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New RAM, fail to POST?

A

ahluka

n00b
Joined
Feb 1, 2006
Messages
20
Ok first of all you may remember my recent-ish post (and grand cock-up on my part) here: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1397237

To be honest this only *kind of* ties into this, in as much as the RAM actually turned out to be faulty (as verified by Scan when I returned it to them). Anyway the replacement arrived yesterday, and everything seemed to be fine - the PC worked all day. Until tonight.

Get home and turn it on, and it turns on, while the monitor stays off. Now, I have no PC speaker so I'm unsure about whether or not it POST's. Here's the twist: it occasionally works. Well, it's working right now. It seems that 3 times out of 10, when I turn it on, the aforementioned happens, but the rest of the time it boots up fine and runs for hours with no problems.

I don't think it has much to do with it (?) but the first time it failed to start, I opened it, took the RAM out and put it back in; the next boot worked fine.

So given everything that's happened, I'm guessing that I've received yet another couple of deadified sticks o' RAM.
 
I have not. I tried it with the previous sticks but it ran for a few seconds then restarted... would that have been because of the RAM or was I doing something wrong?
 
Instability sounds like a problem with the RAM or PSU. If Scan tested the RAM you RMA'd and it was faulty it's more likely the RAM is faulty again rather than the PSU, but give MemTest another go first to see if you can confirm it.
 
Could also be the board. Make sure you're giving the RAM enough voltage and same with the MCH.
 
Right, this is hurting my poor head. The machine failed to start again this morning (tried several times) so I opened it up, took the RAM out and put it back in, and whaddya know, it works, so I've run memtest all over the shop. Firstly, both the sticks. The second test get's (quickly) up to about 45% then without warning the machine restarts. This is true no matter which of the 4 ports I plug the sticks into; both in red. both yellow, one in each, in every configuration possible, it does this.

Now, with one (either one) of the sticks, memtest runs fine, and reports no errors. Mobo?
As a control I inserted the RAM from my other machine and ran memtest, and it runs fine, with both sticks and each one separately. It doesn't have any problem booting, either.

Gah. On the one hand, with each apparently deadified stick passing memtest, but failing when used together, my inexperienced brain screams "mobo!", but surely the sticks from my good machine would show similar results if the mobo was faulty.

I'm really hoping that through luck of the draw I've been given another pair of dead sticks.

Oh and enginurd, I've never dabbled with voltage-type-things. If you still think that may be something to do with it, how do I check the RAM is indeed getting enough voltage?
 
why dont you take the ram to a local pc shop and have them test them. This would be the easiest way to determine the cause of the problem.

I also just looked on the gigabyte site and they have released 6 bios updates for that board, 2 of which are to increase memory compatibility. Now, you have purchased Corsair which is very good ram so I would think that it should work but I would update to the latest NON-BETA bios on their site. btw what corsair ram did u actually get? I dont see it anywhere in your posts.
Most bios are set to auto for ram timinngs and voltage but if yours requires 2.1v then maybe you need to adjust this to increase its stability.
 
Right I've updated, and memtest is still failing.
I've found all of the voltage settings in my BIOS:

MCH Core (no idea what that means btw): 1.1v
DRAM: 1.8v

I just took a look at the specs on Corair's site, and it says:

"Tested at JEDEC standard latency settings
(5-5-5-18) at 1.9V"

The BIOS says the timing is correct, so should I up the DRAM voltage to 1.9v?
 
Yes, bump vDIMM to 1.9v. If memtest fails, bump MCH to 1.2v. If memtest still fails, RMA the RAM. Since other sticks work fine in your board, I doubt its your board. However, with the Corsair RAM, the only difference from running 1 and 2 sticks is power delivery to the DIMM slots. So, I believe setting these voltages would solve your problem.
 
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