Asrock Z97 Memory Voltage Issue...

[PowerPie5000]

Re: Asrock Z97 Memory Voltage Issue...

I set the DRAM to 1.200V in A-Tuning, and you can see the Speccy reading for Memory Controller did not change, still at 1.696V. Why yours changes, I don't know. Why would the Memory Controller Input voltage change with the DRAM voltage? We don't expect or see the CPU Input voltage changing with different VCore settings. They could behave differently, but mine does not change at all. Is that your BIOS being different? Speccy being buggy?

After this, I restarted into the UEFI, and set the DRAM voltage to 1.200V. I'm using the Samsung "Green, Miracle" memory that can be run at 1.35V, which I do all the time. I only have it at 1600, 9 9 9 24 1T now, but have 16GB installed, 4 x 4GB. Surprises me it runs at 1.200V, with 16GB, typing this now with that voltage, so far not any problem with the PC.

That kinda makes me wonder if that is really the true voltage. But how often have we tried lowering the DRAM voltage below its spec, I never have, we usually increase it. Any OC of the memory could fail, I've had this memory up to 2000 at 1.35V with this board and CPU.

Might try CPU-Z just for the memory tab.

What happens if you set your DRAM below 1.200V? I really think the voltages we set are not the true values and *might* even be the reason why Asrock don't have DRAM voltage sensors onboard. The DRAM reading in A-Tuning and the BIOS is definitely not a real time sensor reading. I just hope the real voltage is not too high as I hear about IMC degradation a bit too often with Haswell based chips.

I'm glad Intel are removing the voltage regulator from the CPU die with Skylake as Haswell is certainly a bit of a headache. I'll hang on to my 4790K and Asrock Extreme4 board until Skylake. Hopefully Biostar come out with a decent board for it. I know Biostar is a bit of an underdog company (like ECS too), but I've never had an issue with their boards and my other PC is still running a Biostar TH67XE with i7 3770K CPU (used to run a plain i5 2500 before the Ivy Bridge Bios update), Radeon R9 280X and 8GB Avexir DDR3 1600 RAM. I've not had a single issue with that board and it's now over 3 years old and was pretty cheap to buy when new.... And it has DRAM voltage sensors . It's a shame Biostar Z97 boards are a bit lacking here the UK, so I chose Asrock instead (it's my 3rd Asrock board over the years).

[parsec]

Re: Asrock Z97 Memory Voltage Issue...

I've never had a board that had DRAM voltage sensors, and my building of PCs goes back to the socket 775 days, Pentium D and Core 2 Duo. That includes boards by ECS, Intel, Gigabyte and Asus. I imagine DRAM voltage is a set and forget thing, or considered to be.

I got my Z87 EX 6 board to fail to POST by setting the memory voltage to 1.200V, with the same Samsung memory as in my Z97 board. Runs fine at 1.250V @ 1800 9 9 9 24 1T, still hilarious IMO. I must try that on my only board with G.Skill memory in it, specs of the usual 1.5V. But it seems that the memory voltage setting is doing something, and that memory is more flexible about its operating voltage than we think.

The main thing that scares me about Biostar or ECS (my first board, an ECS with the Pentium D, still works) is their UEFI, and I must have UEFI firmware with the right option ROMs. I'm not talking about the GUI interface, that is the only thing most board manufactures and users actually use that UEFI firmware allows. I UEFI POST/boot all my Windows installations, so much faster that legacy booting. ASRock knows how to provide that capability, which goes back at least as far as their Z77 boards. Can't say that about some other mother board manufactures, even their most current products.