XMP Problems With Gigabyte z170xp-SLI and Corsair CMK32GX4M4A2666C16 RAM

[Rogue Nano]

It seems from looking round the web that a lot of users of z170 boards regardless of manufacturers of both boards and RAM are having trouble with XMP.

I have a Gigabyte z170xp-SLI with four sticks of Corsair CMK32GX4M4A2666C16 RAM and an Intel i7-6700k 4GHz CPU.

After enabling XMP Profile 1 in the BIOS (the latest F5 revision) my machine will sometimes boot and sometimes it won't. I've also experienced BSOD's with both Windows 7 64 bit and after upgrading to Windows 10 64 bit.

The XMP profile sets the RAM to it's rated 2666MHz speed. When I reset to it's default setting in the BIOS (2133Mhz) my machine has been perfectly stable (for two weeks now) and Memtest shows no errors. This is not the case with XMP on....just tried to turn it on again last night and the same symptoms started again.

I've now tried manually setting both the speed to 2666Mhz and the first four timings (16-18-18-35) in the BIOS and will run Memtest tonight. Hopefully the machine will be more stable now. So far so good....

I am hoping that as the BIOS is revised things will improve?
 
 

[dmdilks]

Do you under stand what this telling you? If you are not Over Clocking your CPU a little. It will only run at 2133 by default.

Support for DDR4 3466(O.C.) /3400(O.C.) /3333(O.C.) /3300(O.C.) /3200(O.C.) /3000(O.C.) /2800(O.C.) /2666(O.C.) /2400(O.C.) /2133 MHz memory modules

[Rogue Nano]

So is running the memory at 2666 Mhz considered to be an overclock? Also I'm not overclocking the CPU.

[Rogue Nano]

Or are you trying to say that I need to overclock the CPU to attain that speed? As far as I understood it setting up the correct XMP profile allows you to run your RAM at it's rated speed.

[dmdilks]

Support for DDR4 3466(O.C.) /3400(O.C.) /3333(O.C.) /3300(O.C.) /3200(O.C.) /3000(O.C.) /2800(O.C.) /2666(O.C.) /2400(O.C.) /2133 MHz memory modules

I hate mother board companies. The (O.C.) means Over Clock. The CPU will only run the memory at 2133 without OC. Because the board has it that it says it can support it. That doesn't mean you can just pop that memory in think it is going to work. You have tweak the board to get it to work Sorry.

http://ark.intel.com/products/88195/Intel-Core-i7-6700K-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-4_20-GHz

[Rogue Nano]

Thanks for your help. I am aware that the memory needs a little tweaking to get it working and didn't expect to just plonk it in and have everything happening...I've adjusted the speed and timings manually and now everything is fine.