Corsair DDR4 failure

[Dave Burton]

Woke up this morning to a PC that would not boot. Narrowed it down to one stick of RAM doing odd things (not always showing in BIOS, causing PC to power up/down etc). It was 100% ok last night!

This was purchased as part of a 32Gb kit (4x8GB) but does anyone who's had had a similar failure know if they're likely to replce only the defective module or will all 4 need to be replaced? I already have an advanced RMA with Corsair for a failed AIO (~$200) I'm reluctant to shell out yet more £££ for this failure

Cheers,

DB

 

[Dave Burton]

best bet is to reach out to the supplier / corsiar and ask.

Yeah, I have done, was just trying to see if anyone else had been through similar and how it went. PC is useable with 16/24Gb, but as I'm working from home and need the PC it's hard to arrange downtime, hence advanced replacements and then refunds

 

[Dave Burton]

Not a DDR4 set, but a 32GB DDR3 set (4x 8GB DDR3).

Got in touch with Corsair around a year ago (as it was over 6 years since I purchased it, so any store liability and warranty was well over and now solely in Corsairs turf). They needed the whole set sent back to them in my case before the RMA could be done for replacement. In my case as I had two sets of those 32GB sets (as 64GB matched set was not yet available then), I was OK. But in your case, you could see if Corsair offer that Advanced RMA they do on their PSU's. Where you put up front a cost for the replacement direct and once the faulty RAM gets back the charge is cancelled (or something like that).

Yeah, I've done that recently with a defective AIO, guess I'll have to ask if they'll do it again as I need the machine pretty much 24/7 At least I'll get the money back, eventually

 

[Dave Burton]

It's very likely they will want to have the whole set, unfortunately. Like Meddling-Monk says, you could ask if they'll do an advanced RMA, but the most expedient solution is probably just buy a new 2x16 set and sell the RMA once complete.

On the back of this, I'm probably going to do just this: buy a new set then keep the replacements as a spare set (or use it in my son's machine) but the question I have is would there be any noticable benfit moving from the 2666 to the 3200+ speed ranges? I'm running a 9700K and the spec sheet states 2666 is preferred so would I gain anything by going for faster RAM?

 

[Dave Burton]

As far as I know, you won't get any benefit from that unless you have a Z370 or Z390 motherboard. It wouldn't be a bad idea though, even if you don't have one of these motherboards, because if you upgrade (e.g. to Ryzen) you can take it with you and it'd likely be easier to sell.

Yeah, I'm using an MSI Z390 board, and I had also given thought to future upgrade (AMD) options, might be something to consider.

When I had one bad stick of corsair ram (I had two kits) they asked me to also send the second kit and replaced all of the memory in the system, not just the single stick. Good service and turnaround was quick but being without a system is a bit of a pain.

I'm working from home, downtime is not an option so I'll likely do the Advanced RMA as stated, bit of a pain cos of the delays in getting a refund though I know it'll happen eventually.

 

[Dave Burton]

Yep bit of a nightmare that. If they will allow advance rma jump all over it.

Oh God yes, if they offer I'll have to do it as like I say down time is not an option. On the subject, I've spent a bit of time watching various reviewers testing the differing RAM speeds, seems you get around a 3% performance gain going from 2666 to 3200 Mhz RAM, at the cost of roughly 24% more, I think I'm good with 2666 (only really play WoW and D3, with a bit of RE:2 in the mix so not taxing to my setup)

 

[Dave Burton]

Ive been buying 16gb rgb memory @3200mhz (2x8gb) for £35 - All of it has been Nanya A-Die and all of it has worked at 3200mhz on dirt cheap boards alongside 2700x. If you can get the 3200mhz for cheap then do it! Otherwise it isn't worth it.

Crikey, PM me the details, I'd have 64Gb for that price!!!!

 

[Dave Burton]

There aren't really any details to PM. I have a friend who lives in China and he sends me stuff quite often (recently I used him for my wifes build and got a full bykski watercooling kit for £75 and the memory for my wifes machine at £35) this is great but there is 0 warranty and it takes about 4 to 8 weeks to get to me, also the brand never heard of em. I did do a little once over of them in the build thread and to be honest they have been brilliant and even overclock beyond 3200 or can run at tighter timings, literally plug and play at xmp. You can buy the same memory on sites that import from China for less than 60 odd but if you can get a cheap kit then that is what I would do. Sorry cant really say much more than that really.

This is the stuff I got and is also now in at least 4 or 5 friends machines:



And this is what I did to it

*snip*

The wife wanted white and purple so white and purple is what she got.

Haha, i saw those images in your other thread, nice colour scheme. Quick google-Fu shows that cheapy RAM at £60ish, your friend did you a solid there I reckon Think I'll stick to a known brand, warranty > cost

 

[Dave Burton]

Just out of interest, which position in the motherboard was the RAM?

I honestly can't remember now, but putting it into any of the 4 slots causes either no boot with DRAM/CPU fault leds flickering, power on/off cycles or booting but not being seen in the BIOS, totally weird!!!!

I've now picked up 32Gb of HyperX 3200 for £125 as a replacement, will keep these as spares when they get replaced (Or might swap them back in and use the 3200 for a future Ryzen build)