Bad memory I think, help please.

[Armadillo]

My friends pc recently starting to play up getting bsod. As nothing had changed and it was completely random I thought I'd check the memory hadn't gone bad.

Anyway, it would seem both a stick and a slot has gone bad With two sticks in (it's 2x2GB), memtest instantly fails with a stream of red errors .

After checking both sticks one of them appears to bad. With that stick in, the red errors are there, with that stick removed, there is no problem. How ever if I take the good stick and put it into slot 4 the pc refuses to boot The sticks were originally in slots 3&4, the bad stick was the one in slot 4 and the pc refuses to boot with the good stick in slot 4 .

So with the good stick alone in slots 1-3, pc boots and is fine. Good stick in slot 4, no boot, good stick and bad stick in any config, boots but bsod and errors on memtest .

So has the slot died and damaged the stick that was on there? or did the ram die and damage the slot? or is there something else I could be missing before he rma's it? Seems really unlucky for the slot and stick to die

Ram was corsair value ddr3 in an asus P7P55 with an i5 760

 

[Admiral Huddy]

Good testing.. You would certainly be unlucky if it were both. The only time I've come across this is when the system had received a nasty spike.. Have you tried reseting the CMOS?

It could be a faulty memory controller which in integrated on the CPU for i5 processors. I would certainly try the suspected RAM in another known working machine just to be sure the RAM is indeed faulty or not

 

[Armadillo]

Not tried resetting the CMOS on it, wouldn't have thought that would have made a difference, but I'll give it a go when I take a look at it next.

I would have thought a faulty memory controller, would give problems with both sticks. Although now I think about it, I did forget to test just the suspect stick alone. I suppose the controller could be having problems when loaded up with two sticks, although what about slot 4 not working with the stick that works in 1-3. Could the controller have problems accessing just a single slot?

Think I'll check the suspected bad stick alone, see what it does. I'm guessing if the stick works alone, and it's only when they are together there are errors, then the memory controller is not playing nice with two sticks?

Thanks.

 

[Admiral Huddy]

Could the controller have problems accessing just a single slot?

Absolutely, I have a PC brought to me where memory only worked in one slot. Changed the CPU and all worked fine.

If the memory controller has become faulty, then it could throw all sorts of random problems.

 

[Armadillo]

Had a look at it again today. Reset the CMOS, and problem persists.

I tried the suspect stick alone today, and even by itself, it throws up a constant stream of red errors in memtest .

Also that board has a mem ok button and light by the slots. If there's an incompatibility, the light goes red, then you are supposed to hold the button until it it flashes and it should reset and configure for successful boot. When slot 4 is occupied alone, the light is solid red and never starts to flash no matter how long you hold the button.

So it's pretty much as it was before. Good stick in 1-3, fine. Good stick and bad stick, errors, bad stick alone, errors, slot 4 with good stick, no boot .

I don't have access to another 1156 cpu, so I'm going to have to assume that's fine. As I would have thought if it was that and the sticks were fine, then it would be fine with either stick alone, but the suspect stick still errors by itself . 4th slot I can't really do anything about either, as I don't have another 1156 cpu, so couldn't even test that with a different cpu. So I suppose I'm going to have to assume dead ram and dead slot.

So I suppose it's rma time for the sticks (as I'm quite sure one is faulty), and rma for the board and if it comes back with no fault on that slot, then it'll have to be the cpu?

Thanks.