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ASUS Z170 Pro Gaming Corsair Ram XMP failure on i7-6700 and i5-7400


TheDiagGuy

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System Specs:

Motherboard: Asus Z170 Pro Gaming BIOS version 3805 5/16/2018

Processor: i7-6700 with box cooler

RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000 MHz 8 GB (Slot A2)

GPU: EVGA GTX 1060 6GB SSC

PSU: EVGA Supernova B3 550 Watt 80+ Gold

Boot: Patriot Burst 240 GB 2.5" SSD

Storage: Hitachi Deskstar 1TB 3.5" HDD

Windows 10 Pro 64 bit

 

The issue: I cannot figure out how to XMP any ram on this board. I select any ram speed over 2133 MHz with or without XMP and it will not boot, it gets stuck on the DRAM LED with no beep codes and I have to force shut down. System works fine otherwise at 2133 MHz.

 

What I've done:

Tried SEVERAL different RAM kits. Such as: Kingston Hyper X Fury 2666 MHz 2x8 GB, ADATA XPG Z1 2666 MHz 2x4 GB, and Non-XMP RAM like Teamgroup Elite 2400 MHz 2x8 GB.

Tried a single stick of RAM in each slot.

Tried a different processor - i5-7400 - I was able to get the RAM to go to 2400 MHz with this processor since that is the max supported speed by default on this processor. Anything higher - same issue.

I made sure the XMP profiles set the correct timings and DRAM voltages - they are correct with each RAM kit.

Tried the suggestions that I found by searching:

CPU VCCIO voltage - 1.15v

CPU System Agent voltage - 1.15v

 

I'm out of ideas.

 

Thanks in advance!

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I don't know. Z170 was the first mainstream board to support DDR4 and it had a very marked ceiling in terms of RAM frequency. There once was a very, very long thread of Z170 owners unable to reach the 3000 MHz speed on their RAM kits and that was supposedly supported by their motherboards. Some years on now, it seems clear a lot of those compatibility claims were optimistic or limited to top tier motherboards. 3000 might also be a funny speed for that BIOS and force a 125 strap or something like that.

 

1) Make a system image or otherwise back up your OS before starting in on repeated memory overclocking attempts. You crash enough times, there is a definite chance to corrupt the OS and wind up in a boot loop.

 

2) Try a medium pass. Go into the BIOS and manually set 2666, DRAM voltage to 1.35v, VCCIO and SA voltage to 1.20v. Do not enable XMP. Set the primary RAM timings to 15-17-35. This is relatively loose and should hopefully work.

 

 

No mixing kits. 2 sticks vs 1 should not matter for this.

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Thanks for your reply

I'm honestly not worried about the system image on this unit, I haven't installed anything of consequence on it yet as I haven't wanted to do so for the very reason you mentioned.

I tried the above mentioned settings - same DRAM LED and no post.

 

I know this might be frowned upon since I'm coming to a forum for help and am essentially looking to profit from your knowledge, but I build gaming computers (All computers actually) as a home business. I wanted to be able to sell this unit with the RAM running at the advertised speed and this will be the second Z170 motherboard I've had issues with getting RAM to run in anything over the 2133 MHz on a 6th generation processor.

The other build was a MSI Z170 with an i5-6600k, and I ended up letting the unit go with 2400 MHz RAM running at 2133 MHz, which is what I'm thinking I'll have to do with this one as well unfortunately.

At the very least, I'd like to learn how to get even a 2666 MHz kit to run on a Z170 chipset with a 6th generation processor. It's just hard for me to believe that a Z170 chipset can't overclock RAM at all past the processors specs.

 

I really appreciate your time. If you have any other suggestions I'm more than willing to try.

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I don't really understand why it would have such difficulty at this point 20 BIOS versions in. It's also concerning that is won't even boot. That means you aren't close, let alone on the desktop and stable for normal use. I don't have any first hand experience with that board and it's also possible the IMC on the 7400 is that limited. I don't have a lot of data for those pairings since most non-K CPU owners are also running at default RAM settings.
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