Rampage IV Black Edition - instability with XMP setting and 4x8 GB RAM

[xarot]

I've read this thread for some time, I got my board yesterday and hit issues immediately. I'll open my own thread after I've had some time to troubleshoot, as I have two CPUs, RAM kits, PSUs, disks...

But in short, my 24/7 stable 4960X+RIVE+4x8 GB Corsair 1866 Vengeance kit would do the following on R4BE. If I start Prime95 27.9, my computer shuts down and then restarts in less than 10 seconds with the XMP and everything else at AUTO. I tried VTT/VCCSA as high as 1.15 V both and it didn't do anything. Yesterday I could run with everything at AUTO (RAM = 1333 MHz) for 30 minutes without issues. More troubleshooting to follow. Not a good start for me at all.

[Raja]

Moved your post here. Start afresh with Vcore and VCCSA (not sure if you simply copied the voltages you used on R4E or just whatever you were willing to put in). Overclock gradually - start from stock, if it's stable, add XMP, if that is stable too, add 100MHz to CPU and increase voltages accordingly (don't assume same voltages as R4E). Check stability at each step.



1) I would use more Vcore and VCCSA than is neccasary at each step (up to +0.07V higher than you think it should run at on both). If you find out which one of those voltages helps stabilize the system at a given step more, let me know.

2) If VCCSA is more the issue than VCore, then post up screen captures of UEFI of all DRAM pages.


If it were me debugging your system that is how I would do it. Pretty sure we can work this out if you are systematic. I think the issue here is that the R4BE is possibly a bit tighter on the memory timings than the standard board. Actual VCC offset may be different from VID as well, so people simply copying voltages over between the two boards are hitting obstacles. You really need to approach oc'ing on this board as if you're learning the system again.

[xarot]

Thanks Raja. It's always nice to see you here and greatly appreciate your efforts to solve my issues. Sometimes it's just a bit frustrating when you put hours into the build and nothing works at stock. Reminded me of the nF780i days if you know what I mean...:p

I changed the thread title a bit, since I haven't (from my point of view) overclocked anything yet. XMP setting would set 4 GHz on all cores though, so I'd need manually to change the settings to per core. Maybe we can help future posters here as well.

Actually at first, I didn't try to use my old voltage settings at all. I tried upping VTT/VCCSA today to 1.2V both, which both are already a bit dangerous, but that didn't solve anything. What I tried next was to shoot for stable VCCSA and go from there. First I tried way too low 0.85 V for VCCSA and I couldn't run Prime95 for a second. 😮 Okay, VCCSA had something to do with this issue no doubt?

I've experienced Prime95 to drop worker cores if VTT is too low or high. VCCSA on the other hand, does different things like these reboots. Now, I actually took the stock VCCSA for 4960X that was utilized on RIVE. It's around 0.95 V so I set that manually. Also went for 1.1 VTT to begin with.

After VCCSA at 0.95, I fired up Prime95 and one worker crashed at 2 minutes. But no sudden reboot! Okay. I tried VTT at 1.05 next, so far one hour and 10 minutes stable while I'm writing this.

So I guess this board needs a completely different approach, of course it would be nice if the board could play with our kits right out of the box. You can have too low or high VTT/VCCSA and it causes issues. I think you should NOT use the same voltage for VTT and VCCSA. I am also running 3-way SLI and from what I've read VCCSA is also related to the PCI-E controller so you need to find your best settings yourselves.

Of course this is just a few first steps, but more to follow...this makes it even harder for us to give any kind of advice for first-time OCers, they need to find out the hard way.

Hope this helps...I'm waiting for my Dominator GT 4x8 GB 2133 MHz kit, so I'll hope I at least get it somewhat stable (the best LOOKING kit on the market :cool:).

I have a kind of a Rampage collection already:

[Raja]

Post up some screenshots of the DRAM timing pages (all). This should ease the need for VCCSA adjustments. The need for adjustment over what you're used to is probably on the memory IO side (if anything is tighter or those kits have ICs that aren't as comfortable with the new DRAM trace work we've done, there may be some things you can adjust - I can help with that).

-Raja

[xarot]

I probably figured it out. My VCCSA was actually set manually at 0.96 V (I said 0.95 V) and I ran Prime95 for over 13 hours with VCCSA 0.96 V and VTT 1.05 V and RAM 1866 at 12-12-12-32. I just threv some Vcore in, I used 1.25 V. Everything else at AUTO.

Today I am currently running CPU at 4.4 and my kit at 1866 MHz 10-11-10-27 as specification and same VCCSA and VTT.

It seems the XMP just doesn't work at all...could be my kit. My Corsair kit's last voltage in the XMP profile is 1.3 V, is this VTT or VCCSA? Anyway that voltage would kill any 39xx C2 or 49xx chip? 🙂 Luckily it doesn't work in Rampage boards...

So currently no need to fine-tune secondary timings I guess. Here's a screenie from my last run. I'll update my settings after I test some more...

Thanks again, Raja!

[Raja]

Nobody can say what will kill the CPUs voltage wise long term. VCCSA is the voltage that affect memory clocking most (CPU side).


Glad you are up and running. 🙂