I have had this system for about two years now, everything worked fine until a few weeks ago when I started getting these C1 errors. According to my mobo manual, C1 means base memory.

After a few power-offs, my system starts fine, but it says it's in safe mode (mobo safe mode) - something along the lines "Please check your memory of CPU frequency - press F1 or del". Upon pressing F1, the system works just fine.

It's just hard to get it to start every day following this tedious process and I'm sure something's wrong but not sure where to go next for debugging this. I have tried switching my two RAM sticks around, but that doesn't seem to make any difference. The system starting in safe mode doesn't help with debugging, since I don't really know if my configuration works.

My system has pretty much vanilla settings, no OC-ing, so I don't get it why it would start in safe mode if it's talking about CPU or memory frequency.  (actually don't even know what memory frequency means, is it the timings?).


So, any ideas where to go next from here?

Thanks!

Well, my Ballistix memory has always been set to 2.2V. Timings were always auto. After I started getting the problems I changed timings from default (i think 5-5-5-18) to what my memory required 4-4-4-12 but that didn't help. I've reverted to auto timings since but still no luck.

I have made no changes in my system setup - no hardware changes, no bios changes. That's why I'm puzzled.

No, 2.2V is what the spec says for my Ballistix. I've noticed newer ones are 2.0V, but this one was 2.2V and 4-4-4-12.

Try one Memory stick at a time, to rule out a bad Memory stick.

Yes try Memtest, and see what you get. Let us know.

radum
No, 2.2V is what the spec says for my Ballistix.

 
2.2 is over-volting. They were not designed for that, regardless of what Ballistix says.

radum 
I've noticed newer ones are 2.0V, but this one was 2.2V and 4-4-4-12. 

That's because they had too many failures and returns at 2.2v. Other RAM sellers are doing the same.

Over-volting any component is a death sentence. Some take longer to die than others.

 

No point in RMA if they are working OK.
What I would do is set them to the less critical timing 5-5-5-18, with the safe voltage 2.0v and see if they still run OK. If not try 2.05v or at the very worst 2.1v
The difference in overall PC performance with the 'slower' timing is almost zero. You would need to run very careful tests to see any difference at all.   

Get a whole new set of Ram to test on that board. If it works, then it was the Ram. If not, it's the Motherboard. That is what I would do next.

Under "Member Home" --> "My Products", is the board listed there, and does it give you an RMA option?

radum

Ok, great news - it's not the MOBO (works perfectly with other memory). My Crucial Ballistix are gone, both of them...

Thanks guys for your help, I should've done this a long time ago.     

No problem! Glad to help out!

I still use this board every day and have put four sets of domators c5d 1066 over the past 2 years.the voltage has killed every set 2.2v was the xmp voltage. the new ver. is 2.1 volts and has lasted for about a year so much for the D9 macrons.