Weird Ram Problem Gigabyte 990FXA UD3 + FX8320E

[Niku-Sama]

OK! finally after months of not being here and then trying to log in to find that I needed to reset my password and then some weird e-mail...thing I am able to ask and hopefully find an answer to my ram issue.
thanks again Luta.

heres the low down. I finally, after about a year or so, bought an 8320E to replace my tired 960t. some of you may remember (but probably not) it had a problem with ram speeds and the overclock was becoming unstable on the TA890FXE so I bought a heartier 990FXA but there was no change to the ability to OC and regain some of my ram speed, before too long I was running stock on the 990FXA, my 960t was just too far gone. so I bought the 8320e about a week ago.

jump to today. I'm still having ram problems but its worse.
so far the 8320E will run its turbo speed (4Ghz) with a 20 multi and about 1.36v, to be expected. this newer CPU should be able to run my ram at 1866Mhz but it wont.
I can run the multiplier up a few notches and run it with out issue but if I change the ram speed AT ALL up or down. it will cause a no boot situation.

I can supply 1.75v and run the ram at 667Mhz and it will still not boot. if I reset to optimal settings it resets the ram to 1600Mhz and it will boot, I can make other changes to my bios and it will boot but if I change the ram speed at all, up or down it will not boot, and come back with the boot failure screen, give me 3 options. if I don't pick load optimal defaults and go into the bios and try to set the ram speed back to 1600Mhz. it will still not boot, I will get the same boot failure option screen.

if I load optimal defaults, boot it successfully after doing so, restart go into and change ONLY the ram speed up or down one notch, try and reboot to a failure, go into the bios and reset it back to 1600Mhz again with out changing any thing else in the bios still, it will still not boot.

no amount of ram timing, no amount of voltage , tweaking, removing sticks, swapping sticks nothing make it able to operate at any speed other than what ever load optimal defaults selects.

to recap the hardware its a 8320E, Gigabyte 990FXA UD3 (Rev. 4.0), 4x 4GB G-Skill Sniper F3-17000CL9D-8GBSR 2133Mhz 1.65v operating at 1.65v to 1.75v
memory passes a 10hr day of memtest, temps are below 45c under load at both stock speeds at 4.0Ghz (turbo speed)
No change if Cpu voltage is 1.425V
No change if NB voltage is 1.3v
No change if any thing gets extra juice

wat da heck!

 

[Johan45]

I would stick to two sticks untill you get this figured out. I'd also change BIOS versions andd see if that makes a difference. Seems like a strange problem to me.

 

[Niku-Sama]

2 sticks has the same result even one stick did the same. I tried the sticks in the wifes a10 based computer and no problems turning them up
I was hoping to just spend about $100 bucks as a stop gap before new stuff came out and do a major upgrade in a year or 2 but I don't think I am going to get that lucky.

i'll try downgrading the bios to original and see what happens

edit:
just noticed something
been playing overwatch and I reset and entered the bios and noticed that when ever the bios system health updates ever second for temp, fan speed, ect. that the temp will cycle from 34, to 29 to 25 and then back up to 34.
that doesn't seem right to me... I've never had any thing in any of my computers fluctuate upon information refresh with that large of a spread

 

[trents]

You might have to give the CPU/NB a voltage bump to get it stable with 1866 RAM. And check your RAM timings in CPU-z (Memory tab) compared to what the mfg recommends when running it at 2133 (XMP) as shown in the SPD tab. What is weird is that often RAM running at lower than XMP frequencies also will need to have timings relaxed from what they are at the XMP frequency in order to be stable. Seems counter intuitive but it's true.

 

[Niku-Sama]

11-11-11-28 39 2T are the timings its set at and yea I noticed that, cpuz shows 9-11-10-28 2T for xmp.

what do you think a good max voltage for CPU/NB would be? I was thinking about this my self but I don't know how much a newer cpu can handle

 

[Johan45]

This was the recommended voltages from AMD



That fluctuating temp is an FX anomaly. The temp doesn't read accurately on the cores until ~ 45°c.

Let us know how the BIOS rollback works. Seems to me it must be something to do with the bios. I don't think NB volts is going to help. You should be able to set a lower speed without it crashing like that.

 

[2 1]

With the Fx8320e I got a successful 4.27ghz at 1.26 vcore. you should be able to get that if not closer to that, it's barely touching 53* C under 5 hour load Prime95

1.21 NB Volts should help out

 

[Niku-Sama]

ok so I juiced up the NB, I don't have a CPU/NB option but I had NB core and NB voltage, 2 separate. I juiced them both up to 1.35v to no change.
I downgraded to an older version of the bios and the only change is that if it fails boot and it comes back up with the 3 options I can re set it manually 1600, what optimal default seems to be, and it'll work.
but its still not booting if I change the divider up or down.

I was unable to downgrade too far because there are only 3 versions of bios available, the most updated one and the middle one will flash but the earliest one causes nothing to show up on screen after its done and I have to jam the 960T back in and reflash to one of the newer ones.

 

[Johan45]

OK on that board it's NBcore you want to adjust. Leave the NB at auto. It's almost looking like this is just one more thing to add to the list of "weird" behavior from Giga AMD boards. May need customer service IMO.
Aside from the memory can you adjust other frequencies? Try raising the NB speed and see what it does.

 

[Niku-Sama]

yea I can
i'll give it a whack and see what it does

edit:
ok so I left everything the same and I raised the FSB to 233 with a 17.5 multiplier, gets the ram closest at 1864Mhz and it boots.
out of curiosity I am gonna reset it back to 200 and then try changing the timing on the ram, maybe just the CAS to 9 or 12 from 11 and see what it does

edit#2:
can change timings too, still boots
so strange

 

[Mr.Scott]

FSB hole or crappy divider strap. In either case, sub standard bios coding.

 

[2 1]

You should definitely change Mother boards if you can , that board seems like a lot more headaches then what it's worth