Issue with RAM maintaining required performance levels
Issue with RAM maintaining required performance levels
Hey there! I’m just getting started on this forum, but I’ve run into a problem with my PC. A while back I added another RAM stick to my desktop, making sure it matched the first one but not identical. Everything worked perfectly until a few months passed and my system began freezing intermittently—lasting anywhere from a few hours to over eight. At first I thought it was just a glitch, but after some research, it turned out to be RAM instability. I adjusted the timings down from the default 2133 to something lower, like 1866. I didn’t overclock it because my motherboard was H110, which doesn’t support that.
Then I upgraded to a newer stick (Z170) and tried increasing the voltage and speed, but nothing worked. No matter what voltage I used—from the stock 1.212V up to 1.35V—I still couldn’t get it to run faster. Even at 2000MHz and 1.35V, it would freeze. I also tried tweaking the timings without much luck.
I’m a bit puzzled—am I doing something wrong with the settings? Or is there a compatibility issue I’m missing? Maybe it’s an aging problem, or perhaps there’s a defect. I’ve been using this setup for about five years now, and I’m not sure what to do.
I’ve attached a photo of the RAM sticks from CPU-z. If anyone can help explain what’s going on or offer some ideas, it would really help me figure this out. Thanks in advance!
P.S. I know one of the sticks has XMP support and is rated higher than the other, but I was really on a tight budget five years ago. Second-hand cheap RAM from that era isn’t easy to find. Also, for the ASUS Z170-A model, the recommended slots are 2 and 4, not 1 and 3—no idea why.
It's a complete memory problem. The two sticks differ significantly—one has XMP and 2400MHz, the other only 1067MHz with no matching timings. It's not just this one issue; the mismatch affects overall performance. Choose the stick with the higher frequency (2400MHz) to ensure optimal results.
@ShrimpBrime Yeah, I completely get it, but I am tight on money even today, beggars can't exactly be choosers, I got whatever I could on the second hand market. But both are running (at the moment) at 1866MHz, much lower specs for both sticks. But I guess then sticks are sensitive to increasing the timings as well as decreasing them? @Craftyawesome The issue is the same across 2 mother boards, bios decided or not. Also, it cannot run at the stock bios decided settings, crashes after a few hours at 2133MHz. The timings are very loose, in one of the pictures you can see (I forgot to change them after I gave up on trying to get even 2133) Thank you for the fast replies! But I still don't fully get the "why" behind this. Maybe I could ask somewhere else?
@ShrimpBrime YOU ARE A HERO!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I just looked in the bios and what do you know, there is a tab about secondary timings! But there is a metric butt-tone of them! Guess I know what I'll be doing over the weekend! Google also yields no results for secondary timings on neither stick (or even any info at all for the slower one XD ), guess I'll have to boot each ram separately, note down the timings and use the slower ones or even increase them. Again, thank you for the information, I really appreciate it!!!
You plan to set up each stick separately and note all the timing details. Then proceed from there.
Thanks a lot for the great help! I adjusted the secondary timings to use the slower ones and lowered the RAM refresh cycle time a bit. Now everything runs smoothly even at 2400MHz and 1.22V. I’m really grateful, no crashes or freezes! I’ll try to flash the memory tomorrow and see how it handles. Thanks again!