GIGABYTE GA-P67A-UD4-B3 and F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL

[lrgoldstein]

I am having problems with a new system randomly freezing. It does so both under load and idle. Spec:

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-P67A-UD4-B3 LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL
CPU: Intel Core i5-2400 Sandy Bridge 3.1GHz (3.4GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I52400

The freezes occur at the memory's rating of System Memory Multiplier set to Auto or 16.00 (the default), but if I drop it to 13.33 the freezes go away. I'm not doing any overclocking of either the CPU or memory.

The motherboard default values for tRAS and Command Rate were different from the spec, and I've manually set those. It was freezing with the default values as well (from 28 to 24 and 1 to 2 respectively).

I've tried with Extreme Memory Profile (X.M.P.) set to Disabled and Profile1; doesn't make a difference.

I've tried with the DRAM Voltage at the default of 1.5V and also tried bumping it to 1.6V (based on some googling), but that didn't make any difference either.

I'm wondering if there are other parameters that need tweaking to get this memory to work at the rated speed. I didn't see either the memory nor my motherboard in the DDR3 BIOS Configuration Guides. Here are the current memory related values:

Timing Control:
CAS Latency Time: 9
tRCD: 9
tRP: 9
tRAS: 24 (Default 28)

Channel A Advanced Timing Control
tRC: 37
tRRD: 5
tWTR: 6
tWR: 12
tWTP: 24
tWL: 8
tRFC: 128
tRTP: 6
tFAW: 24
tRTP: 6
tFAW: 24
Command Rate: 2 (Default 1)

Channel A Misc Timing Control
IO Latency: 2
Round Trip Latency 37

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

[lrgoldstein]

Reading some of the replies from the support folks, I also tried changing my QTI/VTT voltage. Default is 1.05, and I also tried 1.22 and 1.34, which all continue to occasionally freeze at 1600. Raising this further to 1.40 or 1.48 caused boot to fail.

Any idea what else I should try? Could it just be bad memory?

[Tradesman]

Possibly, try running memtest on each stick individually...also ensure you have the latest BIOS

[lrgoldstein]

I am running the latest BIOS (used @BIOS to update).

Both sticks pass Windows 7 memory test individually, and together at 1600, however the freezes continue. I now have them in slots 2 and 4 instead of the original 1 and 3 (1 is blocked by the CPU cooler, so had to remove and remount that to get one of the sticks out).

MemTest86+ flashes a screen and immediately reboots. The only thing I've been able to catch on that screen is something that says "Unknown". It just goes too fast to read. The CD is fine, as I'm able to use it in another computer successfully.

With the memory at 1333, I've now been running Prime95 (along with other apps) in mixed mode for 11.5 hours without a problem, so the rest of the system seems stable.

Any more ideas on other settings to try to get the memory working at 1600, or is it just not able to perform at rated speed?

[GSKILL TECH]

You may want to send those in for the XL model instead. Or at DDR3-1333 8-8-8-24, it should perform just as well.

Thank you
GSKILL TECH