I upgraded my system from a 2x8GB Kingston Fury Beast DDR5-5600 CL40 kit to a 2x16GB Kingston Fury Beast DDR5-5600 CL36 kit. The hardware includes a Ryzen 5 9600X, MSI B850 Gaming Plus WiFi motherboard, and GeForce RTX 5070 Ti. The system is stable with the memory running at its default settings, but enabling EXPO Profile 1 at 5600 MT/s causes occasional restarts—sometimes within 10 minutes and sometimes after 30 minutes. Forza Horizon 6 also crashed for the first time after installing the new kit. What should I adjust to run the memory at its advertised speed reliably?
3 Answers
First, make sure the motherboard BIOS is fully up to date. Newer BIOS versions often improve DDR5 memory training and compatibility, especially with newer Ryzen processors and higher-density DIMMs. After updating, load the optimized defaults, enable EXPO again, and retest stability.
Different capacities and memory ranks can place different demands on the CPU’s memory controller, so the fact that the old kit worked at 5600 does not guarantee the new kit will do the same. Check that the modules are installed in the recommended paired slots, clear the old memory settings after the BIOS update, and retest with EXPO enabled. If lowering the speed makes the crashes disappear, that points to an EXPO stability limit rather than a Windows or game problem.
Since the new 2x16GB kit is stable at default settings but not with EXPO, the issue is probably memory instability rather than a faulty graphics card. EXPO is technically an overclock, even when the kit is rated for that speed. Test the RAM with a dedicated memory tester and a long gaming session. If errors or crashes remain, try a slightly lower speed such as 5200 MT/s, or manually reduce the memory frequency while keeping the timings and voltage within Kingston’s specifications. Also confirm that you are using only the new 32GB kit, not both kits together.
I found a newer June BIOS release than the March version I was using and installed it. I’ll test the system again to see whether the restarts continue.