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The day I stopped trusting my gut on RAM timings
I've been building PCs for about 8 years now, always just picked whatever RAM speed the motherboard box advertised and called it done. Last month I threw a 5600G build together for a buddy in Portland and it kept crashing during gaming, no BSOD, just freezes. I spent three days swapping parts, reinstalling Windows, the whole nine yards, before I actually checked the memory QVL list on the board's website. Turns out the kit I used wasn't listed, and the XMP profile was pushing timings the CPU's memory controller just couldn't handle. Set it to a slower JEDEC profile with manual timings from the QVL and it's been rock solid for 2 weeks now. Anyone else have a similar moment where you realized the QVL list was actually worth reading, or do you still eyeball it?
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ericjackson1mo ago
Did you check the kit against the board vendor's list or the memory maker's list? Because those two can say different things and it drives me nuts. What you ran into is super common with the 5600G since its memory controller is pickier than people expect, especially when you push four sticks or higher speeds. My rule now is simple, boot with XMP on, then run something like TestMem5 or HCI MemTest for an hour before I call a build done. If it throws even one error, I drop to a JEDEC profile and set the primaries by hand from the QVL, just like you did. Freezes with no BSOD are almost always memory or Infinity Fabric related on these chips, so you were chasing the right thing even if it took a few days.
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