New ram isn't working, but I'm not sure why

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TIMOOOO

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I have an ASUS P6X58D-E and I'm trying to upgrade the RAM. According to the manual, this new memory would be compatible. However, when I replaced my old memory, no matter the configuration, my system would not boot or even show video.

There's stuff in the manual about needing to use specific DIMM configurations, but I tried all of them and more to no avail.

Interestingly, I would have expected that only using 3 of the 4 new DIMMs in the same configuration as my old memory (in slots A1, B1 and C1) would work fine (just sacrificing 4gb of space), however this didn't work either.

Did I miss something important about this new memory? Is it incompatible for some reason I didn't notice? Did I get a faulty set of RAM? Or is there another problem I might not have considered yet?
 
Solution
Tradesman1
The DRAM you bought is the Ripjaws X, and not in the compatibility list, the original Ripjaws are and should work fine, the Ripjaws X is a newer line (around 2011) and are made with high density memory ICs which aren't compatible with the older 1366 mobos.
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unknownofprob

unknownofprob

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Ram is coordinated into channels by slot colours. As you can see your motherboard is dual channel, supporting 3 modules per channel. My best advice would be to even out the channels - have two in black slots and two in blue slots.

If still not working, test one stick at a time to see if boot does occur. If one stick boots you know the memory is supported, test all of the sticks individually to see if all of them don't work (in that case memory isn't supported), or to see if a particular memory module(s) is DOA.

If all the memory sticks aren't working, I would then refer you to a motherboard BIOS update, if you haven't ever done that before.
 
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I used one of the old sticks to verify that using one stick of ram in slot A1 works fine. Then I checked each of the four new sticks in that slot. None of them worked! So it seems like I must have picked some RAM that my motherboard doesn't support. Note that my BIOS is updated to the latest version.

Can anyone help me determine what part of the spec I went wrong with? I thought I was buying compatible RAM.

Could it be the voltages? My old RAM was 1.65v, the new stuff is 1.5v. It seems like this shouldn't matter as the motherboard's spec only mentions Intel's recommendation that it be below 1.65v.
Could it be the timings? My old RAM was 8-8-8-24, the new stuff is 9-9-9-24. It seems like this shouldn't matter because the motherboard's spec mentions other sticks of RAM with this timing that are compatible.
Could it be the XMP support, somehow? There's a mention of this in the motherboard spec but I don't really understand it.
 
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unknownofprob

unknownofprob

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XMP is just extreme memory profile, that shouldn't matter. Really from the specs there is no reason why it shouldn't work. Those timings and voltages also shouldn't matter, but I do believe that the newer higher density memory chips may not be compatible with the X58 chipset. You can try resetting your CMOS battery with hopeful avail but it seems the memory is incompatible with the motherboard.

I would also contact G-Skill as well, as they might have further information.
 
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Tradesman1

Tradesman1

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The DRAM you bought is the Ripjaws X, and not in the compatibility list, the original Ripjaws are and should work fine, the Ripjaws X is a newer line (around 2011) and are made with high density memory ICs which aren't compatible with the older 1366 mobos.
 
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Solution
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TIMOOOO

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Lots of the kits I can find aren't exactly on the compatibility list, so I want to check: will these be compatible? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231358
 
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T

TIMOOOO

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How can I tell which sticks are made with low density ICs? Few of the kits I can find are actually on that compatibility list.
 
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