be run on the machine that you are attempting to configure but it wouldn't hurt. I think when I ran this utility originally on a different machine than the one I was building it spit out something that didn't look right at all.)

 

Run DRAM Calculator for Ryzen and attempt to get some profiles.

You will want to fill out the top section as accurately as you can for your case.

Processor="Ryzen + gen"

, Memory Type=(get from SPD info)

, Profile=V1(to start)

, Memory Rank=(get from SPD info)

, Desired Frequency=(see below)

, Dimm Modules=(see below)

 

Usage click the XMP button then the Calculate SAFE button for each potential profile.

 

It may be helpful to capture multiple profiles as looking at the different variations will give us clues what you may need to set for stability. (observing the patterns in how numbers are changing)

 

Do this also for variations with

Desired Frequency=2400

Desired Frequency=2933 (this is spec max)

Desired Frequency=3000 (this is your goal)

Desired Frequency=3200

 

Do this also for variations with

Dimm Modules=1

Dimm Modules=2

Dimm Modules=4

 

It may be insightful to also capture configurations for fast modes to see where the utility prefers to loosen the timings.

 

7) Once you have gathered the boat load of information it's time to try some settings...

 

At this point what speed has the UEFI/BIOS determined from using the auto memory timings? (2133?)

 

Now with auto settings still enabled simply bump the frequency up to the next level and see if it will post.

 

Keep bumping the frequency up one at a time until it stops posting or until you reach your goal. (3000?)

 

If you reach your goal then fantastic! Run memtest86 and see if it is stable.

 

If post fails before you reach your goal back down to the last successful frequency and run Run memtest86 and see if it is stable.

 

Let me know how that worked out for you so far.

Just FYI, I just noticed that ASRock has been updating their memory specifications for the x470 boards on their web pages and their memory QVL list seems to have gotten bigger. Unless your mixing 1 and 2 rank memories the official max for pinnacle ridge processors on their x470 boards max memory speed is 2933MHz across the board so some of my prior posted specs here may be incorrect.