Cannot get 955 Be stable with 1333 ram

[FinalGrave]

I have this post in another forum but nobody has really been helping me. So ill just copy and paste it cuz im lazy

I recently built a new rig for my fiance and its been giving her nothing but trouble. Freezing, random restarts, even freezing and the video going out and the monitor shutting off while playing WoW. I really havnt had the time to run prime95 on it that long and ive only ran memtest for 1 pass and it passed. She needs the pc for college work so i dont have a lot of time to work on it. Here are the specs:

Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P
Phenom II 955 Black Edition
8 gigs of G.Skill 1333 ram ( F3-10666CL8D )
HIS Radeon 4890 video card
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST31000528AS hard drive
GIGABYTE GN-WP01GS Wireless Card
Pc Power & Cooling Silencer 750 psu

Ive been messing with voltages and ram timings trying to get this puppy stable but no matter what combo ive tried so far works. The ram timings right now are 8-8-8-24. Heres the voltages im running right now.

CPU NB VID Control= Normal
CPU Voltage Control= Normal (speedfan says its running 1.34v)
DRAM Voltage Control= 1.65v
DDR VTT Voltage Control= 1.000 (stock is .900v)
NB Voltage Control= 1.2V (stock is 1.1v)
SB/HT Voltage control= 1.300V (stock is 1.2v)
NB PCIE Voltage Contrrol= 1.900V (stock is 1.8v)

High voltages I know. I found this thread that this guy posted on the g.skill forums that had the same problem as me with the same ram but he has a 720 BE instead of a 955 BE proc. Ive tried changing all my settings to match what the G.Skill admin told that guy to change to. Except the settings that deal with the particular processor he has. Here's that post:

http://www.gskill.us/forum/showthread.php?t=1167&page=2

Im not trying to OC or anything. Her Clock ratio's and Memory Clock ratios are all set to Auto, HT Link is set to Auto. The bios says the ram is running at 1333mhz like its supposed to and AMD Overdrive says its running at 667mhz. which is correct. HT Link is at 2000 mhz and the Cpu NB Frequency is at x10. Idk what to do. Im not sure where the problem lies. Is it the mobo or the ram at fault? Ive even tried updating the bios from F1 to F2 and that didnt help. Could it be the memory controller on her 955 BE is bad and cant handle 8gb's of ram? Ive been thinking about trying to take a stick of ram out and running it with 6gb's but i really dont want to have to do that. Any thoughts or ideas that im missing? thanks.

Oh I forgot to say the temps for the proc run 44-45c full load on a Zalman CNPS 9700. System temps are 35-36c. Speedfan reports a temp 3 at 80c but idk if its just an error with Speedfan or what. Im not sure what that temp is for. I Also have AMD Cool and Quiet turned on in the bios. Any chance it would be stable with this turned off?

[FinalGrave]

Ok I have an update. I jacked up voltages and changed the ram timings from 8-8-8-24 to 9-9-9-24 and then ran Prime95. The pc failed prime after only about 2 hours. Then I lowered the ram speed from 1333mhz down to 1066mhz and set all the voltages back to normal. I ran Prime95 for 14 hours with no problems.

It seems like either a stick of ram may be bad. Idk i still need to run Memtest for longer than one pass and try and find out. Or the memory controller cant handle 8 gigs of ram at 1333 speed. Ill run Memtest first and if it passes. Then Ill take a stick of ram out and set the speed back to 1333 and see if itll pass Prime.

Do any of you think that im missing something? I really dont want to have to run the ram at slower than rated speeds. Nor do i want have to go from 8 gigs of ram down to 6 gigs to get this thing working right.

[Эльбрус]

Or the memory controller cant handle 8 gigs of ram at 1333 speed.

Correct:

379 DDR3-1333 Configurations with Two DIMMs per Channel May Experience Unreliable Operation
Description
In systems with more than one DDR3-1333 unbuffered DIMM on a channel, the processor memory subsystem may exhibit unreliable operation over the allowable VDDIO voltage range.

This erratum does not apply to DDR3-1333 configurations when only one DIMM per channel is populated.

Potential Effect on System
Memory system failure leading to unpredictable system behavior.

Suggested Workaround
In a configuration where two unbuffered DDR3-1333 DIMMs are populated on one channel, BIOS should derate DDR3-1333 system memory to 533 MHz operation (DDR3-1066) by setting the DRAM Configuration High Register[MemClkFreq] (F2x[1, 0]94[2:0]) to 100b and adjusting memory subsystem timing parameters accordingly.

Fix Planned
Yes

http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content ... /41322.pdf

Some people are sometimes lucky though. But it seems you are not part of them.

cheers
Эльбрус

[Smartidiot89]

http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content ... /41322.pdf

Some people are sometimes lucky though. But it seems you are not part of them.

cheers
Эльбрус

Extremely rare, talking of this is almost like saying TLB was a serious issue for desktops. (go ahead flame me blah blah)

Try increasing RAM and NB voltage abit, running 4 sticks is demanding on the IMC, Phenom II x4 955BE can easily run 4 @ 1333mhz.

[Boundless]

FinalGrave > Im not sure where the problem lies.

Don't yet rule out:
AMDz Forums > Hardware > Memory:
The Case of the Counterfeit CAS
_____
Has this scandal changed during the
migration from DDR2 to DDR3?

[Эльбрус]

Extremely rare, talking of this is almost like saying TLB was a serious issue for desktops. (go ahead flame me blah blah)

No need to flame, a short notice to read the first post is enough

Try increasing RAM and NB voltage abit, running 4 sticks is demanding on the IMC, Phenom II x4 955BE can easily run 4 @ 1333mhz.

Read the 1st post, he already did

I guess he would need ~1,7-1,8V to get it stable, but that is not recommeded, as 1.65V is the max. limit:
see: http://support.amd.com/us/Processor_TechDocs/43375.pdf, page 66

I would try CL7/CL8 @1066 with 1.65V DRAM voltage and 1.2V NB voltage.

cheers
Эльбрус

[Smartidiot89]

Those are recommended settings, and it also says 2.05v DDR2. He can easily run high then 1.65v without any issues or having he's CPU die trust me. It's absolutely not like Intel Core i7 which I've seen dying within a few days, or a few weeks for pushing voltage to high on DRAM.

Try increasing voltage it's needed for 4 modules @ 1333mhz or higher to go abit above specifications.

[AussieFX]

Extremely rare, talking of this is almost like saying TLB was a serious issue for desktops. (go ahead flame me blah blah)

No need to flame, a short notice to read the first post is enough

Try increasing RAM and NB voltage abit, running 4 sticks is demanding on the IMC, Phenom II x4 955BE can easily run 4 @ 1333mhz.

Read the 1st post, he already did

I guess he would need ~1,7-1,8V to get it stable, but that is not recommeded, as 1.65V is the max. limit:
see: http://support.amd.com/us/Processor_TechDocs/43375.pdf, page 66

I would try CL7/CL8 @1066 with 1.65V DRAM voltage and 1.2V NB voltage.

cheers
Эльбрус

Actually the supply limit for DDR3 on Phenom II is 2.3v

[AussieFX]

For stability the 2 key factors are tRFC which should be at least 110ns to have a chance and MRL (Max Read Latency) try setting the MRL to something like 55 NCLK's
Get it stable first and then tweak things up for speed. Even try 2 sticks first then add the others when stability is gained.

[Эльбрус]

Actually the supply limit for DDR3 on Phenom II is 2.3v

Two questions:

a) What is your source ?
b) What is wrong with my source ?

[mdk777]

) What is wrong with my source ?

Well, you might as well quote JEDEC.
Yes those are the official specs; but the entire multi-billion dollar enthusiast memory market is based on going beyond official specs.
It is called overclocking after all.

[AussieFX]

Actually the supply limit for DDR3 on Phenom II is 2.3v

Two questions:

a) What is your source ?
b) What is wrong with my source ?

The President at OCZ. He works very closely with AMD so 2.3v might not be official, but it's the limit.

[muziqaz]

I said it in other forum, so I will repeat it again here: people, please make sure your ram WILL be compatible with motherboard(or AM3 platform altogether), before you buy everything. I read loads of threads where people are complaining about instability or even not booting. All of them are sitting with some memory modules which are not certified to work with am3 platform. We know, that OCZ has AM3 modules which work 100%(even those without am3 certificate), corsair, patriot has amd edition ram.

In this instance, we have g.skill and the whole 8gb of it and motherboard which is not the best motherboard when it comes to memory compatibility.

I would return those modules back, and get yourself some ocz or corsair or patriot memory. If I can get corsair and ocz in england, so do anyone in the world

[dm7000s]

I really havnt had the time to run prime95 on it that long and ive only ran memtest for 1 pass and it passed.

The pc failed prime after only about 2 hours.

I ran Prime95 for 14 hours with no problems.

Finding possible stability problems with prime95 can take quite some time. As you noted: It can take hours!
A much faster way to find (memory related) problems is by using intelburntest. Saves a lot of time.
Noticed it myself, and also recommended by the OCZ guys.

[abinstein]

I really don't trust anything that comes with an "intel" inside....

[AussieFX]

TBH I think it's the bios.
After getting my MSI board it has exposed all the problems with Gigabytes bios and trust me it's horrid.