Dead RAM slots?

Cyanide · 4 Sep 2015 at 21:48

Hi guys,

I've just tried to boot my system up tonight and it was stuck in an endless loop of powering up for a second then turning off and restarting.

I went through the usual of clearing the CMOS, unplugging everything etc and found that it'd boot fine with 1 stick of RAM. Luckily I've still got a spare set of RAM floating around so I stuck that in to test it wasn't the RAM that's bad.

If I put any sticks in slots 3 & 4 it fails to boot. Slots 1 & 2 are fine with 1 or 2 sticks (other than the fact it won't run dual channel).

I assume this means the RAM slots are dead and the board needs sending back? It's worth me checking now in case it could be the memory controller on the CPU.

I'm running - MSI Z97 Krait, 4790k, 2x 8Gb HyperX Fury (also tested with some HyperX Genesis), EVGA G2 650w, GTX980

Cheers,

Dan

biuro74 · 4 Sep 2015 at 22:42

Cyanide said:
Hi guys,
It's worth me checking now in case it could be the memory controller on the CPU.

Memory controller breaks rather rarely, unless you do some crazy (or years-long) o/c with memory voltage raise. I'd suggest checking pins in the CPU socket and air-spraying the slots.

mickyflinn · 4 Sep 2015 at 22:51

Bent Pins it sounds like .

Cyanide · 5 Sep 2015 at 09:08

As far as I can see the pins are all fine -

I've just RMA'd the board, place I bought it from is out of stock and I can't wait for a replacement so I've done what I should have done from the start and ordered a new one from OCUK

ibiris · 5 Sep 2015 at 12:18

I used to have a similar issue on an old board; every now and then the PC wouldn't boot and on each occasion the RAM either needed swapping into other slots, or (on two occasions) I found that one of the sticks was knackered (through moving them around the slots to test) and had to be RMA'd. The third time it happened, I binned the RAM and replaced it. The board died about 2 years ago as well and was replaced with an Asrock P43DE. Last week I had the issue again, and had to move one of the RAM sticks (of 2x 2GB sticks) into a different slot - meaning it is now in single channel mode (I believe this is the terminology).
As it is continuing to happen, I can only assume that there is another factor causing this. I'm beginning to think that it could be the PSU (it's a Corsair HX620, or something like that), however due to the inconsistencies, I can't confirm it. The CPU is a C2D E6700, so I'm running about 9 years behind the drag curve, so it's more likely that I will replace the lot than ever find the source of the problem.
Sorry to hi-jack the thread a bit