Unable to use all 4 DDr3 slots on Gigabyte H87-HD3 - what is wrong?

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marthall

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Aug 9, 2014
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All,

I have a H87-HD3 based system that I built some time ago with a pair of Kingston Hyperx blu DD3 modules KHX16C10B1K2/16x (total 16Gb) in slots 1 and 3. I wanted to increase my memory as much as possible and the manual gave 32gb as the max supported to I purchased a 2nd pair of DDR3, this time Hyperx Red. KHX16C10B1RK2/16x. these went into slots 2 and 4.

The system failed to boot, fans spun up and then stopped, before spinning up again and then stopping in an endless loop.

I tested just the two new modules, and they worked fine in slots 1 and 3.

The mb manual suggested installing 'like' memory modules in the same colour slots, which implies pairing them in slots 1 and 2, and then in slots 3 and 4 which I tried also with the same result.

I don't have a clue why this might not work.

Any suggestions?
Regards Martin
 
Solution
Tradesman1
Try loosening the CPU cooler then snug it back down, not overly tight, if a corner or side is too tight can unbalance the CPU and might not be getting full contact on the pins, that can affect the MC and DRAM channels
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M

marthall

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Aug 9, 2014
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13thmonkey/Tradesman1/All
The model numbers are per my original post KHX16C10B1K2/16x and KHX16C10B1RK2/16x note, there is one character difference.
I double checked the specs of the two modules, and as far as I can tell they are identical. There must be some difference I assume but I couldn't spot it and the datasheets appear identical apart from the name. I can understand that they are not a matched set, but I am not trying to do anything aggressive with them. No over clocking or tweaking, just the default settings. I did look in the BIOS and there were 'lots' of timing values, only some of which I can find in the datasheets.

http://www.kingston.com/datasheets/KHX16C10B1RK2_16X.pdf
http://www.kingston.com/datasheets/KHX16C10B1K2_16X.pdf

I also note that I am not actually able to get into the BIOS whilst I have all four modules installed; the boot sequence does not progress that far. The failure appears to occur during POST and I would usually suspect faulty seating, faulty components, or faulty settings. if it's settings though I'm not at all sure what options to change.

Any further thoughts?
Regards
Martin


 
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M

marthall

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Aug 9, 2014
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Tradesman1. Thanks for your thoughts. I looked to give this a go but it looks like my motherboard does not support changing the DRAM voltage.

I did a little further testing and I found.
I can pair one red and one blu DIMM and they work fine in slots 1/3
I can boot a single DIMM in slots 1 and 3, but not in slots 2 and 4
I can't boot with a matched pair in slot 2/4

I'm starting to think that the problem is with the pair of slots 2 and 4, as far as I can tell they should work with no RAM in slots 1/3.

Regards
Martin
 
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M

marthall

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Aug 9, 2014
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Well I was surprised by this suggestion; but I have to thank you Tradesman1 I don't think I would have stumbled upon this.

Overnight I upgraded the MB bios from F3 to F9 (latest) but this did not appear to help, so I tried your suggestion. I found it very difficult to free up the pins on the stock heatsink, I could only get one loose easily so I was only able to give the heatsink a wobble. But this, and moving the PC onto it's side for access must have done something because the PC booted with all four memory sticks in place. It crashed within minutes but this progress pushed me to battle with the heatsink. Eventually I managed to remove it, and replace it. Then PC booted straight up, full 32Gb ram and so far so stable.

Thanks again.
 
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