Asus Z170a & RAM Issue

[Harrow]

Does anyone have a HTC Vive combined with the Asus Z170a and RAM above 2133MHz? For some reason tracking fails for me every time I start a VR game if I'm running my RAM at it's rated 3000MHz.

Overriding the XMP profile to 2133MHz resolves the issue every time and I have no issues after that.

[VRManiac]

Hmm... not identical board, but I think the same chipset and drivers: Running a Z170N with DDR4-3200 at full speed and no hiccups. I would guess the RAM on your 170a is throttling down due to heat or read/write issues. Can you run a memory diagnostic against it at both speeds?

[Harrow]

VRManiac の投稿を引用：

Hmm... not identical board, but I think the same chipset and drivers: Running a Z170N with DDR4-3200 at full speed and no hiccups. I would guess the RAM on your 170a is throttling down due to heat or read/write issues. Can you run a memory diagnostic against it at both speeds?

Stress testing in Prime95 shows no instability at either speed, pllus I'm having no issues outside of VR or general use. I've seen a Reddit post where another user with the same board had to revert to 2133MHz in order to use the Vive.

It's a strange one, I've opened a support ticket with Asus in the hope of getting some feedback there. It woudl be nice to run memory at it's native speed.

[VRManiac]

That is a weird one... please post here if/when you figure out what's going on as I'm sure it will affect others.

[Michael]

Prime95 does not insure your memory is working properly you need to run a memtest at those speeds. Even running a custom blend prime95 does not stress the memory is any way other than occupying it. Memtest is your best bet.

http://www.memtest.org/

A good gui based one that works in windows but you have to manually run multiple instances or buy the pro version to test more than 2048MB at a time

http://hcidesign.com/memtest/


I suggest you manually enter for XMP profile by hand and see if you have the same trouble, the best thing you can do with asus is get an RMA for the motherboard or maybe get a beta bios (if they have one) that could fix the problem. I would suggest you do the memtest while you wait for asus to get back to you. if you need help with manually entering you XMP make an account over at OCN and post in this section http://www.overclock.net/f/18051/memory

[Wirenut48]

What's the timing running at 3000? 2133 with a faster timing can out perform 3000MHz. If you can get the timing down, you're probably better off anyway. I got some 21333 DDR3 running 8-10-10-30 1T. It's faster than any higher DDR3 MHz chips on the market right now. But DDR4 may not require as fast a timing, not done much research on them.

[Harrow]

Michael の投稿を引用：

Prime95 does not insure your memory is working properly you need to run a memtest at those speeds. Even running a custom blend prime95 does not stress the memory is any way other than occupying it. Memtest is your best bet.

http://www.memtest.org/

A good gui based one that works in windows but you have to manually run multiple instances or buy the pro version to test more than 2048MB at a time

http://hcidesign.com/memtest/


I suggest you manually enter for XMP profile by hand and see if you have the same trouble, the best thing you can do with asus is get an RMA for the motherboard or maybe get a beta bios (if they have one) that could fix the problem. I would suggest you do the memtest while you wait for asus to get back to you. if you need help with manually entering you XMP make an account over at OCN and post in this section http://www.overclock.net/f/18051/memory

Thank you for the suggestion I can see how that makes sense. I've tested using HCI Memtest and managed to get up to 97% capacity with multiple instances running. Once again no errors detected with the RAM at 3GHz so I'm pretty confident in saying there's nothing wrong with the sticks.

I noticed a new BIOS version released on the Asus site and tried that also this evening to no avail unfortunately. Hoping to hear something back from Asus at this point as I'm pretty stumped!

Wirenut48 の投稿を引用：

What's the timing running at 3000? 2133 with a faster timing can out perform 3000MHz. If you can get the timing down, you're probably better off anyway. I got some 21333 DDR3 running 8-10-10-30 1T. It's faster than any higher DDR3 MHz chips on the market right now. But DDR4 may not require as fast a timing, not done much research on them.

Timings at 3000 are 15-17-17-35 via the XMP profile. I haven't tried playing with them running at 2133 yet however.

[Wirenut48]

Speed don't mean as much if the timings are high. You may get better performance running at a lower clock with faster timings. These different settings are excellent timings and are equal in performance if you can get close.

2133 9-10-11
2400 9-11-11
2800 11-14-14
3000 12-14-14

I don't think you can find any this low anymore, fast timings are a thing of the past. And probably not as important with current CPU's and DDR4.

[Michael]

Harrow の投稿を引用：

I noticed a new BIOS version released on the Asus site and tried that also this evening to no avail unfortunately. Hoping to hear something back from Asus at this point as I'm pretty stumped!

Do as I suggested and manually enter your XMP profile setting into the bios and then mermtest your memory at those settings. The easiest way to do this is to set the xmp profile and use pen and paper and write the settings down and turn off the profile and manually enter the settings. You should memtest your memory at it's rating speed so you can figure out oif it's a motherboard or memory problem.

Wirenut48 の投稿を引用：

What's the timing running at 3000? 2133 with a faster timing can out perform 3000MHz. If you can get the timing down, you're probably better off anyway. I got some 21333 DDR3 running 8-10-10-30 1T. It's faster than any higher DDR3 MHz chips on the market right now. But DDR4 may not require as fast a timing, not done much research on them.

It really doesn't matter with DDR4, but i haven't dug into it myself self enough to see if there's any real worlds impact yet.

Wirenut48 の投稿を引用：

Speed don't mean as much if the timings are high. You may get better performance running at a lower clock with faster timings. These different settings are excellent timings and are equal in performance if you can get close.

2133 9-10-11
2400 9-11-11
2800 11-14-14
3000 12-14-14

I don't think you can find any this low anymore, fast timings are a thing of the past. And probably not as important with current CPU's and DDR4.

This is true Wirenut48 keep this in mins=d after you test your memory.

[GrapeFruiT]

Hello, glad to find another one having the same issues. I have also an Asus Z170 A mainboard, and it always have been a mistery with ram clock issues. When i use xmp profiles for the Ram, the system still runs well and i haven't had any issues in games.

I often searched and did find a lot of people, especially with Asus mainboards having issues like coil whining, and other deep problems. It's the boards fault and failure and doesn't have to do with any other components. Did test so much variations...Before i started VR, i had problems with coil whining, and i thaugt im going to freak the ♥♥♥♥ out, changing settings in bios, software, etc.... I have an i7 7700k processor official from the cpu's side which supports a ram clock up to 2400 mhz. My rams can go up to 3000 mhz. When i did use them xmp or even without and set some settings manually, i had coil whining playing cpu hungry games, the sound turn like a terminator voice and was scratchy, it was terrible.

It seems that the whole asus Z170 or sometimes even the z390 chipset from the manufacture asus has hw problems with coile whining or track issues with VR....

[GrapeFruiT]

I figured out when i used a ram clock with 2800mhz the coil whining stopped, and i was lucky to play games as usal.

Now for a few weeks i go i bought the steam index VR kit. I was wondering why i sometimes had grey screens in my headset, sometimes very often, sometimes not often. I figured out its nearly the same bad mainboard B*+ h it *CH Asus chipset problem.

When i put my ram clocks down to 2400mhz, xmp off, i have no tracking issues. When i put xmp on, and also run my ram clock at 2800mhz, i can play every none vr game without problems, but when i play VR i have tracking issues, you are not able to play really and enjoy it, it greys out very often. When i did put XMP on, it happens, when i put it off, and set my ram clock higher, even with auto mb settings, i receive tracking issues. The hardcore wicked thing is, when i put my ram up to 3000mhz, it doesn't find my lighthouses anymore. And it is like nearly impossible to wake up my headset device.

When i put it to 2400 standard ram clock (cause of the cpu official support) it works without problems. But i want to use my VR WITHOUT TRACKING ISSUES WITH MY RAM CLOCK AT LEAST AT 2800MHZ.

@Harrow you are not allone with the problem!

Even i could exclude USB-Controller problems (Asmedia USB Controller is the worst one...a lot of people have problems device manager errors...with Asmedia USB MB Controllers - ASUS)

Bought an external pci-e usb controller. I started to hate my motherboard, never had strange problems with hardware like this ever before. I will never buy an asus mainboard ever again. VR did frustrate me so much. Seems like a VR SW is not finished, and the combination with asus mbs suck.

[Dr Dagz]

I'm having the same problem, asus z170a, xmp on at the rated 3200MHz, cant go more than 10 minutes, every 10 minutes without grey screens caused by the lighthouses disconnecting then reconnecting maybe 30 seconds later. it really breaks the immersion but I only get issues with VR games.
thanks for the help