Asus Z170 Gene strange memory issues...

[sahafiec]

hi guys,

I have already red other topics about memory issues with this particular motherboard.
but my issue seems a bit different, thus I decided to open a new topic.
I'm using the Asus Z170 Gene (bios 1402), Intel i5 6600K (no OC) and Corsair 4x4GB 2400MHz ram (CMK16GX4M4A2400C14).

the motherboard and the ram are both in each others QVL lists so I expected them to work flawlessly.
the cpu, motherboard and ram combo is about 2 months old and I'm facing some random stability issues.
the range goes from a freeze to a BSOD, always random and not really reproducible.

I've been investigating that together with the great guys over at "tenforums" but was not able to find the real cause.
suspecting a driver issue I performed a clean install of my Windows 10 Pro so drivers should not be a problem anymore.
only a minimum of the only needed driver are cleanly installed: vga, audio and chipset (all up to date).

what I realize is that I never have a BSOD or freeze while running my rams on auto settings.
as soon as switch the rams to XMP and run them on 2400MHZ (instead of 2133MHz) I get random issues.
to be clear I never have issues to boot the system, the issues come later on and are not predictable.

additionally while troubleshooting the BSODs I ran a Memtest on the rams for more than 8 loops with no errors.
so there seems to be no physical issue with the rams but still XMP causes problems.

what's the problem with that motherboard, why is an overclocker motherboard not able to run 2400MHz ram on XMP?

the rams supports even 2666MHz on XMP (second profile) and the motherboard is advertised even with speeds up to 3800MHz.

I just don't get what's the bottleneck here, what's causing the issue?!

I appreciate any help I can get, especially by users of the same motherboard.

note:
for those interested hier is the link to my BSOD troubleshooting.
http://www.tenforums.com/bsod-crashes-debugging/40664-bsod-attempted_write_to_readonly_memory-window...

[Nate152]

That's great news and sounds like all your troubles are gone. I feel bad for recommending you another ram kit when it was the cpu but it seems you got a good one passing the realbench stress test at 4.8GHz.

My 6700k needs 1.52v for 4.8GHz, it's game stable but won't pass a stress test.

[dannyboy292]

I sold the old corsair memory kit today for $65....Its only going for $75 brand new here in Canada right now , so I didn't do to bad....

[Nate152]

That makes me feel a lot better. 🙂

You might be able to lower the timings on the trident z kit, you could try 15-15-15-35 - 2T timings,

[sahafiec]

that's really good news dannyboy292, glad you got it sorted out. 😉
usually most of us don't suspect the cpu while having such issues.
but it seems one should always keep all possibilities in mind.

[dannyboy292]

UPDATE- over a week after replacing my CPU the problems have not returned and all is well.....Just want to thank you all for the help and suggestions 🙂

[jxdking]

Couple of weeks ago, my computer had a strange crash.
Black screen, reset button not working, then I did 5 seconds shut down and it just refused to power on again but black screen. Only clear-bios worked. PS: I do not overclock CPU.
I doubt the fault is on CPU in my case. BTW, my ram is Corsair 2x8G 2400MHz kit. I don't think it is the ram cause the issue, either.
I had experienced multiple crashes and reboot issue before that. Tried boosted vccio, cpu agent voltage, memory voltage, and also tried lower ram to 1866MHz. Those methods just delay the time to crash, but none of them really fixes the issue.

After that, I re-configured the ram slot, to force it to run under single channel. I was surprised that it's much stabler. It can run under 2400MHz XMP profile without touch any voltage. It has been running like that for couple of weeks 24/7 without a crash.


I am really tired of this kind of crash. My another Haswell rig never has this crash issue. If the crash happens again, I am going to just replace the motherboard with another brand.

[Dark_Henk]

To share my recent personal experience:

Do not buy Corsair memory for Asus Z170 series motherboards.

You cannot trust Corsair's 'memory finder' tool.
It will suggest that e.g. the Vengeance LTX modules are suited for the Z170 Pro Gaming.
But, relying on that I purchased those, and they give bluescreens, and lots of errors in MemTest.
(Asus Z170 Pro Gaming, Corsair CMK16GX4M2B3000C15)

When contacted, Corsair's support didn't confirm any issues (while the internet has lots of complaints), and just said: "ask your supplier for a replacement".
That's almost certainly a useless advice, and a waste of my time and effort.

Because, doing some more investigation myself, I found out there are several 'revisions' of these modules.
Some will work, some will not.
Corsair makes no differentiation for them, and what is worse, they will not help you if you get a version that does not work.
It's your problem now.

So, my personal experience and advice: stay away from Corsair memory for Asus Z170 motherboards.