Bad RAM or MOBO / RAM Slot

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rhmclay

n00b
Joined
Oct 7, 2009
Messages
13
Everyone,

I bought a GIGABYTE GA-MA785GMT-UD2H MOBO and g-skill 10666 ddr3 ram 4gb, and if I put in both sticks (each 2gb) the bios never shows and doesn't boot. If I leave one in it does, but then I get all these crazy BSOD at random times. I am thinkig it's a bad mobo, but wasn't ure if there were tell tale signs that say it might be the ram. When it does work with the 1 stick, on the bios splash screen it says 2049, or something like that, for available memory. Now isn't it supposed to technically be less than 2?

Thanks!!!
 
if I remember right, some GIGABYTE boards are having trouble with dual-channel ram, you had both sticks in the same color slot, yeah? also, memory is counted in values of 1024, so 1 2gb stick should be 2048mb, not sure what's up the the extra 1gb, lol. other than that,

I remember reading that some sticks may need to be manually changed to the right data exchange rate for values over 1333 in the bios, as they aren't always auto-read correctly. the particular RAM you have has a rate of 2000 and I think it needs to be backed down to 1666 for that board (should be the most it can handle).

can't help you with the more technical stuff as I'm still learning myself, sorry, lol.


edit: whoops, it can handle up to 1800, but not with that particular card type, I think. it still needs to be backed down to 1666 manually in the bios to run correctly, if not lower depending on how stable it'll run.
 
Last edited:
Well 2GB of memory is 2048MB and2,097,152 KB.

Anyway, you need to run memtest86+ on each stick by itself. It's a process of elimination. If one stick is bad and the other isn't, you know you have a bad stick of ram. If they both test bad, then it could be a number of things:
1) both of sticks of RAM are bad
2) mobo is bad
3) a ram slot on the mobo is bad
4) the timings/voltage for the RAM in the BIOS doesn't match what the ram can do.

Best case is to swap out the suspect parts with known good parts, but not everyone has lots of extra parts laying around.

 
Thanks Everyone. I was plugging both sticks into the same colored slots. I didn't try changing the settings in the bios. I will try that. What was making me think it was the mobo, is because as soon as I plug in the second stick, it doesn't even get to the bios, nothing. I will check the bios. I am considering to build another htpc, so I guess I could go buy new memory to check. Just wasn't expecting to start spending on it yet. Especially sinc I haven't completely got the frst set up to make sure I like/enjoy/have the waf of a htpc.
 
What brand memory chips are you using? If there's no indication, then the chips are from the junk market. G-Skil is the brand of the modules, not the chips.
 
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