Having to keep reseating RAM in new build

mrochester · 20 Mar 2016 at 16:48

Hi all

I've just built myself a Skylake system with an Asrock H170M/ITX board, DDR 4 RAM and an i5 6500. My problem is, 3 times since building it yesterday I have had to take the RAM out and reseat it to get Windows to boot. Just now my system was up and running and I had to restart, but it now won't boot back into Windows 10 (it just hangs on the spinning dots screen), so I'm going to have to open it up and reseat the RAM again. When the computer does eventually boot, it works absolutely fine (and worked absolutely fine when coming out of both standby and hibernation).

Does anyone have any idea what might be wrong? The RAM is two sticks of 8GB.

Best wishes

M.

mrochester · 20 Mar 2016 at 17:24

Also, the RAM slots only have a clip to hold the RAM in place at one end of the slot. Is this normal on modern motherboards?

Cooper · 20 Mar 2016 at 18:24

Try re-seating the CPU Cooler and don't over tighten the securing screws that hold it in place.

A badly seated cooler that has been tightened too much can put uneven pressure on the CPU memory controller.

I had a similar issue with my motherboards first two memory slots playing up after taking out the CPU & cooler for my case annual spring clean, after putting it back together it would no longer boot with memory in either of the two slots closest to the CPU socket.

Re seating the cooler and not doing up the screws that hold it in place too tight fixed the problem completely.

May be worth a try, you never know.

mrochester · 20 Mar 2016 at 18:39

Thanks for the reply. As a follow up to this, after further investigation I seem to have narrowed the issue down to a SATA cable! Due to the CPU cooler I am using (Scythe Ninja 3, which is nearly as big as the motherboard itself!) I was having to use right angled SATA cables at the motherboard end, but the cable had to twist almost immediately to fit around the RAM slots. I think this twist has cause the SATA cable to be pulled slightly out of the socket.

I have now found I can run the processor fanlessly so I have removed the fan from the Scythe meaning the SATA slots are open for me to use straight cables rather than right angled, so this will hopefully resolve the issue.

It's always something obscure!