XMP Troubleshooting - How to Fix Black Screens, Blue Screens and Random Crashing After Enabling XMP

So you just enabled your RAM's XMP hoping to squeeze a little extra extra performance out of your PC but after rebooting you see nothing but a black screen. Or maybe your computer booted up just fine afterward but whenever you're playing a game or running certain applications your computer crashes out to the desktop or your greeted by the dreaded blue screen of death!? Some of you watching this video very well may have learned what XMP is and how to enable it by watching my video about it so if you're experiencing problems after enabling XMP I'm back to help you fix them. I know these problems can be concerning, especially the black screen thing, but don't worry getting your system working properly again is pretty simple. In this video I explain why these problems sometimes occur after enabling XMP (or DOCP if you have an Asus motherboard and an AMD Ryzen CPU) and what to do to fix it. Including how to get your PC working again if you have nothing but a black screen going on. That, by the way, requires clearing your motherboards CMOS. :)

If you need some help removing and then reinstalling your graphics card to get to your clear CMOS pins or CMOS battery here's the link to my graphics card upgrading video that will help you with that.

Show your love and appreciation for the channel and take your support to the next level by checking out my Amazon store where you can purchase items I feature in my videos -

Wanna skip to a particular part of the video? Use the Time Stamps. :)

Time Stamps
0:00 – your PC may not support your RAM's XMP
0:12 – XMP stability symptoms
0:38 – your XMP is too fast for your Memory Controller
1:36 – what to do to fix it
2:13 – if you've got a black screen, don't worry
2:48 – how to clear your motherboards CMOS
4:12 – how to get at least some of our RAM's performance back
5:56 – I am NOT a RAM overclocking expert

Music in this video - "Apolllo" by Patrick Patrikios from the YouTube Creator Studio Music Library

#XMP, #RAM, #Overclocking, #PCMR,

[Maraksot]

Wanna skip to a particular part of the video? Use the Time Stamps. :)

Time Stamps
0:00 – your PC may not support your RAM's XMP
0:12 – XMP stability symptoms
0:38 – your XMP is too fast for your Memory Controller
1:36 – what to do to fix it
2:13 – if you've got a black screen, don't worry
2:48 – how to clear your motherboards CMOS
4:12 – how to get at least some of our RAM's performance back
5:56 – I am NOT a RAM overclocking expert

[ghostinthenight]

Wish I'd found this guy sooner, perfectly described what i went through with the black screen, panicking, then discovering the cmos reset

[nicolasalcantara]

You are a lifesaver. I've been using my 3200mhz ram at 2133 for two years, and you fixed the problem for me. Great video. Short and on point.

[dreamharmonics]

My games were freezing and couldn't do anything about it after I upgraded my Rams, I reinstalled the windows, updated the drivers, did some settings, and bought new Rams even.. put thermal paste on my GPU and still didn't fix the freezing. I looked at many videos till I got you and I entered the Bios and Lowered my XMP from 3200 to 3000 and now no more freezing, happy days! Just wanna say a big thank you for your well-done work.

[IAmSwatchingYou]

Bro thank you so much for making this. been running at base 2133mhz for 2 YEARS now because XMP kept crashing and most of the other ram overclocking guides were wayy too complicated. breaking it down like this for beginners was a huge lifesaver. Was going to go upgrade my ram to 32gb just cause rust was borderline unplayable with stuttering right as i or the enemy run into each other and shoot. now will test and hopefully not have to spend for no real reason besides that. Thanks again!

[americasace]

I didn't realize that this was even a thing until I stumbled on your video. All I know is that when I had xmp enabled my games would crash and memtest86 showed a bunch of errors. That was fixed by disabling xmp. Only NOW do I know that I can step down my xmp profile thanks to your video. Thumbs up and subscribed! btw, I went down from 6400 MT/s to 6200 and now everything works fine.

[riffcrypt]

Awesome video! I recently got a nice prebuilt and noticed the memory speed running at 2666, and wanted to enable xmp to take advantage of the full 3200. Was reconsidering after looking into how it could potentially make the system less stable, but now I have enough info to be confident in tinkering that I can undo any mistakes if they happen. We'll see how it goes! Thanks!

[JosephWheels]

Thanks solution worked for me, I had the black screen after installing 64GB of ram . When I lowered the speed from 3200MHz to 3166MHz the system booted up without issue. Wish I knew more about computers - feel like I'm in the dark most of the time. You are a great instructor.

[Koeras]

It is not always the memory controller who is lacking, could also be the motherboard. Some boards might also need some help to get some clocks running, like fiddling with voltages yourself, enabling Gear down mode or 2T. Fiddling with SOC voltage and or dram voltage might also help. Same goes with ProcODT, RttNom, RttWr, RttPark and the four DrvStr settings. Loosening some timings does might help too.

Checking if your motherboard does support the specific RAM sticks you bought might also be a good idea.

[qtube]

good video. you should have mentioned that a bios update might help as well. A lot of ASUS MBs have problem with XMP (both DDR4 and DDR5 - talking Alder Lake here) But even for older generations; look to make sure you have the most recent bios flashed. Also, if it is working at some level now; make sure you save the bios settings or take pictures so you can at least get back to what you had before you start updating bios and trying xmp and xmp 2 .

good video though. thanks.

[JamaicanMeBritish]

OMG!!! THANK YOU!! The past 2 days I been getting crashes, and once I found out it wasn't just one game but a couple of games doing it, I narrowed it down to RAM and GPU issues. Then after I remembered I had to reset my BIOS back to default over something that turned out to be dumb 2 days ago, I searched YouTube and found your video. There was one little setting I forgot to change back in BIOS after the reset. Gave this video a thumbs up and subbed!!

[maryeng]

I upgraded my mobo/cpu/ram/cooler (r5 3600x to r7 7700x / ddr4 to ddr5)and was getting non stop crashes with games/having multiple apps open. So I sent it to for repair as I gave up and had no idea what to do anymore. I got it back and they told me everything should run fine but after getting home and $140 down later I started up my pc and I still had the same problem! Not wanting to waste my time there anymore I tried once again to figure it out on my own and I was blessed and came across your video!! Turns out under clocking my ram was the fix. I can’t thank you enough for making this video. Liked and subscribed thank you so much!!!

[matetoth]

The minimum that I can give you is a like for the help that you gave me. I don't wish that fear for my worst enemy what I have felt when I got the black screen. I have popped the battery out and back just how you told to and after that my old PSU cabel decided to give up and give me a few more heart attacks by turning off my PC several times. I switched my cable asap and my pc works just like it did before. Thank you so much! You saved me really!

[FlashFlicks]

Sir u save my life i just change my board my rams my supply everything but when my friend suggest this video and now i fixed my solution sir thanks alot

[pablorodriguez]

Thank you very much!!! :) It did work for me for a MSI B550-A Pro and Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200 setup. When I turned the default XMP on for DDR4-3200, I was getting random crashes while gaming. I even updated the bios as a last resort, but it kept crashing. So I switched to the next lower available speed listed, 3133 in my case, and it worked like a charm. :) Thanks again and keep the nice videos coming

[bensoontm]

Hey there,

I just wanted to say thank you for this quick tutorial. A friend of mine recommended me to just turn on XMP but little I knew what I issues this would cause over the next weeks.

Long story short my CPU only supports a maximum of 3200 speed but the ram goes to 4000. It caused games like Dead By Daylight and Fortnite to consistantly crash, not even the support could help (20 emails back and forth until they ran out of ideas and dipped me)

30 Minutes ago I tried to repair windows files, it crashed 3 times until the system didnt even boot up anymore.

I followed your video, removed the battery on the mainboard and it magically boots up again. I checked the ram speed and it was back to 2133 which I set to 3200.

THank you so much for this video. If I only knew this video existed earlier but now I know!

CHECK YOUR COMPABILITIES GUYS!

[rayanaitlamara]

Thank you so much i wish i had someone like in my life that's why im subscribing even from my fridge😂

[xXDrocenXx]

You helped me a lot after now half a day of troubleshooting. Thanks.

[CobraSmokehouse]

I had the game crashing issues after I had to do the CMOS reset to fix some other issue that was preventing my PC from booting. All I had to do was turn on XMP again like you showed, I also turned the frequency down one level like you suggested and so far I'm 2hours gaming with no issues! Thank you a ton for your video, still helping folks 2 years later!

[oZempy]

Thanks for this video bro it means the world. I have been dealing with the exact problems that you explained in the video for over a year now, and I fixed it thanks to you ❤