Crucial ram, I'm noob

[TridenT]

I have the Asus Rampage Formula X48 motherboard and when I go into the bios it allows me to edit a lot of the settings on the ram. So much that I actually have no clue what the others do, actually I have no real idea what any of them do but basically... I know to put in 4-4-4-12 for my ram and then the rest I put on Auto but I've found that when I set the timings to auto it sets them to 5-5-5-18 which is way higher than the stock. Basically... Can anyone tell me the exact timings I should be putting for the rest of the settings? There is a SERIOUS amount of settings for the ram. I would like to know what settings to put them for everything really so I can't get the best performance. I would like to be able to use this ram at 1000mhz and 1066 maybe. I have seen that it can run at that quite well with putting the timings at 5-5-5-15. (The rest I have no clue)

Also I have noticed with my motherboard that when I set the ram to 2.2v(which is what it says to put it at) that it runs it actually at 2.27v... Which is kinda high and makes the ram even hotter.. If I don't put a fan on the ram, but I do, I will touch the ram while the computer is running and it will be burning hot. Like ow ow, too hot to touch. So I was curious as to the fix to this if you know any fix.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820148076 Here is the ram I bought, I have 2 sets of this. (4x1GB) I'm so confused and new to this. Model: BL2KIT12864AL804 but you won't find it on the Crucial website, they just removed it for some reason.

 

[ShadowFlareX]

I have the same mobo and used the PC2 8500 Ballistix Tracers Crucial RAMs too on the mobo, 4 sticks too. Basically you can manually set the DRAM Command Rate to 2N, RAM timings in the 1st Information to 4-4-4-12 and let the rest of the RAM timings to Auto, pretty much applies to any RAM. Don't worry too much on "Why my timings are set to 5-5-5-15 wen set to Auto", as long as you can set it at 4-4-4-12 at 800MHz then why worry.

RAM at 800MHz, you can use 4-4-4-12
RAM at 1000, you should use 5-5-5-15

One thing I noticed on my Ballistix Tracer 8500 RAM, my Vista desktop will become corrupted if I set the DRAM voltage higher than 2.0V, really weird. Even with 2.0V it's already burning hot to touch like you said. But they worked at 1066MHz 5-5-5-15 2.0V. Try running them as low voltage with stability as possible. No point giving them unnecessarily higher voltage.

 

[TridenT]

Wow I ran into that same problem! They do corrupt when I set the voltage to 2.2 like it says even though it runs fine at like 1.9v. O_O Very unusual, but then again my whole system is unstable at around 3.4ghz. (For some reason it ramps the NB voltage up to 1.63v and just goes completely unstable in benches)

 

[TridenT]

Something is wrong with my ram. I will set it to 2.00V in the BIOS but it will run at 2.07v(Again that .07V increase that this stupid motherboard does) and will have it run at 4-4-4-12 then the rest on auto and 800mhz. It can't even pass 5 minutes of Orthos ram stress test because my whole system freezes up. It could easily be my CPU but I highly, highly doubt it. It just seems the ram is being faulty all over, I don't understand why it can't run at it's freaking stock speeds!

SIDE NOTE: My reference voltage on the ram is 1.04v and that's bad according to Asus Probe II... I don't know how to make it lower.

Alright, edit: Set it to ALL AUTO except for making it 800mhz and FSB set on AUTO. (Not the cpu but the motherboard) Increased some voltages, lowered others... All around the same really, running better. BUT, the damn DRAM Ref voltage is still 1.04v and it should only be like .95 or 1.00 right??

 

[ShadowFlareX]

I've just checked my DRAM Controller Voltage REF, it's set to "DDR2_REF" and in-BIOS Hardware Monitor reads 0.992V. A little 0.048V difference shouldn't cause problems, right? Although... I was reading This Anandtech review, and at the bottom of that page, last screenshot, you'll see the DRAM Controller Voltage REF is at 1.216V, so you should be fine.

I remember running 4 sticks of those Tracers at 1.9V at 800MHz and I think I needed to bump it up to 2.0V for 1066MHz. So if you're running it at 800MHz, try if 1.9V is stable enough.