Broke my RAM. Need help replacing.

melvyn · 8 Oct 2017 at 12:09

Hi. Tried to take the heatsinks off my RAM. Pulled two of the black square chips off one of the sticks (assuming that's totally knackered, right?). Need to get back up and running to maximum possible RAM ASAP.

- Board is Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H.
- Intel Core i7-3770K.
- Current RAM is 32GB Patriot Viper 3.
- Two of the sticks are untouched and totally fine.
- Got the heatsink off one stick, but to be honest I feel weird about it all now and wouldn't mind replacing that one too.

PC only used for graphics work, just need to get back to max RAM ASAP. Please advise! Ha, thanks!

melvyn · 8 Oct 2017 at 12:17

I want no silly heatsinks. Whole reason this has happened is because of trying to fit them under a big Noctua cooler. Is this appropriate? https://www.overclockers.co.uk/team...annel-kit-tpkd316g1600hc11dc01-my-034-tg.html

Will I have to buy 4 sticks, right? I can't just buy two and use two of my current sticks?

Doogles · 12 Oct 2017 at 11:31

Yeah you can buy 2 sticks and use the other 2 together, just make sure you run them at the lowest frequency that one set runs at and the highest timings that the other runs to be 100% stable. Depending on what you use the system for 16GB would be more than enough for most people.

I run Corsair Vengeance (1600mhz CL9) and Hyper X (CL10 1866mhz) with different timings/frequency ratings but just overvolted them to run at the settings I wanted although they were fine with 1600mhz CL 10 with stock voltages.

Hagar · 12 Oct 2017 at 11:59

Did you use the hairdryer method?

I have done plenty of DDR3 particularly the vengeance with this.

eddiew · 12 Oct 2017 at 14:50

Given how expensive ram is these days, I'd call that an excuse for a system upgrade

southernorth · 12 Oct 2017 at 15:47

For DDR3 I'd be going to ebay, not looking for new.

melvyn · 19 Oct 2017 at 10:20

Hi thanks for the replies.

I did try heating the RAM, guess I didn't do it right.

I had to just buy some ASAP as I needed it for work so I ended up just buying a new set new

Expensive mistake!

P4Clock · 19 Oct 2017 at 10:23

What do you use the system for. Why must you have 32gb of ram

With the age/spec of your system I cant see 32gb over 16gb making a massive difference

melvyn · 19 Oct 2017 at 11:58

After Effects. It's not an ideal system and I do need a new one I just haven't got time at the moment.

P4Clock · 19 Oct 2017 at 12:09

Yes it is a cpu and ram heavy program but my point is with the cpu been what it is I think 16gb of ram will be fine. If you put the one good stick back in 24gb would be super.

It would drop out of dual channel with only 3 stick but is no massive loss run a few tests.

melvyn · 19 Oct 2017 at 12:13

Okay cool. Well I've already got the new set so I'm back up to 32GB anyway now.

DarkBahamut · 24 Oct 2017 at 20:16

Honestly, I disagree with the 16GB statement. CPU power is not directly lately to RAM required, you can have large projects that will be much faster with lots of ram even on older systems. Even with my 2700k and 16GB I've seen ram usage at 100% more than a few times which is a complete bottleneck. if I had to buy new ram for this system due to some sort of failure then I'd absolutely go 32GB without a second thought.

melvyn · 25 Oct 2017 at 09:18

Yeah, me too. Some AE projects will use up sooooo much RAM.

JasonM · 5 Nov 2017 at 19:40

DarkBahamut said:
Honestly, I disagree with the 16GB statement. CPU power is not directly lately to RAM required, you can have large projects that will be much faster with lots of ram even on older systems.

That's quite interesting what you have written above.

For many years I've not been upgrading on CPU performance, but upgrading on memory the motherboard will support. Don't get me wrong I always use i7's, but it's needing more memory (and not a faster CPU) that's been the upgrade trigger. I'm running 32GB, but my next computer will have 64GB out of the box. And I can use this amount of memory as I once had a 96GB of page file in use (on top of 32gb ram), I've actually killed off an SSD due to excessive page file use before.