Hi folks. Don't have Corsair memory, but hear me out...
This Z170 Pro Gaming seemingly does have weird XMP issues.
I have 4 sticks of 8G ADATA cheapo memory. 2133mhz default in BIOS, but rated for 2800mhz. Latest BIOS. XMP would cause the machine to not boot...so I thought. Sounded a lot like this guy:
First of all there are two ways to turn it on, when you turn on XMP it says "do you want to also activate CPU core syncing or just Intel XMP specifications", which I do not understand. So im like, no dont mess with my CPU, just turn on XMP for ram.
Well, system will not boot. After BIOS screen it's just blank for like 30 seconds. So Im thinking, great im gonna fry my ram. After i force power down and bring back, i get the "BIOS detected an error on last boot, press F1 for setup".
So I go into BIOS settings, turn XMP off. System boots nomally. But then i think, maybe that CPU thing is required for this motherboard, afterall it's what ASUS bios seemed to want to force. So i reboot, go into BIOS, turn on XMP but say "yes" to the "do something to my CPU that ive never heard of".
Reboot, same thing, black screen for like, 20 seconds, PC is obviously not booting. I turn XMP off in BIOS recovery, PC boots again. But then Im like, this makes no damn sense.
I'm gonna try ONE MORE THING...
I reboot, go into BIOS, turn XMP on again, yes sync cores or whatever., save settings, reboot. Black screen as usual
But this time I wait.
I just let it sit there. 30 seconds, 45 seconds PC looks bricked. But i just let it sit there Then at about 60 seconds, the PC shuts off, and I'm, like great, I fried my PC.
I reboot, but wait, something is different! It doesn't go into "Your PC couldnt boot, press F1 for setup". It's starting to boot into windows!
So I think, maybe the BIOS just reversed the change. Ireboot, go into bios...nope, XMP is still enabled. I reboot into windows, look at task manager: RAM is running at 2800mhz.
I download CPU-Z, look at memory stat: says I'm running at 2800mhz. I ran Windows 10's memory checker (basically a slimmed down memtest86), passed with flying colors. System is stable.
So, i dunno what the hell the BIOS did during 60 seconds of black screen. I've been messing with computers for 3+ decades, I've never seen a PC BIOS take more than a half second to do anything.
FYI.
