Fix for gigabyte 4 dimm memory instability

[ultradave]

gigabyte 4 dimm memory instability

I am running a Gigabyte z87x-ud3h with 2x4GB Kingston HyperX. Having already built a Snow Leopard Hackintosh, I decided to build a Haswell/Mavericks rig. Trying to save a little money, I went out and bought 2x4GB Kingston HyperX RAM to go along with the 2 sticks I had in my old rig to get a total of 16GB memory. I was disappointed of course because I am having the same problem as others with freezes when running all 4 sticks. I've tried all the fixes with no real luck. I am beginning to wonder if it's not a Gigabyte problem, but a RAM problem. There are some folks running 4 sticks without problems. But I have noticed they are running RAM such as the Corsair Vengeance PRO series. When I look at the descriptions for these they state they are specifically for 3rd and 4th generation processors.

My Hackintosh is running great on 8GB total. I will soon switch to 2x8GB RAM that is specifically built for 3rd and 4th generation processors. If I find the need for more (probably more of a luxury for me as I do very little video work) I will install another 2x8GB. So it will be some time before I try these. Corsair Vengeance PRO RAM runs over $100 for 2x8GB and my rig runs fine now with 8GB total.

Has anyone had any luck in changing to the newer versions of RAM?

 

[Mike_S]

My Z97m gaming 5 board is now one year old, and began locking up more and more frequently. I suspected a memory problem. It will not run more than two minutes with 4 sticks RAM.

I have two sets of 2x4 Corsair DDR3 XMS sets that have run for 3 and 2 years. They ran fine in a z68 and ran fine in the z97 for a year.

I can swap any two sticks to any two slots and it runs without ever locking up. I tried the memory timing changes recommended and this did not fix the problem.

Gigabyte gave me an RMA number for this board.
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REPORT 2 October 2015
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Gigabyte sent me another z97mx gaming 5 on their Advanced Cross Ship program. The new board would not (bios F5) would not even post with 4 stick RAM. Old board (bios F4 and then F6) would post, but after one two minutes would halt. My board ran one year with no problems on 4790K 4.0ghz

I changed the tRRD to 10, tRFC to 300 and tFaw to 85 in A and B RAM configuration. New board booted and ran several hours of 60-90% cpu/ram load photo processing.

I reinstalled my original board. Earlier testing I had set RAM tRRD, tRFC, tFAW to 8, 220, 50 and RAM. This setup was unstable. On this second testing, I changed it to 10,300,75 and ran the computer hard for several hours with no problems.

Note this thread is referenced on the INTEL site, so there is obviously something going on with the onboard memory controller of the 4790k that 1) it ages and 2) requires new timing for 4 sticks of ram. I have also read that high voltage 1.6v+ will eventually kill the i7 onboard memory controller. I run 2 sets 4x2 1.52v Corsair XMS 1600, the one with the "B1600" not "A1600", which is 1.65v.

My computer seems to be stable once agin with the new bios RAM tRRD, tRFC and tFAW.
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[BreBo]

I am beginning to wonder if it's not a Gigabyte problem, but a RAM problem. There are some folks running 4 sticks without problems. But I have noticed they are running RAM such as the Corsair Vengeance PRO series. When I look at the descriptions for these they state they are specifically for 3rd and 4th generation processors.

I'm running a Gigabyte GA-Z87X-OC with 4x8Gb Corsair Vengeance Pro Series CMY32GX3M4A1600C9 and it's rock solid since day one.

 

[Mondragor]

Just checked your proposal on my Z87M-D3H with i5-4670S CPU. Up to now, it works flawlessly with tRRD=8, tRFC=280, tFAW=50. However, Geekbench at 1600Mhz with XMP Profile had slightly higher scores (13200 vs 13000 now). I guess setting timings to higher values somewhat slows down the machine.

Nonetheless, 13000 is much better than the 11500 I had before on 1333Mhz. Many thanks Oculto!!!

 

[oculto]

Glad I helped, I still have this system running stable with my wife and I adopted for myself a Z97X-SLI with 4 dimm Corsair Vengeance Pro (32GB), which have different timings of the previous kit, and I had no problem. But looking at the timings, I have confirmed my theory. If I put the 4 ancient memories in the same timings of Vengeance Pro, the H87 runs smoothly.

I use the Z97X-SLI with 2x R9 280x with great success, final cut pro x recognize the two video cards and run very fast, but unfortunately I'm stuck with yosemite. I try El Capitan with the trick (remove limit) to solve USB 3.0 and works very well, but it cant wake up from sleep properly as it does on yosemite. I need to wait a little more until someone find a solution or apple fix their AMD drivers.

This is a very old thread but the information here still valid, I'm very proud about it.

 

[kibatronic]

I found this thread while googling my stability issues with a Broadwell i5-5675c, MSi Z97M-G43 and four sticks of Gskill 4GB F3-12800CL9-4GBSR2 1.25v DIMM's. Running with only two sticks I had no issues but adding two more caused BSOD's and program crashes. No amount of raising voltages helped. Adjusting tRRD to 7, tRFC to 300 and tFAW to 60 made all stability issues disappear.

Thank you!

 

[coreduo0099]

Hi, I forgot to post once I solved my problem after 2 years. I have a Gigabyte z87x-ud5h and not matter what settings/bios/etc enabled be to run stable. Finally I saw a post about a memory testing app "Rember".

I donwloaded it and sure enough I kept failing memory tests. I swapped combinations of dimms until I had positively identified one of my 4 dimms that has passed other tests when my rig was new.

Returned to MFG, got a new one, and all has been stable for 6-12 months. My machine acts as a server and I reboot only once every few months. But, I could have sworn my memory was OK due to other testign I had done that was apparently not as thorough as "Rember"

Good luck out there!

 

[glofter1]

Hi to all I have same problem My hackintosh are restarting himself. So I try a lot of things, I use 4x8GB and can not fix this problem. I upload bios F10b , but still not fix the case. I have GA-z97x-SLI board with i7-4790K / EVGA GTX 970-4GB.
I try different SMBIOS 14.2 , 15.1 , 5.1 and same problem.
please give me little help to fix this problem.

 

[Gartlethug]

I'll confirm this fix works for me on my Z87-HD3 i5-4750 with 4x 4GB Corsair Vengeance kit running 10.13.4 using the process Oculto outlined in his OP. Thanks!

Was having reboot cycles not even getting to post with 4 sticks so thought I'd try this and WOW! Nice to actually be able to use 16GB. No KPs for 36hrs now and I've tried to stress the RAM and CPU (and GPU as I'm using onboard intelHD4600 x2 displays).

Works.

 

[milmber]

I had similar issues of boot loops, not booting and other random behaviour on different Gigabyte motherboards (GA-Z97MX-Gaming-5, GA-Z97P-D3H and GA-Z87MX-D3H) which I suspected was down to RAM.

It turned out this was due to a fault power supply.

Using a power supply tester, the PG delay value for my Corsair CTX-500 was 990 - which should instead be between 100 and 500. Bought a new Power Supply and confirmed a PG delay value of 330.

All my issues have been fixed since.