At wits end. 4 dimms WONT run properly on maximus x formula (macrium reflect errors)

[klepp0906]

Oh god, so without making this as long as a book. My ram has been rock stable for a loooooong time. However ive foolishly spent too many years without backups and began using macrium reflect recently. Who woulda known its a hardcore stability test.

The problem is - my images all fail verification, but only full images, and only to internal drives.

two things allow me to pass verification. 1) write to a usb drive. 2) pull 2 sticks of my memory. 4x8 CMR16GX4M2C3600C18

The ram passes prime. Ive ran hci memtest pro overnight with no errors. I have no issues elsewhere.

After spending not days, but weeks on this, and blasting my disks with many terabytes of written and re written images to test, im spent.

I ended up checking the QVL (and while before i never put much stock in them, now i begin to wonder) and while my memory is ON the list, its only on it for 2 sticks - not 4.

Thing is, ive tried it on auto which bumps the VCCSA/IO up to 1.4+, ive tried knocking it down from 3600 to 3200 at the same timings. Ive tried with my cpu at stock.

Literally the ONLY two things that can get me to pass is pulling two sticks (yes ive tried pair by pair, and in both sets of slots) or using an external drive.

What on gods green earth is going on?

Anybody using macrium and 4 dimms able to verify problem free? I really dont know where to go with this. I certainly wish I could pull two sticks, but I cant. I'm a heavy multitasker and vm user and id hit that wall more often than not.

[klepp0906]

worth mentioning that i took an image from an external drive that verified fine, and copied it to an internal drive. Same image failed verification.

what does it all mean people smarter than i?

[kens30]

I just installed Macrium Reflect to test this.

I selected an internall ssd and selected image this disk (destination folder was to another internall ssd) i also selected Auto verify image and all passes ok.
I also tried this another 2 times with other source disks no errors on verification.

By full images do you mean what i described above? if not post to let me know...
and what Windows 10 version are you using?

BTW you know that you combined 2 identical dual channel kits to get 32 gb which is not recommended to avoid issues like this.
I was going to try my luck as well and added another same dual kit as you, I have run various memtest's after adding the additional kit and everything passed ok.
Until this day i have not run into any problems.

[klepp0906]

hi, and thanks for the reply. And the legwork to run some tests of your own.

yes thats what i mean by full. ie: not incremental or differential. full disk images. I do know i combined 2 identical kits to get 32gb. I didnt expect super high clocks being that I was using 4 dimms and certainly didnt expect it to present any issue like the aforementioned.

Not sure thats the problem but i dont know where to go from here testing wise.

All stability tests pass. It will read/write/verify images just fine if i write them to a usb drive. If i write them to an internal, they fail, but only if i have all 4 dimms populated. I dont know enough to know if its the memory, the controller, or something related to the board/sata bus.

Ive tried different sata drivers, im at a loss. If you have any suggestions that I havent tried - or anyone for that matter. I'm wholly willing to try anything at this point.

[klepp0906]

im even considering buying some new ram. Im positive this ram is good so im unsure if its legitimately an issue due to not being from the same "kit" an issue due to being on the QVL as 2 sticks but not 4, or an issue due to the IMC.

or something else alltogether.

edit: looked into it more, i dont think the QVL has jack-all to do with it. Also ran thaiphoon against them and it looks like theyre 100% the same except for one kit uses a different thermal sensor. both are samsung b-die, same part # etc.

Just wrote an image to an internal with 2 sticks in. verified it. good. added 2 more sticks, tried to verify - nooo buennooooo.

Dont know what to think. Even if it were the IMC, or the ram, why is it that writing to a usb hard drive is perfectly fine, whereas an internal, ANY internal (i have 6 to choose from, and i tried every solitary one) all fail.

[Enderwiggin03]

klepp0906 wrote:
im even considering buying some new ram. Im positive this ram is good so im unsure if its legitimately an issue due to not being from the same "kit" an issue due to being on the QVL as 2 sticks but not 4, or an issue due to the IMC.

or something else alltogether.

edit: looked into it more, i dont think the QVL has jack-all to do with it. Also ran thaiphoon against them and it looks like theyre 100% the same except for one kit uses a different thermal sensor. both are samsung b-die, same part # etc.

Just wrote an image to an internal with 2 sticks in. verified it. good. added 2 more sticks, tried to verify - nooo buennooooo.

Dont know what to think. Even if it were the IMC, or the ram, why is it that writing to a usb hard drive is perfectly fine, whereas an internal, ANY internal (i have 6 to choose from, and i tried every solitary one) all fail.

I ran into something similar, was running 2 separate kits at 3900mhz for months, good VCCIO/VCCSA voltages etc, then would get random memory related BSODs, finally was only stable with 2 sticks, then even after replacing RAM with a QVL kit I still had issues, had to RMA my 9900k, been stable since, even considering returning my new ram and just run the old kits (4266mhz CL19 at 4000 CL16).

[klepp0906]

Enderwiggin03 wrote:
I ran into something similar, was running 2 separate kits at 3900mhz for months, good VCCIO/VCCSA voltages etc, then would get random memory related BSODs, finally was only stable with 2 sticks, then even after replacing RAM with a QVL kit I still had issues, had to RMA my 9900k, been stable since, even considering returning my new ram and just run the old kits (4266mhz CL19 at 4000 CL16).

ty for the post. definitely walk away with my tail between my legs before RMA'ing anything at this point. My 8770k has been de and re-lidded with a copper IHS and is liquid metal'd onto my waterblock. Tinkering is fun, but as i get older - i lean more towards actually being able to USE my hardware. Especially with limited freetime (toddlers).

the ram im not convinced is the issue, directly. In that i dont think the ram is bad in any way. Its either a weak IMC exacerbated by populating 4 dimms with 32gb of 3600 ram, or the fact they were purchased separately and not as an AIO kit. Though in the future to eliminate this from consideration, ill definitely be buying them as a lump package 😜

I did run them down to 2400 last night and they verified. so again working my way back up. I noticed on auto the board sets the VCCIO/SA well over 1.4 which if done manually is in the red. I find that odd. Is it perhaps that i need more voltage than the general consensus deems reasonable for 4 dimms? I was using 1.8750 and 1.2350 for IO/SA and that was enough for prime, memtest, hci memtest and to run me problem free for a loooong time.

apparently macrium to an internal hard drive is what broke the camels back lol.

It fails the verify every time. The block/hash check against the index it writes always fails. Images are known good, so literally for whatever reason the ram is reading a different hash than what was written.

Thats teetering right on the edge of my understanding so i'm at wits end.

I see a lot of people pushing 4k+ with tighter timings than my 3600 kit at xmp, on the same chip, so it makes me wonder.

I did try 1 run with auto settings of 1.4 vccio/vccsa and (forgive me, they are literally all bluring together between monotony, time investement, and frustration) but i believe that one DID pass verify.

Does not seem reasonable to think those kind of voltages should be required for cas18 3600 ram. They pass everything else at 1.8750/1.2350 at 16/17/17/37 at 1.35v.

I bow to people that actually tune tertiary timings manually. A different kind of animal. Me?

[kens30]

Hi klepp0906

Can you please fill in your pc profile so that we know exactly what parts you are using.
Also what version of windows and what BIOS you are on.

[klepp0906]

kens30 wrote:
Hi klepp0906

Can you please fill in your pc profile so that we know exactly what parts you are using.
Also what version of windows and what BIOS you are on.

filled in. and i didnt see a bios section, but im on the newest. I think it was 2003? Same issue was present on the last one 1901, had hoped this was going to fix it. alas.

[Enderwiggin03]

Something else, are these SATA drives you're having issues with? Might want to swap SATA cables/ports for trouble shooting proposes.