Memory timings

I have an ASUS P8H67-M-Pro motherboard, I got this board as I wanted to run the 2600k's on-chip video and save the expense of an add-on card.

It's been running Sonar and all my audio apps. really well, I get really low-latency with a Roland Quad Capture and I've yet to run a project that has taken the processor meter above 15%.  In all it's the best system I've had for a long time.

One drawback though.  Once a week or so, since I've had it the screen just garbles and the system dies on it's feet and it just displays this flickering screen garbage, a forced reboot always puts it back on it's feet.

It's been a difficult little bugette to troubleshoot because of how infrequently it happens and there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to why it happens, most of the time it has happened when the system is idle.

I've check the PSU for power output vs current draw, reseated the memory and done exaustive tests on it, updated to all the latest drivers including the BIOS, (users of the same board please note Asus have recently updated the Bios to v1104) and gone through all the likely suspects to no avail, I'd also pretty much ruled out driver or OS issues as I run a dual boot and it was just as likely to happen under XP as it was W7 64.

I'm using a single Corsair DDR3 4mb module and it is set to run in the BIOS at the Intel recommended max speed of 1333 (666 MHz) for this board. 

The thing is this particular module is capable of running at 800MHz and with all the BIOS memory timings set to Auto I guess it is quizzing the module and setting all the timings as if it was running at full speed and at 1.65v rather than at the recommended 1.5v.

So having armed my self with all the correct timings for the module for it to run at 1333(666MHz) I set about entering the correct tamer values into the BIOS rather than relying on the BIOS's automatic settings.

I haven't had the screen garble issue since, the system overall seems to be running even better.  Placebo effect maybe but I figured it was a good thing to point out to anyone else suffering from inexplicable machine weirdness.

Check the recommend memory timings match your actual installation. 

You don't mention checking for an over-heating CPU, which you probably have already...

Check, yes that should have been the first thing I mentioned being as the video is on chip...

It doesn't ever get above 40C (105F) though based on the Windows High Performance power plan even with all the core parking, speed step and power saving turned off (btw I don't actually run in this configuration, I use it just for testing purposes and have yet to see any benefit in doing so) 52 (127F)  is as high as it gets.

But yes these are the SPID timings that are being rated off a 800MHz (1600) capable chip when Intel rates the max memory speed on the H67 boards as 666MHz (1333).

The memory needs to be reigned-in here it's not to do with overclocking.

The way things are running now with no measurable drop in benchmark figures makes me pretty confident I've nailed it this time.

Pllfffzzzd....

 Timidi, I have the P8P67Pro board, and the same RAM as you, except mine is the low profile variety. In the "AI Tweaker" section of the BIOS, I set the RAM setting to XMP, which engaged the only profile available (#1), resulting in target settings of 1.5 volts for the CPU, and a target speed of 4.2 GHz; the RAM timing was automatically set to 9-9-9-24.

"Jonbouy"
But mostly unless there IS a specific issue you are trying to troubleshoot I'd suggest leaving well alone.

Not bad advice there Mr. Jonbouy, not bad at all... 

Thanks Jon