Can't tell if ram or motherboard is causing issues

[Ryan_Kitagawa]

Hello, I just did a couple of upgrades on my computer last night and I’ve been experiencing some boot issues that I’m pretty sure I’ve narrowed down to either the ram or the 3rd ram slot on the motherboard. But I’m having trouble figuring out which. Sorry for the long post, but it’s a bit complicated.

PC has 2 old ram sticks. g.skill ripjaws v 16 gb

Decided to upgrade, and bought two new sticks. (exactly the same, gskill 16gb)
So now total I have 64 (4x16)

I also upgrade my gpu, psu, and transferred everything over to a new case. Everything works buttery smooth before I start plugging in the new ram. Here we go…

plugging in the 2 new sticks, i start gettting weird boot and restart issues.

hitting restart will lead to the regular blue screen with the spinning wheel as usual, then goes black… and then just sorta hangs there forever. It just doesnt restart. I have to force the power off.

If I shutdown instead, it works fine… but then when i boot it up again. It hangs before the post beep. fans spinning, lights on. no post. but if i force the power off and turn it on again, it turns on no problem the second time.

These two issues are very repeatable and happen every time. restart = hang. shutdown and power back on = hangs the first time.

so… here’s where the confusion starts. I figure one of the new sticks have issues. So i start testing to see which one… computer works fine with just the two new sticks (slots 2 and 4 as per the manual. MSI tomahawk b450 max).

so i try a bunch of different configurations.

2 sticks new or old, both work fine.

3 sticks in slots 1,2, and 4. no issues.

4 sticks starts to fail (old in slots 2 and 4, new sticks in 1 and 3)

so i figure, oh ****. mobo slot 3 is the issue, everything seems to work until I plug a new stick into that 3rd slot… but then i do one more test.

I switched the position of old and new sticks. So now old sticks are in 1 and 3, and new sticks are 2 and 4. Works fine. No issue.

I honestly have no clue what to think now. i figured maybe one of the new sticks have an issue SPECIFICALLY with slot 3 in my mobo. but it happens with either of the new sticks in slot 3. wouldnt make any sense for BOTH new sticks to struggle specifically in slot 3. but that seems to be the case?

as long as one of my old sticks is in slot 3, it works. What do you guys think, ram issue? mobo issue? something else I’m not thinking of?

I ran memtest86 overnight. (didnt finish the whole 4 cycles or whatever the default settings are, but it did 2 and a half cycles and found 0 errors)

Any help would be hugely appreciated, trying to decide if I should send these sticks back, and I just can’t tell if thats where the error lies.

[phillpower2]

Decided to upgrade, and bought two new sticks. (exactly the same, gskill 16gb)

Are the sticks 100% exactly the same.

I ran memtest86 overnight. (didnt finish the whole 4 cycles or whatever the default settings are, but it did 2 and a half cycles and found 0 errors)

We will provide you with the required steps to properly test the RAM and the MB slots should it be required.
[COLOR=rgb(184, 49, 47)]
Can you post the brand and model name or number of the power supply (PSU).

Download then run Speccy (free) and post the resultant url for us, details here, this will provide us with information about your computer hardware + any software that you have installed that may explain the present issue/s.

To publish a Speccy profile to the Web:

In Speccy, click File, and then click Publish Snapshot.

In the Publish Snapshot dialog box, click Yes to enable Speccy to proceed.

Speccy publishes the profile and displays a second Publish Snapshot. You can open the URL in your default browser, copy it to the clipboard, or close the dialog box[/COLOR]

[phillpower2]

Being that the OP revisited the forum but chose not to reply this thread will be marked and closed.