CUE unstable with high speed memory. Please HELP?

Hi I'm looking for help or anyone else experiencing this problem who might know a fix.

 

I purchased a Corsair Strafe RGB MX Brown keyboard about 2 1/2 months ago Love it! Cue however is another story, random crashes RGB profile freezing or defaulting ect... it has been a nightmare and corsair tech support has been little to no help.

 

Even with all these problems with Cue I like corsair products and I decided to purchase the MM800 Polaris RGB mouse pad, love the Pad! hate Cue the RGB profile is constantly defaulting to (reverse spiral rainbow which is default without Cue installed) it will not stay set! However theirs a catch I have to play a game or use a system intensive program and within 5 to 15 minutes sometimes sooner the RGB profile has defaulted and I have to restart Cue. I have tried different USB ports 2.0/3.0/3.1 (Intel and ASmedia) and disabled power savings, updated USB drivers, chipset drivers, installing Cue on different hard drives and SSD's/Nvme's, Tried running a plethora of different versions of Cue (I'm currently of the latest version 2.19.65) re downloaded and updated the latest version of my Bios ect.. ect... it go's on and on & nothing works.

 

However I did find what I think is the problem...

Finely out of frustration I defaulted my XMP profile from 3000mhz 15 17 17 35 @1.35v to JEDEC 2133mhz 15 15 15 36 @ 1.20v and get ready for it.....

 

The Problem is Gone! Cue works perfectly on my system now but what I want to know is WHY do I have to do that?

 

And I'm 99% sure this is the problem as soon as I re enable the XMP Profile the Cue problem's come back I've ran about 20 memory tests both with and without XMP and they come back clean with no problems found... I'm even running Corsair's memory?!? I've ran the XMP profile with added and reduced voltage as well hoping it was a stability issue I've tested everything from 1.33v to 1.37 @ 3000mhz still have Cue problems I simply can not keep Cue stable with 3000mhz RAM! Please HELP?

 

And Yes I've tried 2 different power supply's both are relatively new from my other PC's

 

My Specs

MB: Asus Z170-a Bios version 3504 latest.

CPU: I7 6700k very very stable and cool @ 4.6ghz

GPU: Evga Geforce GTX 970 SSC

RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 DRAM 3000MHz C15 Memory

http://www.corsair.com/en-us/vengeance-lpx-16gb-2x8gb-ddr4-dram-3000mhz-c15-memory-kit-black-cmk16gx4m2b3000c15

SSD: MyDigitalSSD BPX M.2 NVME PCI Express 3.0 x4 (240GB) (OS drive)

HDD: HGST Ultrastar 7K4000 3TB 7200RPM 64MB Cache

HDD: WD Blue 1TB SATA 6 Gb/s 7200 RPM 64MB Cache

PSU: EVGA 750 GQ, 80+ GOLD 750W

I don't know if this is really the root cause of your issue or not, but the next step would be to manually set your DRAM to 3000 as well as the first 4 primary timings. Let the BIOS fill in the auto values for the secondary and tertiary columns. The eXtreme Memory Preset is nothing more than a series of values encoded onto the module chip. It doesn't do anything. Your BIOS is capable of reading that information and importing it into its own settings, or it is not. Most modern motherboards are XMP capable, but there are occasional glitches or concessions that must be made. Those all fall to the BIOS maker and board company and you would not be the first person to be waylaid by some of the hidden actions in the BIOS. Regardless, you need to try the manual settings at the XMP values to see if it is related to the XMP function of your BIOS, is related to memory frequency, or something else entirely.

Thanks for the reply. Tried Manually imputing XMP values into the bios.. 3000mhz CAS# 15 RAS# to CAS# 17 17 tRas 35 @ 1.35v nothing new to report still have the same problems with Cue.

OK, rather than the XMP conduct of the board/BIOS per se, that would suggest there is a problem with that memory speed or general stability. I am sure you noticed there was quite a flap with Asus Z170 boards and the 3000MHz hump. If 2133 works and 3000 does not, the next thing to do is start working you way up or down and get a middle value.

 

I don't like the 2800 and 3000 speeds much and they sometimes require a 125 strap, depending on your motherboard. 2666 is a really easy speed. 13-15-15-30 @1.35 should be a cinch. I suspect those could be tightened or voltage lowered, but it would be interesting to see if the issue persists at moderate frequencies and there is going to be a minute difference in performance between 3000 and 2666 with tighter timings.

OK, rather than the XMP conduct of the board/BIOS per se, that would suggest there is a problem with that memory speed or general stability. I am sure you noticed there was quite a flap with Asus Z170 boards and the 3000MHz hump. If 2133 works and 3000 does not, the next thing to do is start working you way up or down and get a middle value.

 

I don't like the 2800 and 3000 speeds much and they sometimes require a 125 strap, depending on your motherboard. 2666 is a really easy speed. 13-15-15-30 @1.35 should be a really easy speed. I suspect those could be tightened or voltage lowered, but it would be interesting to see if the issue persists at moderate frequencies and there is going to be a minute difference in performance between 3000 and 2666 with tighter timings.

 

SOLVED.

 

Thank you for your help c-attack it sent me in the right direction to solving my problem. I tried all kind of different memory configs and could not get Cue stable above 2400mhz at any voltage or timing setup, Which sent me to the Asus site to try different bios's and was able to ascertain that the last 2 bios updates for my Z170-A and many other boards 3504 & 3503 cause a XHCI hand-off instability with some high speed memory. So I rolled back to 3401 a bios I ran before without problems and the Cue problem's are gone, Cue is as stable as a rock and I'm able to run at 3000mhz on my XMP profile.

 

I still find it interesting that under faulty bios 3504 the only program that manifested issues was Cue and not any other peripheral's or software that I have installed that is connected via USB.

Good, I am glad that's sorted. USB stuff can be very frustrating. Interesting solution and cause. That's funny, because the last Asus updates for my X99 platform at that same time as your Z170 version also caused issues. Mine were different and related to a change to VRM power management that Asus still refuses to discuss. But for similar reasons, my Asus X99 Pro stays on 3401 permanently. I don't know why CUE was the only affected program, but is likely a very technical answer related to how it functions. That part is well beyond me.