Maximus Apex IX 4266Mhz issue with G.Skill Trident

[Toolguns]

Hello there.
I've been trying to get my 16gb Trident Z 4266 MHZ Kit to run stable with my new build. (7700k CPU)
I was having no luck in getting system to post after enabling XMP alone in BIOS.

I then tried der8auer's 5ghz OC guide here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlR7CNuoOXk
The system actually booted and posted, was able to game on BF1 for maybe 10-15 Minutes then I got a blue screen.

When I try to Auto-OC using Dual Intelligent Processors 5, it does usually get my memory close to 3,000MHZ. (Well short of the 4,133mhz i was hoping for on this board)

I bought this board exclusively because of it's ability to OC memory, and I would really like to at least tune the memory close to 4,000mhz if possible.

Did I just get bad sticks of memory, maybe my CPU doesn't like fast memory, or am I doing something wrong?
I'm not very savvy at OC.

Any suggestions would be appreciated! Thanks in advance.

[jab383]

With the Retry and SafeBoot buttons on the APEX, I haven't ever had to turn off power to reboot. SafeBoot is a wonder. It's like clearing CMOS without losing settings. It comes in so handy trying to tune 4266 DRAM.

[Toolguns]

jab383 wrote:
With the Retry and SafeBoot buttons on the APEX, I haven't ever had to turn off power to reboot. SafeBoot is a wonder. It's like clearing CMOS without losing settings. It comes in so handy trying to tune 4266 DRAM.

Learning something new everyday here on the ROG forums.
I didn't know Safeboot did that... going forward should be less of a hassle to try to tune that Dram with a stable OC on CPU (hopefully!)

[metal_snake1]

jab383 wrote:
With the Retry and SafeBoot buttons on the APEX, I haven't ever had to turn off power to reboot. SafeBoot is a wonder. It's like clearing CMOS without losing settings. It comes in so handy trying to tune 4266 DRAM.

Yes I know about these buttons, But does your system fails to post like mine if the overclock fails.. ? Just fails to post and no warning.. a black screen.

[Toolguns]

metal.snake wrote:
Yes I know about these buttons, But does your system fails to post like mine if the overclock fails.. ? Just fails to post and no warning.. a black screen.

Yes. When I ran XMP at 4266mhz with Bclk at default 103, my system would not post. Could only get to post when I dialed back Bclk to 100, which changes the Dram frequency to 4133mhz. I've settled for 4133mhz for now.

Kind of a bummer that it also downclocks CPU to 4.4ghz when I Auto XMP,. Had I known this, I probably would of purchased a slower memory kit.

Oh well, my first build, so a good learning experience for the next time I build again.

[Klute_Onren]

Thanks everyone for the wisdom, everything listed here is exactly what I was looking for. This idea of the motherboard having it's own method's of doing auto second and third timing's is mind blowing. When I built my first clocking rig in 03-04 it was manual or nothing. I spent 24/7 methodically tweaking testing stressing and benching my machine and managed to get very respectable result's out of mid range hardware. (thought's on not posting: if you throw something to crazy at it then it won't post, if it is something slightly outside of post stable it will recover. My x99 is slow to post but rather thorough so it's more difficult to not post)

I'll just throw my $.02 in on overclocking the old school method.

Everything back then was to move slowly and methodically. EX: I would find a vcore I wanted to test and a multiplier, say 10. Then I would start at a low fsb (similar to bclk) and push the fsb up by 1mhz at a time until unstable. At which point I would find one voltage setting and bump that, if that made it stable I would continue pushing and adding that voltage until that didn't work any more. If that didn't work I would try a different voltage until I found the exact component that wasn't letting me run stable. Using this method and enough time I found where each component each temp each voltage was happy, and this would all change depending on eachother. IE: a cpu multi of 10 would max out my fsb/ram before my cpu would max. A multi of 14 would bump my cpu ghz max before fsb/ram.

My point here is the more time and effort you put into it the better clock you will get. With so many setting's on these new systems I'm excited to hear about thing's like tweaking mode etc. In the end small changes followed by testing will get the best results.

[jab383]

"My point here is the more time and effort you put into it the better clock you will get."

That's the operative point. Any user trying to overclock has to choose how much time and patience they want to put into the old school method. For most gaming, the quicker, somewhat compromised results of the built-ins, presets, defaults and automatics are enough and take very little trouble. Fully manual is still the way to go for competitive overclocking.