Asus maximus ix hero multiple problems with XMP

[Contact]

This is my first pc builld in a long time. Any patience would be appreciated. I'm just gonna go over some things to make sure I have the right information. So I have:

- i7 7700k 4.2 ghz
- Asus maximus ix hero
- Corsair H110i water pump as it was all I could afford
- Corsair Ax 860 modular power suppy
- Corsair Graphite 780t
- Corsair vengeance 2x8 3200MHz 2 packs to total 4x8 (someone told me I shouldn't have two separate packs. I checked the bios and they all reported back running at a lower speed. 2133mhz) Also I'm not quite sure what the highest is for this cpu but I heard 3000mhz. THIS SEEMS TO BE THE PROBLEM.
- A evga geforce 1080 FTW (Not FTW2) As far as I know these fans are not coming on.

Ok so problems started when I first thought that installing the kaby lake cpu the mother board would not recognize the cpu as I was told online so I had to go through the trouble in the bios of flashing the bios. I ended up using the EZ tool in the bios to flash the bios and then had to go back into the bios and force it to boot from the windows 10 usb in order to get it to run the installation for windows 10 because the bios were reading the h110i pump on AIO pump instead of cpu fan. So I transfered the three pin connector for the pump to cpu fan and everything ran alright except when installing drivers sometimes it would blue screen which happened like once maybe twice. Either way it was a good post and ultimately I LOVE this motherboard. I checked with corsair support to make sure everything was set right and we are ok there.

Today the pc is about three days old. I noticed in the bios that the RAM was reading 2133mhz as well as some other figures that didn't look like I was running the RAM full bore. So I went into the bios and activated XMP and nothing happened in EZ mode the ram showed that it was still at 2133mhz. In advanced mode it showed at 3200 mhz the cpu (unnoticed to me until just now when I woke up) and on the right side under advanced the settings say 4.2 for the processor and 2133mhz for the ram so I thought it didn't take. ALSO FOR SOME ODD REASON OVERCLOCKING RAM FOR THE FIRST TIME I CLICKED EXTREME OVERCLOCK ON ADVANCED AFTER ENABLING XMP IN EZ MODE I checked it yesterday after major progress was made. When I rebooted and checked the CPUID ROG CPUZ and checked the ram its reading 3200MHZ. I never checked the cpu, I didn't know that the processor was set to everclock as well using XMP in EZ mode.

Happy in my ignorance went to show a buddy how easy it was to overclock ram and booted into bios. Upon resetting I was greeted by a blue screen when I loaded into windows it kept rebooting after the I think its azure graphics c prompt showed up then another then another. I went back into my bios and changed the RAM settings back and was greeted by continuous blue screens. PTE_MISUSE and PAGE_FAULT_IN_NON_PAGE_AREA. I eventually ended up only being able to Over clock the ram to get it to boot windows. I spent a full day with all 4 ram slots. One of the DIMM slots the clip seems to be defective. I very carefully reinstalled the 4 DIMM's into the slots double checking and tripple checking for any kind of looseness. Mind you I spent a full day rebooting and making sure no more blue screens occurred with two DIMMS and now 4 DIMMS. Below is an old post from cpuz when I had overclocked the RAM. If I am correct and by the way asus has 10/10 tech support they probably know me by name by now, but if I am correct I have the wrong type or ram 2 separate packs of 2x8 3200mhz which is the main issue here. The other problem is the setting I changed under advanced when I first over clocked, it was highlighed in red, so I figured "Hit the button." Dumb. I have since changed that.

Type DDR4 Channel# Dual
Size 32768 MBytes
NB Frequency all over the place. 800.2 MHz
DRAM frequency 1600.5MHz
FSB:D RAM 1:24
CL 16.0 clocks
tRCD 18 clocks
tRP 18 clocks
tRAS 36 clocks
tRFC 560 clocks
CR 2T

Current CPUZ

Type DDR4 Channel# Dual
Size 32768 MBytes
NB Frequency all over the place. 800.2 MHz
DRAM frequency 1071.5MHz
FSB:D RAM 1:16
CL 15.0 clocks
tRCD 15 clocks
tRP 15 clocks
tRAS 36 clocks
tRFC 374 clocks
CR 2T

Processor is saying 4.20ghz in windows CPUZ is saying 4.20ghz under the processor. Down where it says clocks core #0 the clock speed can sometimes go up to 4500 mhz. I don't know what the clocks are.

The scariest part is when I go to the bios. I know I should maybe flash the CMOS for like the third time, which by the way the asus tech ordered a pizza ate it while helping me flash the cmos for the first time. Top marks from the survey. But in the bios under extreme tweaker at the top

Target cpu turbo-mode frequency is: 4500MHZ
Target CPU @ AVX Frequency is: 4500MHZ
Target DRAM Frequency : 2133MHZ
Target Cache Frequency : 4200MHZ

Now when I had hit XMP in EZ mode I went back into the advanced setting and on the right side nothing changed on the hardware monitor. Processor was still reading 4.2 RAM still 2133mhz. Going back into EZ mode under information gave no reaction to enabling XMP and DRAM gave no reaction. Asus is saying that it could be a defective mother board if I replace the ram with 4 sticks and they still don't take. I want to check the forum here before I go jumping to conclusions. Also any kind of damage control I could do would be great. And I wholeheartedly apologize for the wall of text.

[Nate152]

Hi Contact

It's not recommended to mix memory kits of the same specs and this could be the problem you're having.

https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?57038-Don%92t-combine-memory-kits!-The-meat-and-potatoes-o...

However you may get lucky and it will work. Try setting your ram manually instead of using XMP and raise the cpu system agent voltage and cpu vccio voltage to 1.20v - 1.25v and see if this gets your ram stable. There are no guarantees to get your ram working when mixing ram kits even of the same specs.

[Contact]

Thanks for the reply nate I went ahead and read the link. So please do yourself a favor – do not combine memory kits. Purchase a single memory kit at the rated density and timings that you need. Perform research, ask questions then buy. Don’t do it backwards J

Um if you wouldn't mind can my processor: the i7 7700k can it run 3200mhz ram at XMP? As well as could you give me a recommendation for and alternative kind of RAM? I think you recommended before to use G-Skill.

[Nate152]

The i7-7700k in most instances should be capable of running 32GB of 3200MHz ram, I say should because it's up to the cpu's IMC if it can handle it and most if not all should be able too.

I do recommend G.Skill Trident Z ram, it is notorious for working well with the ROG Maximus boards.

Here is a 32GB RGB kit, it comes in kits with tighter timings but with looser timings it should be easier to get running.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820232564&cm_re=Trident_Z_RGB_32GB_3200MHz-_-...

cl 14

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820232560&cm_re=Trident_Z_RGB-_-20-232-560-_-...

For 7.00 dollars more I'd go with the cl14 kit.

[Contact]

Already contacted amazon about it. What should I do to the pc before removing the ram and before I return the sticks. Should I flash the cmos, reset the bios to defaults or any assortment of other options because as near as I can tell this thing is gonna be inoperable for at least a couple days while I get this taken care of.

[Nate152]

Well before buying new ram try my suggestion in my first post, if no luck then return the ram.

Yep power down your pc, install the new ram, clear the cmos then fire her up.

[Contact]

Ok well it looks like I have some time to try overclocking manually. So the main problem was that when I overclocked through EZ mode it changed the timings and everything but on the right side under hardware monitor in extreme tweaker none of the values changed. Like all except for one place under LN2 mode. And in EZ mode under information and dram status even though I enabled XMP nothing changed. So if you wouldn't mind would u mind walking me through what to change where? And should I overclock the processor to 4.5? Sorry about this but this has been a bit crazy. I didn't know a little button could change so much.

[JustinThyme]

First as suggested go for a kit with all sticks matched.
Secondly speed in MHz isnt the only factor, its half of it. Latency plays just as important a role here. Speeds go up, latency goes up.

(CL/(freq-in-MHZ) x 1000) = response in ns...lower is better. Use this to determine where your advantage is. Higher frequency does not always = better performance.

I get my best OC results leaving the RAM unchanged then manually over clocking the CPU, then Uncore and memory last.
There are plenty of guides here, have a look. :cool:

[Contact]

Yeah so as far as I can tell the biggest unknown is that when I his XMP in EZ mode it didn't change anything in information under EZ mode under information for the cpu nothing changed and then for DRAM status nothing changed as well. Clicking on the extreme tweaking tab and looking at LN2 mode they changed as a matter of fact they still have changed even though I turned off XMP under EZ mode, which I have no idea why this hasn't changed because in windows and cpuz these show 4.2. Then in the bios on the right side in extreme tweaker under hardware monitor nothing changed after enabling XMP in EZ mode. Which is probably why asus told me there could be something wrong with the motherboard. From what I can gather here using two packs of the same RAM caused some kind of conflict which asus also told me could have been the problem. Once I enabled EZ XMP nothing changed in the bios while in cpuz it told me everything had changed and then I started blue screening.

Lemme also say I have much more respect for overclocking. This seems like a particular area of study. Intense study for me to kind of grasp, not gonna be something I am going to be able to grasp over night as it has been a long couple days. I am extremely impressed with this forum and it's mods as well. Nice forum you have here.

[KuraiShidosha]

As someone with the exact same setup (minus graphics card) I can confidently say two pairs of the same kit should work just fine. The 4x kits are literally the same thing just in one package.

If you're having hard times getting the XMP to work with the second kit installed, I blame your processors IMC for not being able to handle the full load. Try boosting VCCIO and VCCSA to around 1.2v to see if that fixes the problem.