GA-X58A-UD5 and Corsair XMS3 12GB

[Dark Mantis]

Have you tried re-seating all the ram sticks?

[dpack_1]

I'll have to do that later, the thing's been turned on all day and pretty damn hot in there now.

Will get back to you after i've reseated everything and played around some more.

If you can think of anything else in the mean time please let me know.

[Dark Mantis]

I am afraid that I am fresh out of ideas. I can't help feeling that I am missing something but can't think what. Give me a while to study it and maybe it will come to me.

[dpack_1]

Ok, i reseated all the ram, even swapped postioning of the sticks. No change.

Started it up today, it had enabled another 2gb so was reading 8gb, but after a shakey boot (restarted 2 or 3 times before getting to my windows log in screen) it finally made it to a desktop for about 10 seconds before BSOD'ing with an IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL error.

I'm baffled now, i'm gonna guess bad hardware but is it the RAM or Mobo?

[Dark Mantis]

Well I would go with the ram but to be honest it could also be an overheating CPU.
I found this quoted by smoeone on the web and thought it made good sense:
Most commonly it is the CPU overheating. A close second would be bad RAM. The first thing I would do if you have this issue is to run the machine till it gives you that error, then immediately reboot it, go into the BIOS and check the CPU temperature. 3/5 times it will be way too hot.

[dpack_1]

It literally happened as soon as i turned it on this afternoon, had been off for over 20 hours.

I have a water-cooled CPU, it's never over 60C under heavy load and around 39 at idle.

[Dark Mantis]

I think that you need to run Memtest86+ on your memory modules and let it do a thorough test. It is not quick will take a few hours to check properly but at least you wil know for certain.

[dpack_1]

I cant run it on all the modules though because some of the slots aren't being enabled?

I can only test the sticks that are enabled at that time, which is now varying on every reboot between 6gb and 8gb.

[Dark Mantis]

Remove half of the sticks and then run the test. Replace the first set with the second and redo the test.

[onemilimeter]

What's the model of PSU that you're using?


Manufacturer's Specs:
Corsair XMS3 12GB (HX3X12G1333C9)
1333MHz
9-9-9-24-2T
1.5v


I read somewhere (can't remember where it is) that when all six memory slots are occupied, the motherboard sometimes may not be very happy and it refuses to detect some of the memories or some of the memories may not work properly. If my memory serves me well, it has something to do with the "voltage".

For an i7 you are not supposed to run the memory in excess of 1.65V because the memory controller voltage is tied to the RAM voltage.

You may try two things:
[1] Increase the DRAM voltage. But make sure it won't be more than 1.65V as mentioned above.
[2] Relax the memory timing, e.g. 10-10-10-24

[Dark Mantis]

Yes, onemilimeter it was so much easier when you could just up the memory and Northbridge voltages to compensate for the extra load wasn't it?

[dpack_1]

Hell, full specs are:

PSU: Corsair 950W - CMPSU-950TXUK
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD5
CPU: Intel Core i7 930 2.80GHz
RAM: Corsair XMS3 12GB HX3X12G1333C9
GPU: OcUK Value GeForce GTX 480 1536MB GDDR5
HDD's: 40GB Intel SSD - 140GB WD Raptor - 2TB Samsung

[onemilimeter]

Yes, onemilimeter it was so much easier when you could just up the memory and Northbridge voltages to compensate for the extra load wasn't it?

Agree, Dark Mantis... when more slots are used, the "sourcing current" of the memory controller (which is embedded in the processor) may not be enough if the DRAM voltage is low.

[dpack_1]

Upped the DRAM voltage to 1.62, no change.

[onemilimeter]

I cant run it on all the modules though because some of the slots aren't being enabled?

I can only test the sticks that are enabled at that time, which is now varying on every reboot between 6gb and 8gb.

Varying observation... are those detected memories always from the same few slots?