Asus Rampage III Extreme hates Corsair 4gb modules

[dingoperson]

Just posting this FYI because I wasted a LOT of time and money on it:

 

I bought an ASUS Rampage iii extreme and the Corsair Dominator GT 12gb (3x4) kit, CMX12GX3M3A2000C9. Corsair recommends this memory on their website for that specific board.

 

System didn't POST but froze at "Detect memory". After several hours and without changing anything in particular (after several failed boots with slightly tweaked voltages) it suddenly started, detecting 4gb. After 2-3 reboots it stopped working again. The options to try to fix this by tweaking the settings are pretty limited as it doesn't even go into the BIOS and TweakIt is limited in what it contains. The 'MemOK' button fails to fix anything.

 

At this point the MOBO actually started to burn. Didn't see what it was until after I pulled power because it was behind the CPU cooling tower, but saw afterwards that a small 1cm area (away from any connectors or screws) had been burnt to a crisp. This is using a new Silverstone 1500w PSU with all connectors set right.

 

Got worried that basically my i980x and 12gb memory had all fried, so I bought the cheapest X58 board I could get - the Gigabyte USB3. And everything worked! 12gb detected straight away, totally stable! Overclocked CPU a tiny bit to test, no problems!

 

I still wanted the Rampage for the waterblocks and features, so I got it RMA'd (luckily!), bought another one. Took extreme care this time with inserting the CPU to avoid any bent pins. And no POST this time either, with the same "Detect Memory" message!

 

I read some threads that said there might be a short somewhere. It gave 'Detect memory' with all the screws attaching it to the case, and it gives 'Detect memory' when it's standing by itself on an antistatic bag.

 

I have seen people blaming the memory and the CPU "because the memory controller is on the CPU!" but basically it looks like the Rampage III Extreme design has a big problem with these modules. Which is a shame, because they are both considered to be 'performance items' and I guess many people might go for both.

[trackrat]

From my experience and that of many other experienced PC builders, Asus is known to have memory issues on their mobos. They are usually able to improve RAM compatibility - eventually - with a BIOS update but they never seem in any hurry to do so.

 

IME of over 25 years Asus rushes their products out the door without properly qualifying them. This results in great sales but the customers become the beta testers... I think this is why Gigabytes sales continue to increase?

 

Your results may vary.

[dingoperson]

Just a final note to this:

I have now gotten the EVGA Classified3. All 12gb of Dominator GT memory detected straight away, and XMP takes them straight away to 2000mhz stable.

I am mentioning it because it is a more natural alternative to the Rampage iii than the Gigabyte USB3 as it has a generally similar feature set - triple SLI, two ATX power connectors and a Molex power connector for the PCIe (the Rampage Ex has 2), and available full board water blocks.