The system that functioned properly for years now fails to boot when RAM is configured at XMP speeds.
The system that functioned properly for years now fails to boot when RAM is configured at XMP speeds.
It doesn't align with the list since drives C, S, and Q are all temporary ones I plan to disconnect later. If it were the bootloader, I'd encounter an error stating no OS detected instead of a hardware boot failure. This happens even when trying to boot from a USB drive rather than the SSD. My motherboard is showing this issue before it tries to boot from any drive.
Ok, so just to make sure I tried disconnecting the drive while the RAM is still set to JEDEC speeds, none of the other drives in the system have even a bootloader on them, much less an OS.
After the motherboard logo instead of seeing the spinning circles from when Windows loads (Or the error message if it had a boot error) I saw a cursor keep jumping up and down, pretty sure that's the board searching each drive for a bootloader, and then loading me into the CMOS settings. Expected behavior, that's generally what happens when the hardware is working fine but the board did not find anything to boot. I didn't get an error message.
So I tried setting it back to XMP on expecting to get the error message, but like I said before sometimes it will rarely decide to work, and it did (still dumped me into the CMOS, but again with no error) so before it flakes out again I quickly booted up Memtest86+ 7.0 to see if I can catch anything wrong with the RAM.
The test is still going but I did notice something odd. Unless this is a bug in Memtest86+ itself, it's claiming my IMC is reporting an insane speed and laughably high timings:
EDIT: Also, I just noticed. It's saying it's testing "66GB - 67GB" .... out of 64GB?
https://imgur.com/JHM9lku
View: https://i.imgur.com/JHM9lku.jpg
The issue continues to occur. The system functioned for several days before it started again. RAM checks if the system can POST without displaying any errors. I also used a different boot drive and reinstalled Windows, but the problem persisted, indicating it isn't related to the installation process.
It seems the hardware is likely failing, possibly the CPU memory controller or motherboard. Trying to adjust XMP settings manually might allow RAM to operate at rated speeds without XMP timings.
When it occurs, it appears the RAM speed is the cause. Even when XMP is disabled but I manually tweak the RAM to be slightly higher than the JEDEC standard—like 2700 instead of 2666—I still encounter errors. At that moment, the system completely rejects running the RAM at any speed other than 2666.