Alienware Area51m R1 RU.efi edit to run RAM at higher speeds

[2CPU]

Update: Working at 2667mhz without any CL changes as they appear to not matter. Need to buy RAM that will function at the speed you set or system may not boot.

 

"2666mhz from 2400mhz by changing variable 0xA63 to 6B and variable 0xA64 to 0A." 0A6B = 2667 in decimal. 

By that logic then the original values in hex should be 0960 = 2400, 0xA63 as 60 and 0xA64 as 09.

 

 

This is all coming from the discussion about the blue pictures below of RU.efi. The top screen capture is about CL edit of the RAM timing (when trying to support 2933mhz) where bottom screen capture is mhz speed edit.

 

2933 in decimal is 0B75

0x0941,0x0942,0x0947 are 18 decimal and appear to be the CL 18-18-18 settings. Where is tRAS and tRC? tRAS appears to be 0x0945

 

Example SPD settings I see from CPU-Z @ 2400mhz

[2CPU]

Alright I guess I will try and boot into a EFI shell. 

 

Following these steps to build a USB boot for RU.efi but shell link didn't work for me:

https://starkeblog.com/firmware/uefi/ru.efi/bios/2020/08/01/modifying-bios-using-ru-efi.html

 

Get the EFI shell here:

https://github.com/tianocore/edk2/tree/edk2-stable201903/ShellBinPkg/UefiShell/X64

 

[2CPU]

Well oops. The 2667mhz change did work (got a no boot w 4x sticks but yes with single stick of RAM) but since my CL of the other 32GB of RAM (2x16GB) was not 17 my laptop did not boot with all the sticks in it. I should of gone and edited the other area to relax the CL timings to 19-19-19-43-61 @ 2667mhz & then I would of been fine with 4x16GB at CL 19 or even 20

 

I stupidly tried to adjust down to 2666mhz and now nothing boots. Crud, I hope there is some way to recover that does not require removing and flashing the SPI BIOS ROM. I never considered (or read) that a change like 2666 vs 2667 would yield no boot.

 

Seems I will need to remove the BIOS SPI and try and clear the NVRAM area. 

[2CPU]

Somehow I lucked out as my entire laptop battery got zapped down to 9% (not even sure how) but I was able to get the laptop to boot once with a single RAM stick (for two hours it would just blink red at me with one stick & I tried pretty much every combo). I did pull the CMOS battery a few times but that should not have cleared the non-volatile (NV) region of the BIOS chip. Hey, I'm not complaining as I was able to reflash the BIOS in Windows which did clear out the NV region of the BIOS SPI which is where my changes from RU.efi resided. 

 

Booted back again all good w default 2400mhz setting. 

[2CPU]

For anyone else that wants to try the steps are:

 

Boot the USB that has the EFI shell and RU.efi (from steps above) 

fs0: to access filesystem and launch RU.efi

Alt-F to enter menu bar
Choose EFI Variables and then the scroll to the second Setup
Use Control + PgDwn to get to proper addresses.
Make changes and then hit cntrl + w to write.
Hit Alt + Q to quit and issue reset command in efi shell

 

Screenshot of editing the speed:

 

Here is my default CL settings at 2400mhz

[2CPU]

I am finding that the "CL settings" get overwritten each boot as I am attempting to put in worse CL settings prior to the mhz bump but they do not stay.

 

Which would make sense since the SPD read of the RAM should be placed in the NV region of the BIOS SPI. So then I do not understand the commentary in Reddit. I am thinking the RAM speed setting of BIOS should prompt SPD read of the RAM to populate the CL settings in NV region. (Not requiring any RU.efi tweaks) Perhaps the Reddit guy just bought really expensive RAM and got lucky. 

[2CPU]

As a glutton for punishment I've tried yet again to run RAM at 2667mhz settings. Only edit of the mhz via RU.efi and nothing else. 

 

Working fine, 64GB dual channel @ 2667mhz. No problems yet but zero improvements in benchmarks. Fine by me since I spent zero dollars. 

 

[devilhunter]

WTH ! Im assuming you can do the same for all mem speed? 

[devilhunter]

8 hours ago, 2CPU said:

As a glutton for punishment I've tried yet again to run RAM at 2667mhz settings. Only edit of the mhz via RU.efi and nothing else. 

 

Working fine. No problems yet but zero improvements in benchmarks. Fine by me since I spent zero dollars. 

 

 

You should notice minor improvement once you run a benchmark or tool at 100 fps (high frequency application).

[2CPU]

I was really worn out with the system being "dead" for ~3 hours while I actively tried everything to get one boot. I would of rather spent that time playing Borderlands 4 so I did not put it through a lot of testing. It is booting fine now at the 2667mhz (vs 2400) & maybe works better for games but need time to check. If you have mismatched sticks then you should put the worst CL rated pair in the slot 1&2.(I think I have one pair CL17 and other pair are CL19) That way the SPD read assigns all sticks with the slower CL values.

 

The system was crazy hot yesterday so I do see minor improvement. Maybe a "good run" will yield 83 fps?

Time spy:

 

CL17 @ 2400mhz vs. CL19 @ 2667mhz yielded 0.21 more fps in bench marking. Overall I do see more consistently higher fps scoring.

Just surprising to me how little you gain with a different CPU (+600Mhz w OC), RAM capacity (+32GB) and RAM speed (+267mhz).

Two fps in Steel Nomad.

However, all those changes cost me nearly nothing since I resold the older CPU for more than I the faster one and extra RAM.

 

Edit: The fps in Indiana Jones does seem a lot higher.