XMP and 1866MHz memory

Hi Chris,

 I just got Corsair Dominator GT 1866 memory. When I enable the XMP profile the BIOS will hang. I talked to Corsair and we got it working. They told me that when you enable the XMP profile it sets the QPI volts to 1.6 and that prevents it from loading. They said it needs to be 1.35 volts and within .5 volts of the DRIMM volts. Turning on the XMP profile and manually changing the QPI volts to +240 lets it boot. The system runs like a champ but this is assumming the stock volts are 1.1 which would give me 1.34 volts.

My question is what are the stock QPI volts on these boards. After the Corsair tech and I played with it we decided it must be 1.1 volts. I also know other boards are ether 1.1 or 1.2 stock volts on the QPI.

Could you please find out what the stock volts are for QPI and also if the Kingston XMP profile changes it and/or the IOH volts. My motherboard version is 2.0 and looks different from the 1.0 version. Does the 2.0 have any kind of changes to the volts from the 1.0 version?

Any info on the volts,memory settings for 1866 and genreal info on this motherboard would be greatly appreciated.

From engineering -
We have not qualified Corsair Dominator GT 1866MHz. If the memory modules is trying to set QPI voltage to 1.6v then this memory was not designed for our X58 Chipset to be supported by Core i7-900 series CPUs. So the end user purchased off the self memory which is not designed for our X58 Chipset or programmed its XMP profile to support both quad-core and hexa-core i7 CPUs. If the user contacted Corsair directly and he was instructed to modify the XMP settings manually, then Corsair is aware that the memory module isn’t programmed to support 1.35v max QPI recommended by Intel. The end user is just tweaking the BIOS settings to get the memory to work.  However, it might not be stable since the memory module was programmed at 1.6 v to support 1866MHz which is 1333 OC’d, so probably timings might also need to be modified in order to get a stable system.

What are the default QPI volts for this motherboard? Is it 1.1?

Yeah the first Corsair guy also said it was 1.1 but I just called Corsair again and was told the stock QPI volt is 1.15v...... He also said that my 1866 memory doesnt have the gulftown XMP profile ( all new sets do ) and so i must set the QPI. He also offered me a new set but I don't feel like waiting for it and I dont mind setting it myself.

I just ran 3Dmark and Unigine Heaven benchmarks and both passed. I'm not going to bother with memtest. It's been stable since I got it but If it crashes at all while im using it I will RMA it for a newer set.  One thing I know for sure is I won't be buying any Kingston stuff. They got me good a few years back so i won't deal with them anymore.

As you know, I was trying to find this information out last week.  I made a call to Alienware and was told by the tech that he checked and confirmed that the default QPI voltage for the board is 1.100.  Of course he could not provide me anything in writing and did not have a clue what I was talking about at first, but he did call back and said he found something that confirmed that the default IOH voltage is 1.10 (we know that, it's listed) and that the default QPI is 1.100.  Notice he gave me an extra zero there.  That made me feel a little better, like maybe he really did find this info somewhere.

Yeah, I dropped Kingston years and years ago.  I've been running Corsair for quite awhile now and have been pleased.  Their products are top notch.  I've been eyeing that AX1200 power supply for when I add another GTX 480.  I'll be hitting you up for advice on wiring that 10-pin...lol.  I think when Corsair told you the default QPI was 1.15, I think they are referring to what is coming out of their XMP profile.  From what I can gather, the QPI voltage is typically board dependent with most at either 1.10 or 1.20.  I wish we had a little more BIOS functionality to see what the current voltages were, etc.  Talk to you soon.

I just called Corsair. They are going to send me another set of 1866. This one was just made and should have the correct XMP profile for the gulftown CPU's. They are sending me a return lable and soon as I mail it then they will mail the new memory. If it doesnt work they said they will send me another set of the 1600 if I like or they will try another set of 1866. And keep in mind this 1866 works,works really well but the XMP is not updated for the new 6 cores so I had to change the QPI myself. At this point they will give me any memory I want. Aint that something? And paying both ways. 

I also told them about the Kingston 1866 Dell is using. They said since they get to test it with the system they know which will work. Corsair hasnt had that chance but they are sure they have memory that will be just as compatible as the kingston. Once I figure out which Corsair 1866 works right out of the box with this sytem i will post the part number so you can avoid the kingston like me. It may be a week or two but i'll post  and update my sig with it. I think this one is going the be the 7-8-7-20 timmings but dont hold me to that. if you look at the Corsair site none of that GT memory you see is still being sold. They updated all of it because of the new Airflow pro.

And we still don't know the default QPI volts for our motherboards

They are being mum about this. Not sure why. I cannot believe there isn't some software that couldn't tell you?

They are being mum about this. Not sure why. I cannot believe there isn't some software that couldn't tell you?

I thought the same but it seems like nothing works for showing it. I even tried EVGA E-LEET which does just that but the memory volts are blank. Guess the board doesnt put that info out? If you can find something that can show it that would be awesome.

 Just tried Speedfan but it doesnt list anything named QPi.

Got it with Everest 5.50

Default QPI: 1.140v

Chris, Morblore:

I have the 6Gb triple channel 1866Mhz memory in my ALX. When I run CPU-Z, it says I have PC3-10700 installed. Shouldn't it be PC3-15000?? In the BIOS, the details for each stick it says Max - DDR3-939 (1878Mhz). But in the previous screen it says 1333Mhz. Huh? Can you help me understand all this? I'm using BIOS A11, and CPU-Z 1.58 (latest)