M18xR2 - Advice on RAM

[GMP]

Hi all, hope you don't mind me asking some help without spending another couple of hours on this.

I'm close to finishing my M18xR2 build, I've spend countless hours into researching the other stuff and all that is left is the RAM.

 

Before I actually decided to bring this R2 up to date, I already bought 4x8GB sticks of RAM but it was basic RAM.

More specifically Samsung RAM sticks, M471B1G73DB0-YK0

With pretty bad timings as you can see, 1600MHz 11-11-11-28-39:

 

 

Can I do anything with this RAM if I want maximum performance?

When it comes to overclocking this RAM I found this:

 

 

Or would you guys advise me some other RAM at 2133MHz for example out of the box.

I've seen people using Corsair and Kingston RAM.

 

So couple of questions:

 

1) If you had to buy something, what would it be?

 

2) Am I better running lower frequency if I can get latency down that way?

Does higher/lower frequency in combination with lower/higer latency make any difference between gaming and benchmarking?

 

3) When I buy them, can I just plug them in all at once, boot to BIOS and add the frequency and timings in a custom XMP profile and that should be it?

 

4) What happens if I can't boot anymore, I need to reset bios by clearing CMOS? Or is that something that won't happen.

 

5) If I buy some 2133MHz RAM with tight timings, I can try to tweak everything some more but the frequency? Since the R2 only supports RAM up to 2133MHz. Or can I try to overclock that too.

 

6) Do I really need software like Thaiphoon Burner to write stuff to the RAM sticks? Or can I just do it all from BIOS? Or is there any other software I should use or any guide I should follow?

 

Again, sorry for the questions, but I don't feel like spending another 10 hours going through every single forum and NBRchive, hope you can forgive me :)

 

Thanks!

 

[Reciever]

I never had any luck with with SODIMM overclocking in any platform that used DDR3. 

 

Even with unlocked BIOS none seemed to be able to manipulate the settings in place on XMP or JEDEC, iirc there was limited success with Thaiphoon Burner but I dont recall how much success there was. I think @Mr. Fox did try it at one point though under similar circumstances (M18xR2) 

[ssj92]

I'd get 2133Mhz RAM. Kingston HyperX works fine. You can even OC to 2400Mhz if you get the 4GB sticks, but personally I wanted more capacity so went with 32GB (4x8GB) 2133Mhz RAM. 2133Mhz RAM works better for us since we use iGPU (SG) mode. 

[GMP]

5 hours ago, ssj92 said:

I'd get 2133Mhz RAM. Kingston HyperX works fine. You can even OC to 2400Mhz if you get the 4GB sticks, but personally I wanted more capacity so went with 32GB (4x8GB) 2133Mhz RAM. 2133Mhz RAM works better for us since we use iGPU (SG) mode. 

I tried to find it online but nowhere to be found?

[Reciever]

2 hours ago, GMP said:

I tried to find it online but nowhere to be found?

You might find them in kits of 8gb single's, it's how I found them a couple years ago on Amazon. 

[GMP]

26 minutes ago, Reciever said:

You might find them in kits of 8gb single's, it's how I found them a couple years ago on Amazon. 

I can't find them anywhere. 4GB modules I can find, but I need 8GB modules. I work on this laptop and I really need 32GB as I'm running applications that need a lot of RAM :/

Even when looking for the manufacturer code HX321LS11IB2/8 I can hardly find any hits.

[Reciever]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/255734672297?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=6huhU75tRdy&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=FySCCas2SSG&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

 

Just make sure it's ddr3

[GMP]

58 minutes ago, Reciever said:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/255734672297?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=6huhU75tRdy&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=FySCCas2SSG&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

 

Just make sure it's ddr3

Holy crap. I didn't find it in my search results on ebay since there was no "DDR3" in the product title and they even made a mistake in the manufacturer product code so that gave me no result either. Glad you found it somehow.

Thanks!

 

Update:  I just bought them.

I hate customs fees (I live in the EU) but hey, that's life :)

[Reciever]

24 minutes ago, GMP said:

Holy crap. I didn't find it in my search results on ebay since there was no "DDR3" in the product title and they even made a mistake in the manufacturer product code so that gave me no result either. Glad you found it somehow.

Thanks!

 

Update:  I just bought them.

I hate customs fees (I live in the EU) but hey, that's life :)

I hope they work out well for you :) 

 

Think I still have 16GB of it in my t440p 

[TruenoG7]

On 9/20/2022 at 1:03 AM, ssj92 said:

I'd get 2133Mhz RAM. Kingston HyperX works fine. You can even OC to 2400Mhz if you get the 4GB sticks, but personally I wanted more capacity so went with 32GB (4x8GB) 2133Mhz RAM. 2133Mhz RAM works better for us since we use iGPU (SG) mode. 

hello, do you know if they apply those frequencies for alienware 18

[ssj92]

16 hours ago, TruenoG7 said:

hello, do you know if they apply those frequencies for alienware 18

2133Mhz works in AW18 apparently, Idk if it's plug n play  

[jaybee83]

6 hours ago, ssj92 said:

2133Mhz works in AW18 apparently, Idk if it's plug n play  

depends on the sticks id wager. iirc the Kingston HyperX 2133 sticks are actually SPD programmed, so should be pnp.

[GMP]

Ok the Kingston HyperX 2133MHz sticks have arrived but I'm really struggling with them.

This is the exact RAM:

https://www.kingston.com/datasheets/HX321LS11IB2_8.pdf

I put memory voltage on 1.5V in bios, set frequency on 2133Mhz and then tried several things on the XMP profile.

Tried auto but getting crashes while booting, or I get in windows and crashes after a while. BSOD, even orange screens of death.

Once it even rebooted and automatically started running the windows memory test.

Then I tried XMP profile 1, pretty much the same problem.

 

I opened Thaiphoon Burner and checked what it should be able to run at:

 

 

Then I went back in bios and used a custom XMP profile where I entered all the bottom row values (with cas 11).

This seems to run a little more stable, but after a while I still get a BSOD and when I checked bios right after, the XMP profile was automatically reset to "default".

 

When I run memtest86, I get errors already pretty soon.

I'm not sure what's going on here.

 

I'll post here some screenshots here of several software sources.

 

Aida64 (different SPD than Thaiphoon Burner?):

 

 

Thaiphoon Burner:

 

 

Lots of things are Undefined like Manufacturer, Part Number, Jedec Dimm Label and everything XMP related.

Is that normal?

It also displays different SPD like I said compared to AIDA64.

 

CPU-Z:

 

 

 

1.35V, shouldn't it read 1.5V?

 

Not really sure what to do now.

@ssj92, you are running the same RAM right?

How are you running your 4x8GB sticks? What are your bios settings for the RAM? Voltage, frequency and XMP profile.

 

My sticks are not new, they are second hand, all I could find.

Not sure if they are faulty (which I doubt) or if it's because something is wrong in my settings.

Any help is truly appreciated!

 

My situation right now is that if I enter these settings from the SPD I see in Typhoon, that I can run "ok" but in the end it will also crash after while, where XMP profile in BIOS gets reset? Anything else I run crashes really fast.

Is it necessary to do a CMOS reset for example for the new RAM?

Should I test every single stick with memtest seperately? (In the bottom slot under the keyboard I presume)

Because I don't think they are faulty, must be something else imo...

 

[GMP]

I did some more testing, using memtest86.

First I put everything in bios on stock:

- Memory override support (voltage): disabled

- Frequency: auto

- XMP Profile: auto

 

Then  ran memtest86 with 1 Kingston stick in DIMM slot A (the lowest underneath the laptop).

No errors. I tried all 4 sticks this way and no errors at all.

I ran the test only for a couple of minutes each time but that was enough to get a basic idea.

So from this I derive that the memory is just fine.

 

Then I put 1 stick in only slot B, immediately a lot of errors.

I did the same for slot C and D with only 1 stick, immediately a lot of errors.

Don't know if it's normal to get errors if you're running 1 stick and don't put it in slot A, but ok.

The fact is, I tried the same with my Samsung 1600MHz RAM, putting 1 stick in slot A, then B, then C and D.

That did not give me any errors, so that feels strange that it only happens with the Kingston type memory.

 

Then I put 2 Kingston sticks in slot A and B, immediately errors.

And in the end I put all 4 in and immediately errors, although the errors came a lot slower, there were less. But still it yielded errors.

 

I'm not sure what's going on here...

 

That being said, with everything in bios on stock settings, windows seems to run quite fine (for now). I'll keep monitoring the next few days how many BSOD I get. But the memtest error situation, that I don't understand at all.

 

EDIT: Also, when running 3dmark now, I'm getting really low scores all of a sudden. Framerate looks fine butten suddenly "glitches" and drops really low, then goes to higher framerate and then back down. Some sort of throttling. Weird things are happening because yesterday I was able to benchmark just fine with the new ram a couple of times. Just as a test I put back my old ram and ran a 3dmark run, but it's still the same. Now the GPU seems to throttle heavily at intervals, although I didn't change anything on that part. Even tried without OC, just stock GPU and CPU clocks and still throttles on the GPU almost as soon as the benchmark starts. And it's not a temperature issue. Anyway I'll sort that out, my main issue is with the RAM right now.

EDIT2: Did a bios reset, ran 3dmark again and didn't throttle. Changed the memory again and the GPU throttled again. Apparently every time I change the RAM in the laptop I MUST reset the bios or the GPU throttles. Happy I found the solution.

 

That still leaves me with the memory issue. I tried testing in windows with memtest64 and allocated 15360MB of memory to be tested, so a little over 1 stick of 8192MB. It runs fine without errors while testing the first 8192MB, but as soon as it goes above and thus the second memory stick kicks in, I get errors in memtest64, or even a BSOD sometimes along with it.

 

 

[GMP]

Update:

Unfortunately I had to put my 1600MHz RAM sticks back in the M18x.

I ran the Kingston 2133MHz sticks for a little over a day, only had 2 BSOD while running memtest64 scanning for errors.

But all of a sudden this afternoon I got one BSOD after the other out of nowhere, could hardly even boot to windows before crashing.

I really don't know what to do now, these sticks cost me almost €300 and I can't use them for some reason.

Testing the sticks seperately gives me no errors, so I'm quite sure the sticks are fine. It's when I run more than one of those sticks on top of the DIMM A slot that shit hits the fan.

@ssj92Any idea what could be going on? :/

[Reciever]

It could be the imc on your cpu can't handle them. 

[GMP]

1 hour ago, Reciever said:

It could be the imc on your cpu can't handle them. 

Could be, any way to test this or know for sure?

Don't really feel like buying another 3940xm. This laptop upgrade has cost me a pretty penny already lol.

 

I'm gonna insert the Kingston modules again and try to set the memory to 1600MHz in bios in stead of 2133MHz (if I can) and see if I still get errors.

If not, then something might indeed be wrong with imc. Or maybe it's a voltage related issue somehow. I really don't know.

[Reciever]

Have you tried installing the 2133mhz without alterations to the bios? If so what specification does your system decide to use? 

[GMP]

44 minutes ago, Reciever said:

Have you tried installing the 2133mhz without alterations to the bios? If so what specification does your system decide to use? 

It automatically takes 2133MHz.

I just now did some other test, setting the memory to 1600MHz. I checked and it actually applies this setting. After that I ran memtest86 again with the 1600MHz setting and it still reports errors when running more than 1 stick.

I figured I'd test that as my samsung ram works just fine and is 1600MHz. Although the Kingston ram has quite a bit tighter timings running at that speed compared to my other ram, so I can't completely duplicate it to run at the samsung ram settings. But yeah, still errors at 1600MHz also.

[GMP]

I just tried something else. I had a 3840qm before the upgrade to the 3940xm.

I just replaced the cpu and put the 3840qm back to see if that one is able to handle the 2133MHz modules.

It was the same as with the 3940xm, errors running memtest86, at frequencies 2133 and 1600. Didn't make a difference, although it seemed to generate a couple errors less at 1600. But errors nonetheless.

I don't know if you're supposed to use an extreme cpu to be able to run 2133MHz RAM, I don't think so?

So from this I can derive that the integrated memory controller in the cpu is not the problem as both the 3940xm and 3840qm have the errors?

And still, running one stick gives no errors at all. Only from 2 and up. I truly think the RAM is fine.

The 2133MHz modules are now back in the laptop, but running at 1600MHz. So far no BSOD's but I'm sure it won't take long before it starts happening again.

I'm running out of ideas here :(

[Reciever]

Though from what I remember people did say that higher cpu's would be needed that was mostly derived from the school of thought that higher cpu = better binning = better imc. Later this was somewhat discarded, as my 4700mq didn't have any issues with it. 

 

Is there perhaps the ability to bump up the voltage?

[GMP]

5 hours ago, Reciever said:

Though from what I remember people did say that higher cpu's would be needed that was mostly derived from the school of thought that higher cpu = better binning = better imc. Later this was somewhat discarded, as my 4700mq didn't have any issues with it. 

 

Is there perhaps the ability to bump up the voltage?

This memory is rated at 1.35V / 1.5V out of the box.

It runs at 1.35V on auto, at least that is the voltage I can see in various software, see screenshots a couple posts above.

If I change it to 1.5V or 1.55v in bios, nothing changes, the volages does not change.

[ssj92]

On 10/2/2022 at 2:54 AM, GMP said:

This memory is rated at 1.35V / 1.5V out of the box.

It runs at 1.35V on auto, at least that is the voltage I can see in various software, see screenshots a couple posts above.

If I change it to 1.5V or 1.55v in bios, nothing changes, the volages does not change.

All I did was change memory frequnecy to 2133mhz and everything else is default. I've attached my settings, hopefully it helps. I don't know of a single m18x that cannot run 2133mhz ram with an XM CPU. 2400Mhz is a different story. 

 

I did buy some "1866mhz" ram from eBay for my M18xR1 and cannot get it to run over 1600mhz. I wonder if there are fake modules going around. It's possible your RAM is defective. You could always try contacting Kingston and seeing if they will replace it since they have lifetime warranty (hopefully they don't ask for invoice lol) 

[Expresstyle]

On 10/2/2022 at 11:54 AM, GMP said:

This memory is rated at 1.35V / 1.5V out of the box.

It runs at 1.35V on auto, at least that is the voltage I can see in various software, see screenshots a couple posts above.

If I change it to 1.5V or 1.55v in bios, nothing changes, the volages does not change.

Last thing that u can do its to use xtu to tweak voltage and change something else perhaps. If erorrs remains, Just Do what ssj92 says, ask for an replace

[Komputers-Best]

I'm on my Alienware A17, I couldn't pick up the memory either, it doesn't work above 1600, the bios just stupidly resets by default to the base frequency.