ROG MAXIMUS Z790 EXTREME BIOS 1303,1402,1501

[hellokitty]

Nothing But Problems, I have to keep going back to 1202.  1303,1402,1501 All No Go, Random Crashes and the only overclock i do, is turn XMP on. everything else is just set to stock, cause im trying to keep it simple and not push anything. i set XMP1 OR XMP2 Thats all. runs the best with 1202, but i have a 12900k and would like to goto a 14900k. im stuck, been trying for months to move up, 1501 was close, but tonight, several crashes, just watching youtube with chrome, nothing else, but the background stuff. This has been the worst experience i have ever had, with BIOS Updates, never this many problems before. Windows 11 Pro, all updated 192gb of corsair ram at 5200 mhz. 

[Silent_Scone]

Hello,

That's a lot of memory. Are you able to confirm the memory kit part number?

Please note:

Combining or mixing memory kits isn't supported by memory or motherboard vendors. This is because memory vendors bin and validate the memory kit in the density in which it is sold. If you combine memory kits the settings in which the kit is validated for XMP are no longer valid and manual tuning will very often be required for stability.

[hellokitty]

heres a screenshot, bought the full matching kit, from corsair.

[Silent_Scone]

192GB is going to be tough with any kind of OC. You're likely going to need to tune if wanting to use XMP.

Evaluate the following rails first. You can see what auto rules are applying, and work up or down depending on what aids stability.

CPU System Agent
IVR TX (Under Advanced Memory Voltages)
Memory Controller Voltage (Under Advanced Memory Voltages)

I would first try increasing the Memory Controller Voltage in 20mV increments as this rail will be key in stabilising that much memory. Test with Karhu RAM Test or TM5.

[hellokitty]

it says in the bios, "ASUS" tested/set them up for xmp. something like that, i chose xmp 2, cause it just sets it to the stock xmp settings. xmp 1 is the asus modified version. could be some other issue. like i said, it seems to be stable with 1202, cause that's what i always have to go back to. i setup a RMA, they can fix it, but ill try what you mentioned, thank you. 

[Silent_Scone]

Changes in auto rules, CPU u-code or ME firmware are always a potential grip with overclocking. Some of which are out of the vendor's hands. However, the QVL is not an assurance of overclocking - nobody can give these kinds of guarantees when running the system out of spec. If the system is stable on 1202 - there's no harm in staying put. Simply use USBFlashback if you do purchase a 14900K. Remember, memory overclocking and the CPU are intrinsically related so there's nothing to say you will experience the same difficulty.

[undeadbanana]

I'm was having issues galore with Xmp settings on the z690 extreme, everytime I would get memory errors even just running optimized defaults. I looked up so many things to figure out why my board wouldn't run well, the only thing that made it stable was manually setting memory controller voltage higher. I have g.skills 6600c34, and I got it stable within windows raising the memory controller voltage from 1.1v to 1.3 and I've transmitter vddq to 1.25, but honestly I had so many issues and didn't want to keep manually configuring the bios, in a little lazy. The Bios also never set up the voltages I had to set for memory controller despite disabling fast boot and forcing the RAM to do different trainings.

Been chatting with support and trying to solve issues, but nothing.

I noticed during memtest it would always read the SPD settings for my voltage but not frequencies and my SPD settings were always blank. For the longest time I thought my RAM was just screwed or I was doing something wrong, went through an RMA, a return, and now stuck with a 6400 and 6600. Was starting to think it's my motherboard because my RAM was always failing diagnostic tests, eventually I went to memtest to see if there was info on fixing my SPD settings.

On their page I found a warning which I can't find anymore, but it said they were aware of an issue with DDR5 SPDs not being read, Memtest was only able to see the first 4 pages of SPD and there's around 64 pages or so. They mentioned a workaround for some motherboards, like Asus, if you go into the UEFI and set

SPD write disable = FALSE

Memtest should be able to access all of the SPD info.

I set it to FALSE and Memtest was finally able to see my SPD settings. Out of curiosity, I set my RAM with a default Xmp profile and left everything on auto after restarting I noticed that the BIOS actually set the memory controller voltage to near where I was setting it to, 1.35v, plus it actually changed all the non primary timings.

Not sure if it's just my motherboard but from the amount of issues I have seen people talk about it seems like Asus motherboards can't access the full SPD information similarly to Memtest, but when you set SPD write disable= FALSE it seems like it has full access and actually sets things up properly when memory settings are set to auto. Anyways, it seems like the newer versions of Memtest found a workaround and now are able to access the full SPD information, it's several versions after the one currently in my boards uefi.

I've already reported it to Asus and they said their technicians are investigating and looking for a fix. Uefi memtest is still slightly buggy with SPD write disable FALSE but my system hardware finally is pretty stabilized with having to set things manually.

Tl;dr: Memtest mentions that certain platforms (likes Asus), BIOS disables SPD Write which seems to affect the ability to read as well but if you go into Extreme Tweaker -> Tweakers Paradise and set SPD Write Disable = FALSE, Memtest will work again and if you're board is like mine it should finally work very well with XMP profiles. Issue is fixed in v10.6+.

One more thing, after initially setting it to false I would suggest a cold boot or maybe disabling Fast boot, for the first restart. Not sure but every time I set it up initially, I get a BSOD entering windows and end up restarting again. But it does sweet things up, I promise. I have both fast boot and MRC fast boot disabled, just too anxious about unstable ram now and don't want more files getting corrupted.

Edit: I meant set it to FALSE, the default is True my bad.

[undeadbanana]

Found the web page, sorry I know it's a sin taking pictures of computer screens but like I said I'm lazy and wasn't on my primary user account and already wrote so much while on mobile.

 

[hellokitty]

so set that to disabled? if i find it in the bios?  thanks, thank you. 

[undeadbanana]

I'm not sure if it's in all Asus Boards bios or something specific to the Extremes, but it's the menu layout is Extreme Tweaker -> Tweaker's Paradise -> SPD Write Disable. Set it to FALSE, I misworded earlier and said true but that's the default setting. Here's a better screenshot not that I'm at my computer, I was going off of memory and actually spread some misinformation. 



I honestly had no clue what I was doing, I just know I finally found a workaround to the issue I was experiencing after a year of random BSODs all pointing at memory issues when the XMP profiles are configured. Memtest kept saying my Ram was bad but after getting the 3rd RAM kit and researching (googling what people who know what they're doing are doing), the general consensus seemed to suggest if your mobo was unstable with XMP profiles, to do individual testing, testing all the settings 1 by 1, etc. but when I did all that, it still said things were bad.

As if things weren't bad enough with my system, my computer was infected with malware and lots of my personal info was compromised, so I ended up focusing on securing my personal info and threw this all into the back of my head. Then 2802 released and I was like, "Oh, Increased Stability!" 😂

After creating a system restore and flashing to the new firmware I loaded back into windows with XMP profile enabled without adjusting any other settings, I completely forgot that XMP profiles were messed up on my system and that I had actually stopped testing settings because I had input manual settings similar to what over-clocker earlier DDR5 ram with lower freqs were using to get to the same freq I had of 6600, but I was reminded pretty quickly when windows loaded and I got BSOD soon after.

I'm starting to ramble again, so long story short I began noticing weird things with the SPD settings not being read, crashed windows, corrupted system restore, corrupted bios, recovered BIOS, somehow MS says my HW ID changed and other licenses I own say my HW ID changed, determined to find the cause, 2 weeks of reinstalls, flashing BIOS, messing with settings, all suggestions telling me to RMA my mobo, I finally looked to see if Asus updated Memtest with BIOS updates and found their workaround and saying SMBus can't read all 1024 bytes of SPD info because it uses SPD Write to read 8 pages at once but when it's disabled it can only access 1 page.  

Again, no idea what I was doing but I started suspecting it was something with SPD readings because despite MemTest undervolting my manual settings, some hw monitors showed the correct info I put in while others couldn't. And MemTest was giving errors while Windows Memory Diagnostics was saying I was good with manual settings. Just a giant rollercoaster that I'm finally able to get off of for a moment. Even with SPD Write Disabled = False, Memtest still can't read the second memory slot in the version included within bios so maybe my mobo is bad after all, but at least I can finally use memory kits on the QVL at the rated speed I purchased them for without investing a lot of time in researching overclocking every time BIOS updates because I'm too lazy to write the settings I found down somewhere.

SPD Write Disable