GA-P55A-UD3 with 8g (4X2) not stable please help gods of OC'ing.

[smckech1972]

hi everyone.

I am far from a good overclocker, but I figured the "overclocker" is probably the best resource since you'd all clearly understand the limits of a box. Plus if you can OC this rig, then I'd assume it should be very easy to get it to run at stock timings.

I have this GA-P55A-UD3 and I cannot get it to run stable. I am not trying to even OC it, just to get it to run stock. But it seems that everything I've tried results in errors. Gigabyte and Gskill have been not much help. Here is the basic story. I believe this is a voltage issue since I'm using 4 dimms and the box's settings cannot support it without a tweak.

Memory is off the QVL. Problem is that I get random BSOD and memtestx86+ always seems to fail around step 5 or 6. I am not trying to overclock this box. I would even have it run a bit slower as long as it was stable.

Per Gigabyte's direction, I manually entered the timings: 8-8-8-21 and the voltage of 1.5. This did not fix the issue. I then flashed to bios F6 and still no change.

I then did one stick at a time and there were NO errors on any of the sticks. I think the error is the fact that when I am in dual channel mode with ALL slots full, there is a voltage drop at boot or at some point in the booting process. Single channel has no issues.

I have four 2G sticks for a total of 8GB of ram. This means all the memory slots are full. Because each stick passes, gskill says no issue. Because I have the settings in the box as I do, Gigabyte says it should work. So i'm stuck in the circle apparently many have been in.

Aside from this, I was also upgrading the RAM in my Asus P5Q SE Plus (totally separate box) with a quad core. On this board the North Bridge is a MB component (socket 775) BUT I had the EXACT same issues as I do with the Gigabyte board.

The Asus forum directed me to update my voltage on the North Bridge from <Auto> to a hard 1.40V. The box instantly came to life, passed all memory tests and has been stable since. I went to apply the logic to the Gigabyte board only to find that there isn't a setting for the north bridge as its part of the CPU itself.

The latest test was enabling the XMS profile for memory. I still got errors in memtest. Does anyone know of settings that should be manually entered to get a stable box? I saw a lot of talk about the QPI(vtt), blck, vcore, vdroop, line conditioning, and other settings but they all seem to be applied when you are trying to OC the board. I just want it stable.

This is my first I7-860 build and it has basically fought me the whole way. I am guessing that others on the forum are quite skilled and make take for granted that I would know the most basic settings. Please, if giving the settings, be literal and assume I know nothing about it. I want to be sure that every detail is covered.

Below is the hardware in question.

GA-P55A-UD3 bios ver. F6

Intel Core i7-860 Lynnfield 2.8GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor

TWO G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL8D-4GBHK
Speed DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666)
Cas Latency 8
Timing 8-8-8-21
Voltage 1.5V
ECC No
Buffered/Registered Unbuffered
Multi-channel Kit Dual Channel Kit

Antec EarthWatts EA650 650W Continuous Power ATX12V Ver.2.2 / EPS12V version 2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS
650W Continuous Power

HIS H467QS1GH Radeon HD 4670 1GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Car

TWO Cavier Black HDD (SATA)

TWO DVD-RW (SATA)

 

[redduc900]

Manually adjust the QPI/Vtt Voltage from Auto / 1.100V to 1.200 - 1.2500V. You may also need to bump the DRAM voltage from 1.5 to ~1.6V w/ all 4 DIMM slots populated.

 

[smckech1972]

Tried "QPI/Vtt Voltage from Auto / 1.100V to 1.200 - 1.2500V. You may also need to bump the DRAM voltage from 1.5 to ~1.6V w/ all 4 DIMM slots populated."

I used QPI 1.2 and DRAM 1.6. memtest ran for 7.5 hours with NO errors. Then I rebooted, and I got 2 errors 14 minutes into it.

Any idea what that indicates?

 

[mbargeron]

GA-P55A-UD3 UNSTABLE

I have same MB and G Skill Ram, similar circumstances with 2 different boxes with same setup, 4 dimms, 8gbram, etc...
Found that because I purchased 2 sets of 4GB ram separately, this seemed to be an issue. So, I returned the ram to Newegg and got a 4 piece set running F3-12800CL7Q-8GBRM for both of my systems, now very stable, but when I overclock, system BSOD from time to time.
I called GIGABYTE, they said to use profile1 in bios mits section and it does not help for OC, but running at 2.8Ghz with I7 860 system is very stable with no OCing.
I wish I could overclock, anyone with ideas please let me know. This new ram uses 1.6V, the old ram was 1333 and 1.5V, G Skill said voltage was an issue needed 1.6V to OC.
System is very smooth now, I also use H50 water cooler.
Perhaps your issue is like mine, you have 2 separate sets of 4GB ram instead of 1 set of 8GB ram. Just my 2 cents, let me know what you find.

 

[doz]

What are your voltages//complete specs mbargeron?

Sounds like you need more VTT. Usually happens when you load up the ram.

 

[Zimanodenea]

A bit late maybe but I have the same motherboard (bios version F8) and GSkill 1600mhz memory and have had exactly the same problem. I am only using a matched 2gb pair though and couldn't recreate the problem by just using one memory chip. If you notice Memtest always seems to fail at the start point of the next memory chip. For example:

0008016b028 - 2049mb (Right at the start of my second memory chip)

If it was going to fail Memtest it would do so in the first couple of minutes. If it got past the first couple of minutes I could leave it running for days without it failing.

Increasing voltages didn't help the situation at all but increasing the memory timings made it worse. I narrowed it down to the Trcd setting. By default this runs at 9 on my setup. Increasing to 10 would give me errors each time every time in Memtest so knew I was along the right lines. Upping it to 11 seems to have sorted out the problem.

This is my 20th 2 minute run and I've still not had an error. No need to switch the computer off and on between tests, just press escape and do a soft reset - if problem there still it will show itself. Hope this helps others