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Asus Z170-A motherboard incompatibility?
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Asus Z87 Hero VI owner here. Had simliar problems, here's what fixed it on Win10:
I've also tried the Inateck 4-port USB card, which will NOT work with the drivers from Inateck, ONLY with the default windows driver! (just ignore the warnings at Oculus Home...) The power saving issue stays the same with this card since it seems to be a generic windows problem (?).
Performance seems to be better with the Z87 ports so I uninstalled the Inateck Card (default windows driver seems to have no UASP support, Inateck driver cause even more issues).
Problem remains, just seems to appear not that often...
I got the rift to play Assetto Corsa (race sim) so that is my basis of testing.
i have recently discovered like yourself that I was running Bios 2208 with XMP enabled. Then a new bios update came out 3008? And my System will not boot with XMP enabled so disabling XMP was my only option. My rift during that time was working flawlessly and thought oculus or windows had updated and fixed my issue. A new bios revision came out and I updated last week.
this fixed my XMP profile again but now my rift is unplayable!!!
i will test the XMP theory and report back. Finally someone that has my issue!
CPU i7 6700K @ 4.6ghz
Motherboard Asus Z170-AR Bios 3301
Ram G-Skill 3000mhz DDR4
Win 10.
Now I've posted numerous times about my Rift skipping, loosing track, sound loss, ect and nothing helped with many attempts to fix it.
So as my above post, I have done the following with testing in Assetto Corsa.
Ram = 3000mhz
XMP profile enabled
Assetto and Oculus Home instability (unplayable)
Ram = 3000mhz
XMP profile disabled
Assetto and Oculus Home instability (unplayable)
Ram = 2144mhz (RAM underclocked from default)
XMP profile disabled
Assetto and Oculus Home = flawless.
Re-enabled RAM to default 3000mhz (everything else set to Auto)
XMP disabled
Oculus and Assetto unstable.
There is an issue between my Motherboard, RAM and USB.
Can someone from Oculus investigate this issue with Asus?? I don't want to have to upgrade my motherboard to fix this and that's more money down the drain..
my VR build:
6700k i7 @ 4.6ghz
Asus z170-a
Gskill Ripjaws 3200mhz DDR4
Gtx 980 ti
My overclock is rock solid, haven't had any problems in months until I had to sort out the tracking issues.
My USB 3.0 can handle the sensors perfectly only when my ddr4 runs under 2400mhz. sometimes, the sensors setup will indicate a tracking issue when I run the ram at 3200mhz but most of the time i'll lose tracking or will have small twitches without any notification from the app.
I updated the bios and mobo drivers prior to the installation so this shouldn't be the issue.
i'd rather spend my money on a 3rd sensor than a USB card add on to be honest, but it seems I kinda have no choice. that CAD 820$ price point was a bit steep considering every thing that can go wrong with the rift at the moment. I hope this issue gets resolved as it seems to have been around for quite a while without any acknowledgement from Oculus...
With the z170 I had no issues with any other applications/games running with the CPU and memory overclocked - but the Oculus tracking was terrible if the memory ran at anything above 2133Mhz.
Transplanting everything into a z270 motherboard works fine and I can crank up the CPU and memory speeds while the tracking remains solid.
I had this motherboard:
https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/Z170-AR/
This is the one I've switched to:
https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/TUF-Z270-MARK-2/
With all the other components the same (CPU, memory, Startech USB card, hard drive) in the new z270 all is well with my memory running up to its rated 3000Mhz. With the z170 it would malfunction if I raised it above 2133Mhz.
So for me, it appears that it is an issue with the z170 motherboard when it runs at anything but stock memory speed and not the other components/drivers/etc.
Here are the specifics for the system:
CPU: i7-7700K
Memory: Corsair - Dominator Platinum 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 CMD16GX4M2B3000C15
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FTW, 08G-P4-6286-KR
USB: Startech PCIe Quad USB 3.0 PEXUSB3S44V
Hard Drive: Intel 600P PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe M.2 SSD
I also have the Asus Z170 A motherboard and had endless errors with poor tracking quality and so on.
Bought the inateck card which didnt help at all
So what fixed it was actually setting the frequency of the RAM to 2133 mhz in my BIOS settings.
Now it works super good
thank you for all the advices here!
I've got the ASUS z170-a overclock problem aswell - slow traction, sensors not tracking, devices not recognized and disconnecting, also this won't let the first time setup to finish. My RAM settings have to be in its default values for vr to work. I can overclock the cpu without touching the XMP. I will try changing the memory values manually later.
UPDATE!: IF YOU HAVE XMP ENABLED IN YOUR ASUS Z170-A BIOS THEN THIS IS THE SOLUTION WITH NO SACRIFICES TO YOUR CLOCK SPEEDS.
So it turns out that by default XMP overvolts ram and some settings need to be readjusted in the bios.
I got it working with the XMP enabled - I set DRAM voltage as low as I could without the pc crashing, I went down in 0.01 volt iterations until it didn't boot then stayed at last working iteration and started benchmarking in windows, if it crashed during loading windows or in the benchmarking application then I added 0.01 volts to DRAM and repeated it until I got it stable.(benchmarked with aida64 for 30min), then I set VCCIO and VCCSA both to 1.15volts(they are located below dram voltage in bios). Now I have perfect traction, a nice overclock and all the sensors light up as green in oculus application under devices. I have the latest 3802 bios version. Go to https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Z170-A/HelpDesk_Download/ to download the latest update if you don't have it on your z170a and are experiencing the same problem. NO usb hubs etc needed, everything runs from the z170-a motherboard and IT WORKS FINE WITH OC AND XMP ENABLED!(My ram is at 3200mhz with xmp)
In steps:
1. Leave XMP enabled, make sure you have a stable clock on the cpu. (I used adaptive mode for cpu vcore )
2. Set your DRAM to as low as you can.
3. Set BOTH VCCIO and VCCSA to 1.15 volts (you can experiment between 1.10 - 1.25 volts when running into problems, start from the lowest )
4. Hopefully PROFIT!