Help With BIOS Settings Installing New Ram

Cheers Ghot
I'll be getting this tomorrow so hopefully I can get this machine running even better and get a better performance out of Elite Dangerous

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This just goes from bad to worse
I put the two new RAM sticks in slots 2+4 as I did with the Corsairs and instead of selecting XMP2 in the BIOS I put in the specified settings from the web page
Went to reset the computer and it turns on but no video output
Tried reseting - won't enter the BIOS settings
Tried replacing the old RAM again - no video output
Put the new ones back in again - no video output
No video output
Can't get into the BIOS settings at all now
Help

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Any ideas before I spend money getting a local PC specialist to look at this?

I NEVER GOING TO DO THIS AGAIN!

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I managed to get it running again PHEW (before I have to spend money getting some local guy to look at it)
Reset the CMOS or something by just holding the power button down for 20 seconds
Now it's running at the default settings for my previous 8GB RAM and I don't know if I can get it running any better because I'm scared to frigging change the settings in the BIOS again
Maybe this PC is set up so as to block anyone from doing this - as I said before I've heard these machines are built to be incompatible



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So I tried XMP2 - had to reset the CMOS
XMP1 worked and these are the CPU-Z results




Same I think

I then tried settings in Custom but setting the values as returned in the SPD of CPU-Z but left the frequency on Auto and it booted up and left me with the following settings




So running slightly different setting but at the same speed
Looks like I'm getting capped out at 2667MHz?

Not sure what else to try - might leave it a day or two and see how it runs on these settings - seem to get better performance out my games on the previous settings so see how this goes

According to this link from the maker Crucial Pro 16GB DDR4-3200 UDIMM | CP16G4DFRA32A | Crucial.com there's only one XMP with 3200 22-22-22, so Idk why does your BIOS offer 2 XMPs (and wondering if your initial fail and the one with XMP2 was simply because "XPM2" doesn't exist).

I've had modules whose XMP matches the highest JEDEC profile, both profiles behaved the same in both settings and practical results.

Your first two results above are what I'd expect from modules with higher clocks than stock and automatic settings: stock clocks and lowered latencies. But Idk at all why in your latter attempt with manual CL, tRCD and tRP you've got a tRAS time as low as 28. I distrust that, I prefer 19-19-19-43.

If you still want to try higher mem clocks, I suggest trying to set them STEP BY STEP (instead of going directly to 3200 from 2666) as you set the latencies (but leave these as Auto). Possibly there's only one step in the middle, 2933.

The Crucial/Micron modules look good.

You have again over bought faster modules but at least they are working at 2666 MHz at the standard 1.2v which is pretty much the max for your PC.

CPUID does not show the lower JEDEC profiles below #13 but no worries. XMP profiles can be the same as a JEDEC one.

Any performance gain of faster modules would be barely measurable real world.
I always ignore Crucial saying faster modules will work.

Be happy and carry on.

They give you far too many options to meddle with memory timings, if you really want to know read up about them.

I don't know what tRAS is but I've never entered anything in that setting - I can't really get my head round the 4 options in Advanced to be honest because the three other settings Default, XMP1, XMP2 just seem to look the same as whatever I have entered in Custom ??
Other than the values I enter from the specs I don't know what I'm supposed to set the other settings as and every time I do this they are just left as whatever they are when I go in there
I've just reset it to Default for now which seemed to work nicely before anyway - I set some games to Ultra mode and I'm finally getting some nicer, richer textures on planetary surfaces in Elite Dangerous whereas before the more complex terrains tended to look really bad - I think this may have been limited by RAM storage
Maybe I can go back in and try upping the speed on these settings - I'll wait a day or so before trying that I think - it's running fine though and I'm getting better graphics on games so if I can't go any higher than 2667MHz then whatever - I just want to get the best performance I can but where it says on the Crucial website that these sticks are compatible it doesn't say if that means "compatible but with a lower maximum speed limited by the motherboard" ?

"limited by the motherboard" and by the processor, unless you overclock its memory interface but you don't have a good motherboard for it. You've got 2 things that you didn't have though, more RAM space and more RAM speed, because you were previously on single channel and now you have dual channel.

So before the upgrade you had memory speed 100 and now you have 200 (2·2666/2666 · 100). With 2933 you'd go up to 220 (2·2933/2666 · 100), 10% more, but only in memory bandwidth, you'd still have the same processor, vcard and everything else, you're not going to get 10% more fps, nor 20% at 3200 what I doubt you can get at all. With dual channel, you may have got more a qualitative advantage, now your games can do some graphical processing "in real time" when before they had to wait your previous slow single channel. That means that you might not notice any difference (depending on the game or task), because at 2666 dual channel it can already do its work in each frame, and some other required GPU or CPU process is slower now.

tRAS is a very technical thing, but afaik it physically cannot be lower than tRCD + CL, so about double CL tRCD or tRP (the 3 main timings, that use to be equal or nearly), and in practice uses to be quite higher for wear, thermal and stability control. That said, the RAM logic can correct some errors in practice (something like, a given working step is not done until its timer ends AND some other condition(s) are met, so if something sets the timer too soon, the other conditions rule instead). Some DDR3 modules have tRAS=28, but DDR3-1333 or 1600 use half CL, tRCD and tRP of DDR4-2666 or 3200.

And don't disregard the stability and reliability advantages of over buying a bit.