Gigabyte Z87 mobos freeze when using 4 healthy sticks of RAM

[froghammer]

After a year of living with this board I've FINALLY solved the problem.

What I did was dick around with it for the better part of a year, systematically trying every solution I've found on here and elsewhere. Then, last week I found the solution: I went to the computer store and bought an Asus board!

Gigabyte can eat me. I'll never give them another penny. Chasing down this problem has been the reason for at least 95% of my time spent on here.

 

[bmoag]

Those who forget the past etc.
Regardless of manufacturer, regardless of chipset, there is a high rate of failure out of the box with motherboards incapable of supporting four sticks of RAM. It is a common manufacturing defect and in my experience the single most common problem with new motherboards.
MOBO manufacturers will want to blame your RAM sticks, and I have had dead sticks out of the box as well, but if your RAM sticks otherwise work and pass all tests ITS THE MOTHERBOARD.
If you plan to run four sticks you need to try it as soon as you open the box because usually the only solution is return/RMA. If you have the time and patience that is the best solution.
I have had this happen to me so many times with so many generations of chipsets from all major manufacturers that when I plan a build I plan for just 2 8b memory sticks (in truth 8gb total is more than enough for 99%% of end users).
The very machine this is being written on has had both an ASUS and now a Gigabyte motherboard with the same problem. I have lots of RAM sticks which all work in pairs in any slots on the motherboards but not if four sticks are used.
I can recall very few motherboards I have owned that were capable of stably running four sticks of RAM. If the motherboard will run four sticks I consider it an unexpected plus.
IF DDR4 develops as promised perhaps all one will need is one humongous RAM stick . . .

 

[Runi]

Hi.
I to have been fighting this issue, my MOBO is Z87X-OC and cpu is a i4770k running on 3.9Ghz (watercooled). I have not read the entire thread since I am not struggling any more so this reply might have been posted earlier one way or the other.
What solved my issue was tweaking with the Voltage in several places, mostly RAM and whats called Northbridge (something to do with the CPU). I have Corsair Vengeance RAM which can be overlocked and can run on 1333mhz and tested up to 1866mhz. I run them now on 1600mhz with all 4 slots occupied, I change the timing from auto to manual to avoid change so they are stuck on 9.10.9.27 and change the Volt to 1.65v which is the maximum for these RAM blocks. Last I set the XMP profile to disabled.
I then upped the voltage on the Northbride (called PCH in the bios) to 1.125v (the maximum is 1.3v). All other settings are mostly done by the guides found in this forum, such as turn of C state etc.

The machine used to freeze up 5-6 time pr. day and now it has been running for a couple of days without any hic-ups. I am for the first time able to run the internal graphics card on 1024mb and all the lag I have been encountering earlier is also gone.

I don´t know if this will apply to other boards but it did in my case.

 

[pizzaguy]

I had lockups on my Z87X-OC, with the 4790 at 4.4ghz on the factory cooler, with 4 pieces of 8gb Crucial Ballistix Sport maybe once or twice a day for quite a while. I eventually looked up the specs on the memory and found that it is in fact 1.35v memory, not the 1.5v that the board defaults to. I realize that 1.35v memory is supposed to also run at 1.5 but since that was spec, I set the ram voltage back down.

Since doing that I have had only 2 lockups in the last 3 weeks... so I am convinced that went a long way to solving the problem.

I've always believed you cannot have too much memory. I do lots of video editing and rendering and it sure is nice to have a vast space to do that in. It's even better now without the lockups. It would be nice to know the lockups are totally gone but I'm afraid that probably isn't true yet but this is a large step forward.

 

[froghammer]

I'm glad to report that I haven't had a single freeze since getting my Asus z97 board. Same ram and I get to use all of it. It's nice to just use the computer and not have it be an ongoing troubleshooting project.

 

[energy23]

After a year of living with this board I've FINALLY solved the problem.

What I did was dick around with it for the better part of a year, systematically trying every solution I've found on here and elsewhere. Then, last week I found the solution: I went to the computer store and bought an Asus board!

LOL!

You know what the sad thing is? Just a moment ago I tried posting THIS comment but I got another system freeze. SIGH.

Which Asus motherboard did you end up getting?

 

[froghammer]

A z97 Deluxe. It's worked perfectly so far. The only thing I had to turn off was the sleep option because that was causing problems. I'm sure it could be working but I don't feel like investing the time in figuring out what the magic combination is.

 

[energy23]

A z97 Deluxe. It's worked perfectly so far. The only thing I had to turn off was the sleep option because that was causing problems. I'm sure it could be working but I don't feel like investing the time in figuring out what the magic combination is.

That's funny because had I gone with an Asus motherboard, that was going to be my choice.

I think I may have resolved my Gigabyte's 4 ram stick problem by turning off two of the C-States...

 

[cyborjaunt]

I've tried everything to fix this problem. I've tried everything listed above and even more. I finally fixed the issue by switching to "Clover" bootloader instead of "chameleon".

 

[froghammer]

Agreed. It's the only solution. Not sure WTF was wrong with Chameleon, but Clover totally and completely solved this ultra annoying problem.