Crashing PC? Check this first! 

Jay, there is also JEDEC listed speed, which a lot of laptops / mini-desktops take. Don't make the mistake of buying XMP/DOCP/XPO ram for a laptop unless you can go into the BIOS and SEE the options, and then be very careful of updating your BIOS later. Dell has removed those setting on TWO G series laptops I've owned because they either wanted to sell you a kit at twice the price OR they didn't want your G series laptop competing with their Alienware line, that did expose those settings. So, for laptops, be careful about the RAM, and once you have upgraded, keep an eye on your BIOS updates. A lot of laptop makers don't expose those settings even on their higher end systems, so you are stuck paying higher prices for JEDEC rated RAM.

Always appreciate Jay's ability to explain complex, practical, computer theories to the 'every man' and keep the student's attention. Very unappreciated ability that most college instructors lax.

Wanted to see you show the difference between XMPII and XMP tweaked, and if they posted on your rig. Thanks for the video, a good one for paranoia.

Also a tip for anyone enabling expo on AM5. If you’re getting long boot times because the ram is memory training on every boot. Enable memory context restore in bios.

I got a 6400 XMP kit for my R5 7600 because it was the same price as the 6000 kit. I knew that 6400 probably wouldn't be stable since the highest Expo kit I saw was 6000, but for the same price I gave it a shot since I could just put in the 6000 Expo timings manually. 6400 ended up being only 90% stable and the absolute latency is the exact same between 6400 CL32 and 6000 CL30, so 6000 it is.

Also, if the system can boot back into Windows after a crash/BSOD, it's not a bad idea to check the Event Log or Reliability Monitor to get further information about what happened (the latter explains BSOD events a bit better). And if feeling adventurous, examining the memory dump/minidump generated during the crash with windbg, and some searching and RTFM if the documentation is available. That's what I had to do to properly diagnose that my GPU was on its way out, even after reinstalling Windows 11, downgrading to Windows 10, reinstalling drivers, and doing a close-up inspection of the board. Both windbg and Reliability Monitor offered the same "basic" information you get with the BSOD ("video scheduler internal error"), but the extra details on the ID of the error code made me realize either the memory or the core were going bad. Without some proper testing tools to do memory training/tests (coughcough MODS/MATS), it's safe to say "the GPU is dead" after 7 crashes in a day and no signal after booting back into Windows. On the bright side it was a 550 Ti so nothing super expensive, but on the other hand it's an EVGA card, so it hurts a little bit.

Hey Jay, you you referred to the memory as HYPERX FURY, in fact now they are KINGSTON FURY. HP bought the rights to the HyperX brand from Kingston, which in turn launched a new brand called FURY, so the memories are Kingston FURY Renegade. The other line is called Kingston FURY Beast. Great video, BTW!

one thing to note sometimes the errors caused by ram timings can be so subtle, they go completely unnoticed and or the error occurs hours later in the middle of a gaming session and bamboozles a user into thinking the problem lies elsewhere.

Perfect timing. Just changed RAM a few months ago and forgot I never turned it on. However can't get it to stop crashing. Watching now!

This is a pretty timely video; I had some "fun" trying to enable XMP on my new build yesterday. It was on an Asrock Z690 Riptide board running what is technically unsupported memory (some rather old 3000 MHz sticks). Simply enabling XMP Profile 1 prevented the PC from posting. After updating the BIOS itself I was able to enable XMP without issues.

Thank You sooo much, you're a life savior, my new i9 14900k specs pc with rtx 4070 super gives me lots of problems and crashes & all after following your advice things got sorted. Going to follow more tutorials, you earned 1 sub, Thanks again, lots of love from 🇮🇳.. God bless.

Jay always bringen the right Video at the right time when its needed!

I have always found QVL lists to be completely worthless. In theory, it’s such a great resource. In practicality, being able to actually find the kits that are listed there for purchase, let alone have them actually meet the aesthetics that you need, never actually plays out. Manufactures definitely need to step up their game in this area

That was an extremely helpful vid. Thanks! Having new AM5 headaches and it is good to know that am not alone.

Thank you Jay for making those kind of videos! You help the comminuty a lot! Keep the great work! Can't wait for more fun vids, specially odd builds :D

I was one of the ones complaining about my ram in your last video. I didn't even think of dropping the MHZ of the ram DOCP profile. I will have to give that a try next time I reboot. Thanks for the awesome videos. Started watching during your 200lb weight loss... so 2014ish.

Currently using 7800X3D at 6000 CL 30, it’s been great so far

Thanks. My #2 bu EVGA (z490kp) has had really random crashes... NOW I do think XMP has been the problem ... never considered before!

With AM4 having a older board with newer AM4 CPU may also limit max ram speed. My X370 board with a 5800X would only run my Ram at 3200. Swapped my board for a B550-f board and now can run my ram at 3600.

When I bought the RAM for my current 13700k build, I was originally gonna go with 64GB at 6400. I got this same advice from another techtuber and changed my order to 5600. I probably could’ve gone with 6000, but I wanted to be on the safe side to make sure they weren’t gonna be a problem. No issues so far.

A QVL, or Qualified Vendor List, is provided by motherboard manufacturers and lists memory kits that have been tested to work with a specific motherboard model.

thats one thing that makes me reluctant to get a ddr5 platform, id like it to be just set and forget. Most cpus from ryzen 3000 or intel 10th gen can just set and forget ddr4 3200 or 3600MT. I am an enthusiast but i dont always have time to chase random issues down the rabbit hole anymore. Then in combination with that the gpus and cpus have had less and less oc headroom it feels so the risk reward is just lost.

D.O.C.P was an Asus specific thing on their AMD boards that utilized XMP timings.

Crazy that I just started researching this issue last night, thanks man!

Ran into this after a RAM upgrade with XMP. Would boot and idle, but crash to desktop or BSOD when under load. A few cycles later while troubleshooting, it went into a boot loop, then failed to POST entirely with a VGA error LED (which was its own adventure to realize the RAM and not the GPU was the issue). Had to revert and manually dial in intermediate settings for stability. 64GB at somewhat higher than stock speed was so worth it for video editing.

I had a kit of ram that would not work at all when selecting the XMP profile. But when I manually adjusted the all the timings and clock speed to what it was advertised at, it worked fine. A year later, that mother board was zapped by lightning, so I replaced it with the same motherboard, but newer bios and the XMP profile worked with no hitches. I later doubled the 16g kit by getting another kit of the exact same number and it works just fine even though it was not a matched 4 stick kit.

Great Video, im running EXPO profile Corsair Dominator Platinum 64GBS @ 5600MHz Started at 6000MHz and worked my way down for stability. I also had to change the PMIC voltages from "SYNC all PMICS" to "By Per PMIC" to get my 4 Memory sticks to work at those clock speeds. I

Great video ... last night my 7950X suddenly wouldn't boot my EXPO settings. No idea why, I didn't change anything. I flashed the CMOS, went back in and switched on EXPO and everything worked again. No overclock on the CPU since this is my production machine. It reminded me of your recent video explaining why you decided to go back to Intel. I can feel your pain 😉

The best to you Jay in this coming year. I look forward to seeing more of the crew. Even if they come kicking and screaming... lol😊

Man, I hit the lottery when building out my 5800X3D system. I had already purchased a set of two 8gig sticks of G.Skill TridentZ 14-14-14-34 3200mhz and I wanted a total of 34gigs but for the life of me, I could not find a another set of used G.Skill Trident AMD compatible ram at those speeds anywhere (new was off the charts expensive). All I could get was the XMP version for Intel. I took a chance and purchased an Intel set, and they have both worked flawlessly with each other without issue for over 6 months now running at the 14-14-14-34 timings. It's funny, one set is RGB and the other isn't as this was also a major issue. But I actually think it looks better with them mixed. To top this all off, the QVL list said "No Way" on even a matched set. Woohoo.... : )

Just upgraded to 7800x3d with steel legend x670e. Memory was on mobo list and expo worked. So far so good

I'm building a new PC, AM5 Ryzen 5 7600, and I got some 7200 mhz CL 34 RAM for very cheap. I think the seller thin-fingered the price, and forgot to add the 1 or 2 hundreds numeral, so I bought those 2x16GB sticks for a mere 75 eur. I'm still waiting for the parts to arrive, but once they do, I'm looking forward to playing around with the XMP / EXPO profiles on my Asus motherboard.

Thank you Sir.!! I believe you have found the problem I was having where my screen would "glitch" out for up to 2 seconds.. Different video cards did not help.. Different energy providers didn't help.. (off grid with 2 solar systems) .. my next option was the motherboard.. I have a Ryzen 5 7600 with 5600 ram.. It defaulted to 4800 and I upped it to 5600 in EXPO.. Now that I dropped it back to stock it seems to have fixed it.. I will probably never notice the "slower" speed ram..

I knew i was subscribed to you. It was nice meeting you on the Tram! 😃

I said in the short, I think I got one of those duds in my ryzen 5600x. If I run anything over stock speed I get random BSoD's. It could be RAM but I havent bought another kit to try it. That said I am running 4 8gb sticks for 32g cause I need that much at least for editing.

After my last crash the type of crash reminded me of SoC instability, which had me back retuning for stability with SoC voltage and memory timings

This video was great, i did so many things before watching this. I reinstalled drivers, lowered settings on my 4070 super, but got a 4080 for cheap becuase of the 4080 super. Never thought it was my RAM.

Great vid well explained. One of the best tech channels going ✌️

Just a note on the qvl list, it can often take a while for motherboard manufacturers to update the qvl list after initial launch. Generally the memory manufacturer will have their own qvl list thats updated a bit faster.

I have had so much problems with my systems randomly bluescreening and a game " the division" would allways crash. For the game i tried every tip and trick i could find on it but nothing helped and i just gave up. I started playing the division through geforce now.. Until i watched this video.. Turned off XMP and BAM!! all my problems are gone.. and to be fair, i my day to day use i don't even notice having "slower" RAM.. Thanks for this video!!

"Base speed" for DDR4 is 1600. What Jay is referring to is "JEDEC speed" which is the rated speed of the module for standard voltage. JEDEC exists for 1600, 1866, 2133, 2400, 2666, 2933, 3200, so yes you can totally get DDR4-3200 modules that run at 3200 out of the box. XMP speeds are higher because they require more voltage, which makes it an overclock

The clear CMOS button does the same thing as the jumper does, instead of putting a jumper on the jumper pins you push a button to make the same connection.

Nice studio set. Looks Great!

Thanks Jay!!! Same issue you are going over. I wanted to overclock my ram so bad but my 7950x doesn’t seem to like it.

Some times the ram will fail with overclock but that doesn't mean it can't overclock on this system. I was building a system for my brother and I let him plug the CPU and RAM... In the end, after trying everything I simply removed and inserted the ram again and the random blue screens were gone. 3600mhz was throwing blue screens, stock and 3000 was working fine.

Hope this video has the answer I need. I’ve been having pc crashes and have tried so many things. It gets really frustrating.

Hey Jay I had a problem with my HP laptop it has 16mb ram 500gb SSD. Started showing blue screen, did some research and caps lock button was flashing a series of on-off. So what I did was replace CMOS battery now works like a charm.

Don't forget that other AM5 glitch where if you enable memory context restore you have to also enable memory power down

I had an issue where mine actually went bad. I had some CORSAIR Vengeance RGB Pro SL 32GB (4 x 8GB) 288-Pin PC RAM DDR4 3600, obv out of the box they were at 2400. I was able to enable OC profile to 3600, but sometimes after reboot it liked to reset to 2400. Eventually one of the modules went bad and the PC wouldnt boot if I had it installed. I had to send the kit back and Corsair was great and replaced them all. I havent had issues sense. But it def was struggle bus for a while.

Why do all motherboards not just come stock with clear cmos? The only reason I can think it cost but is it really that much more cost-effective to leave it out? Most enthusiasts like to overclock so it's a very useful tool.

How long should you press the CLEAR_CMOS button on the back? It's never worked for me this way...

2:26 I have AMD XPO, 2 x 16GB 6000 MHz running on my Asus Prime Z690 with Asus DOCP recognizes it and sets its speed and timings perfectly, even though it isn't XMP its shows DOCP/XMP. Works perfect. Never had issues. Would have bought XMP version for Intel but was sold out at Microcenter at the time got this for $65 from a bud of mine. So ended up with a win win.

Thanks "Jay" . I look at my refresh rate on my monitor on my Windows computer . It was set at 60Hz , I bump it up to 144 hz big help in war thunder

It took me a while to get 32gb's of 3600(b-die) c16 DDR4 to run right with my 5800x3d on an Asus X570-I. It's fine now but it took so many reboots.

Here is one for you Jay. I get random shudders audio and video, I'm pretty sure I tracked the problem down but I've been seeing it more and more in my friend group. Its not due to not having enough power for the app/game.

Very interesting. I have been trying to help people on the BG3 Steam forums after major updates to the game. Some of the most difficult issues have been the unexplained CtD or Bluescreens. Some people have found that RAM OC has been at least part of the issue, especially with AMD systems. Thanks.

really informative stuff Jay! was a pleasure watching this video

That was very well explained about memory.

one thing to point out not all ddr5 is at a base clock of 4800 now. it important to check you motherboard and what base clocks it works with.

on saturday i saw your reel about overclocking the RAM. I went into my bios and selected the xmp profile. My computer wouldnt boot so i unplugged it and plugged it back in again. It finally booted and i reverted the over clock. Now this video is out. COINCIDENCE?!?!?

Until the AGESA update I couldn’t set my G.Skill trident NEO higher than 5400mts on the 7800X3D. But since that update it’s been plain sailing. Set to 6000mts and running build Zoid’s Hynix A timings with a -30 under volt on the CPU with loadline calibration set to turbo and it’s so dam snappy and crisp on Win11

I am currently running the my system in 4x16 configuration. The sticks that I have are 6000 CL36 rated, however I am not able to run them at that speed due to 13900K memory controller limitation. What I did was enable XMP profile to load the timings in and then manually lowered the memory speed from 6000 to 5600. My system has not crashed once since I built it. It's been over 8 months now. Fun fact though, whenever I use 4 sticks of RAM the XMP Tweaked disappears from the Profile list.

Any chance to make a new bios guide , for all your recommended settings and best way to benchmark and stable tests for new pc setup ?

I memeber old DDR timings 😁 2-2-2-5 Needless to say i still have those OCZ modules lying somewhere. Memberberries strong with this one.

DOCP is only a Asus think? In MSI its called A-XMP.

I have an X370 system that started with an R5 1600. I tried all sorts of RAM and nothing wanted to overclock with stability on four sticks so for over a year it was stuck at 2133. I changed to a 2700X eventually and I managed to get a 2966 kit to overclock, but the 2666, the 3000, the 3200, and the 3600 didn't want to know. I have just dropped in a 5800X and the 3600 overclocked with no fuss at all. It really has come a long way.

Timely video, thank you Jayz!

The reason I checked the motherboards compability list, down to the specific memory module maker, doing this I haven't had any problem running both the 3700X and 5800X3D with 64Gb of 3600Mhz memory.

14:26 Can attest to second gen Ryzen being finicky. Built a system for my youngest a few years ago and used an R7 2700 and it refuses to run Corsair RAM at 3000 as tested. The highest stable speed is 2666.

Mine tends to just shut down hard (total power off) for the last 1-2 weeks. Temps are OK, cables seem fine. So I'm guessing the PSU (power spikes). Tomorrow comes my new one. Wish me luck.

totally get what you're saying Jay. I recently built an Intel system (specs: i5 13600KF, ASUS TUF Gaming B760M-Plus WiFi, TEAMGROUP T-Force Vulcan 32gb 6000mhz CL38) and I can't get the system to run stable higher than 5200mhz

I had so many blue screens and freezes on my 7900x3d with 6000mhz, 32gb Corsair ram! Drove me nuts! Went back and got 32gbs approved on the qvl and haven't had a problem since!

Hi @JayzTwoCents i wonder if you can try a cool experiment that has never been done on RU-vid: cooling a cpu with barium hydroxide + ammonium chloride endothermic reaction, it would be cool if you can try it in a closed system, using a small DC motor with some blades atached to mix the compositions, however i dont know if the reaction would work in a closed system (medium to tall aio block for example) or if it needs some kind of disipation. I think you are one of the few crazy and professional enough to try this experiment. (I have searched this experiment on Google also, without any results so its a very low chance this has been done before)

Knowing your love of ultrawide monitors, are you going to test Samsung 57 G9 neo or 55 ark gen 2?

i am having this issue with my r5 7600x blue screens and what not thank you for the video

Hi Jay. Maybe memory manufacturers should relabel their shipping boxes to say, "Potential speed of..."

Considering the factory BIOS in my motherboard didn't officially support my 7800X3D, I'm shocked I got away with running it for a day. I made sure to get a memory kit that was on the QVL. Much as something else could probably work, being able to set EXPO and go is nice. One thing I found surprising is how aggressive SoC voltage was in the EXPO profile of my 6000CL30 kit. My 7800X3D was set to 1.3V on SoC, which I understand to be pretty high. I was able to adjust it to 1.25V without any obvious repercussions yet. I only setup the system a few days ago, so I've got more testing and tweaking to do. I also need to spend some time with the curve optimizer. My 7800X3D is boosted to 5025MHz currently, so I'm curious what a negative offset on the curve optimizer will do for temps and boosting behaviour.

what a coincidence that you use corsair ram as an example while buildzoid ranting about their site specifications not showing the timings 😂😂😂

Xmp profiles hand tuned in a lab with equipment to determine the difference showing all the parts caps regulators work higher percentage at these settings via manufacturer Xmp setting explained

The main way to ensure it works.. before buying the memory, make absolutely sure of three things.. the exact memory is listed as compatible by the motherboard manufacturer, the reviews show stability for the memory and finally not only the speed (ak 6000mhz) but clock timings are rated best for the cpu. ie, cl36, 6000mhz memory is going to be very questionable of stability with a 7800x3d where a cl32 would work great with it. thus also why it seems spuratic as to stability... it has to do with the memory and motherboard as much as the memory and cpu.

I just upgraded my PC from an i7 6700K DDR4 (3200 MT/s) build to i7 13700K, Aorus Z790 Elite, 4x16 GB DDR5 G.Skill Trident ram and 4070 Ti Strix. I booted first time, set XMP to the max 6000 MT/s, and its been running great. I'm still kinda new to PC stuff so I didn't know how tricky this could be and how lucky I got.

So is 6400MT/s CL32 (absolute latency being 10 nanoseconds) faster than 7200MT/s CL38 (absolute latency being 10.55 nanoseconds)? If so, why would someone go with the 7200MT/s CL38 over the 6400MT/s CL32?

Great video! Would be nice nice if possible a fan curve video information,for some reason my fans keeps going up and down even on idle and I don’t know why. Thanks

It took my 5 hours to build and fix all the problems of my new pc built yesterday,first my windows media usb wouldn’t work but it would show up in boot sequence in bios then my m.2 wasn’t being recognized,then my fans and aio weren’t spinning then I had to find the wifi drivers since wasn’t installed,then my fan lights weren’t working,then my fans weren’t showing up in Corsair software to then my pc crashed when I enabled xmp so had to clear bios. After all that it’s so beautiful I love my new pc but holy shit it was so frustrating

Yep bought two sticks of corsair ddr4 3200. 9 months later bought another kit of the same ram. They would not work together. Kept getting crashes. Both kits work fine. Just not together. Learnt this the hard way.

7800X3D owners will know this life. The memory controller in it sucks, so even if you have tried and trued RAM that worked with other AM5 CPUs doesn't mean it'll run full speed.

Great video!

I had an occasional sound crackle in some games related to the default XMP and RAM instability (AMD X570). Had to lower the frequency manually from 3600 to 3200 and the issue went away completely. Cost me some gray hairs while I figured what exactly was wrong, as I used this setup for a few years, before Starfield (and Cyberpunk 2077 occasionally) revealed this problem to me.

My Msi X470 board has it listed as XMP. And to get XMP to work on my system, I had to increase the RAM voltage to 1.3v. Then I ran Memtest64 to confirm stability.

@12:25 that is no true. The CMOS chip needs power to retain memory, but it also has a reset pin.

I run a 7950x3d 64gigs RAM @6600mhz with very fast custom timings. It’s a Hynix A die Kit team group. Had several ram kits with same specs not work very well. I’ve run other kits of Ram that weren’t stable above 6000mhz. On one 7950x3d infinity fabric clocks to 2033, the other 2200mhz… However, the one with better MC has much worse cores… it’s weird all around.

When you pay for something, you want to use it as it was supposed to be used and profit, have fun, not just for an hour, or a week or even a year, it's like buying top end builds every year... The ram clock on the box and the limit of your cpu should always match but some models are made for Zx90 so don't use it when it's written.

Sometimes it can be the motherboard. Replaced an ASRock board with an MSI MAG Tomahawk one and now my RAM runs at the proper speed of 6400MHz all day every day. I couldn't get it over 5200MHz on the ASRock except on the BIOS version it shipped with, which was much older.

@jayztwocents What fans are those being used in that case sitting next to you? The ones w/ the single ring of RGB lighting.

In my system i have 2 very similar but off on timing sets of 16 gb of ram with xmp enabled and it has been running fine

Hey Jay, any chance we could get a new guide to Overclocking? Like basics from scratch? I know you've been over it, but that was with a 1080ti

Why are there so many weird issues nowadays? Buddy of mine had games not launch or crash within 20 seconds on his Intel 13900. Intel said the cpu is fine, Asus said the board is fine. After turning off every default applied oc settings and turning of hyper threading, it worked. He then moved on to a 14900, same thing. Sometimes even streaming in discord will freeze his pc. Even with all the applied fixes from the 13900.

Just had this happen with a clients computer R7 5800X on an MSI MPG mobo, running 64Gb DDR4 Fury RAM. Blue screen issues and found that XMP was the problem. Set it to stock settings and blue screens resolved and the system stabilized

I feel very fortunate. No crashes or freezes for 3 years. 5800x and 3090.

I have a laptop with DDR4 3200 MTS SO-DIMMs that have these speeds set in JEDEC timings so XMP isn't the only way to get higher speeds, just as well as the laptop doesn't support XMP.