PC problem (RAMs)

[Steltrucci]

 Ok im in my friends house at the moment. We just tried to change the memory dimms between our pc. I first used my dimms on his pc (cpu:AMD Phenom 2 x955, Mobo: Asrock 870 extreme 3, RAM: Corsair Vengeance DDR3 8GB (2x4GB) . Well we early noticed that both my dimms were running on 1600 fsb now and NOT in 1333 as in my pc! So despite the fact that my dimms might be wrong or not, they DID run on 1600 on the other pc. So first of, its obvious that my pc downgrades my memories and timings down to 1333fsb and 4.4.5. 14 timings or something like that for a reason that has nothing to do with a bad series of dimms so maybe its BIOS. Anyway we instantly went for a mem test and boom... Tons of errors again. I remind you, we were running my dimms on my friends pc. So after that we tried my friends memories in my pc. I also remind you that he owns the same type of memories as i do (corsair vengeance 8GB). My pc has downgraded his dimms too. Again on 1333fsb and dropped timings. We tried to upgrade them via BIOS up to 1600. Voltages were 1.5 for the dimms as corsair says. But we didnt change any other option. We just tried to move onto windows. Well this never happened. My pc gave us the same message that i used to recieve with my dimms. Which it shows the downgrade that the pc does. So back to 1333 fsb and less timings. So.. can you figure out what is happening? In conclusion, my dimms did it to run on 1600fsb on my friends pc but they failed the mem test afterwards as well. His dimms, were running on 1333 fsb on my pc so my pc, seems to do some kind of a downgrade. Is it the BIOS after all? And is it recommended for us to perform a bios downgrade now back to f7 as it was suggested before? Is it safe to do that here right now?

[Dark Mantis]

If you do decide to reflash your BIOS make sure that you use QFlash for it and not @BIOS because of safety reasons. Also when on the QFlash homepage untick the Keep DMI Data before continuing. Afterwards don't forget to load Optimised BIOS Defaults and make any other changes that you require.

[Steltrucci]

Maybe i will try a BIOS flash. But first i need to know one thing. I will change my memories soon. I will get them back to the store that i bought them in order to replace them with new ones. But, i would like to know if the memories were made wrong from the beginning or if my system made them work wrong through the time. I mean that my system drop my dimms fsb and timings. Could that possibly damage my dimms? Cause of timings or voltages? Remember that i had no mem test errors when i first got my RAMs. All these errors came up a little later (bsods, mem test failures etc). Although they never  managed to run on 1600 or higher fsb i admit. I just want to make sure that the new dimms wont get damaged if my pc do the same things.

[Dark Mantis]

It is very unlikely that the motherboard had anything to do with any problems that the memory sticks have now. It is possible for an large overvoltage to do damage but I really doubt that was the case. What did you use to test your memory in the first place anyway ?

[Steltrucci]

Im using Memtest86+ via a usb stick. But if it  is not a mobo issue in overall, then why my friends dimms couldnt run on 1600fsb on my pc either? My dimms as well as his dimms, did it to 1600 on his pc. So my pc seems to do that downgrade. But why ? If it is a bios issue, then the bios is related to the MOBO. I have that f8 beta version. So i realize from all that we say that the dimms cant get damaged by my systems actions (downgrade of fsb and timings) so therefore they should have been wrong since the day that i bought them. So ill change em anyway. But still... why my pc cant run the modules on higher fsb ? Even "healthy" modules as my friends rams were..

[Dark Mantis]

I didn't say that it couldn't be a BIOS problem just that it wouldn't have damaged your sticks. It is quite possibly down to a badly written BIOS version. Try a different one and see if that is any better. If you try several and they still make no difference chances are it isn't the BIOS.

[Steltrucci]

cool. Ok i ll change the dimms for now and i will perform a bios downgrade to check the results. Although i ll have to wait a bit till i get the new memory modules. I will report back with any progress.

[Dark Mantis]

I think that is the best way to go. Look forward to hearing how it pans out.

[Steltrucci]

Hi again. Unfortunately i dont have good news. Today i got my new RAM dimms (Corsair Vengeance 8gb). I replaced the old Corsair Vengeance which were damaged. I also flashed my BIOS down to F7 as it was suggested in the previews posts. But i still have the same problem as in day one. I still cant run my memories in fsb 1600 or higher. They still run on 1333 fsb no matter what. I went into the BIOS and i tried to manually change the fsb again! I pop it up to 1600. When i did that my bios increased the Voltage on dimms from 1.510 to 1.6. Although i adjusted the voltages back to 1.5 cause i think that that is what these dimms support. I dont wanna risk damaging them by providing them higher voltage. I feel sad. So its not dimms issue or BIOS. What can it be? Seriously i feel so confused and upset. Dunno if its mobo problem, or anything with the cpu mem controller. Any ideas? I think i ve tried everything so far. 

[danova]

Hi there,

I'm using the 970a-ud3 with a FX-8120  and your problem sounds a bit like the  problem i had with running my memory at 1600mhz.
Though i didn't experienced any BSOD i did have a hard time getting my RAM to run at 1600mhz. But i got it working now.
First of all i did not use FSB to raise speed but only the RAM multiplier.
Also put all auto-settings for your RAM on manual (things like voltage/timings etc) and set them to specs for your RAM.

I found out that somehow the auto-settings were wrong so the BIOS did not accept them and turned the RAM back to 1333mhz.
Putting all settings on manual fixed this and i'm running 1600mhz without any issues now.

[jabberwocky]

I discovered the same phenomenon , i failed misearably to get mine running at 1600 (4x4gb corsair veangence) until I realized that the auto setting for the ram configuration settings ,was overiding the ram multiplier .I set the ram configuration setting to manual, I did not need to adjust anything .
just change from auto to manual .now you can go down to the ram multiplier and set 8x . and all worked fine and stable at 1600 mhz

[Steltrucci]

Thanx a lot Danova!!! Finally i think the problem solved. As you said, the auto settings for timmings in BIOS were messed up. So i did manually changed them to what they supposed to be, did a fix on voltages and set my freq to 1600 (8x) and my pc started up perfectly. I cant believe it was that simple to fix that. Great info guys! Thank you again!