MSI Z170 GAMING 7 Not Working with two RAM sticks

Martin Salthe

Commendable
Nov 17, 2016
2
0
1,510
Hello!
So I've had my current setup for a little more than half a year now, and when I first set it up I had trouble booting it with both RAM sticks in (2x 8GB Corsair Vengance). At first I just booted it with one of the sticks, be because I thought to myself it might just be a BIOS error and that I'd fix it later on, and 8GB isn't all that bad anyways. Lately I've felt like I needed more RAM, and as I installed the second RAM stick, I encountered the same problem.

I've tried each stick of RAM seperately with XMP both off and on, and both worked, so none of them are defect. I found out that the system doesn't boot when I only put a stick in the one furthest away from the CPU, I think it is number 4, and it didn't work, but in the manual it says that only one RAM stick is supposed to go in the one closest to the CPU, so I'm not sure if it's a defect or not. (Probably isn't, honestly.)

Any answers would be great! I'll update if I find out anything :)
 
Solution
What's the exact model of your motherboard? I can then have a look on the online manual.

In your motherboard you have 4 RAM slots, DIMM 1 (closest to the CPU) to DIMM 4 (farthest from CPU) I know with my motherboard it supports dual channel when you put the RAM in DIMM 2 and 4.

Your mobo might be like this;

1 RAM stick -> DIMM 1
2 RAM sticks -> DIMM 2 and 4
3 RAM sticks -> ???
4 RAM sticks -> DIMM 1, 2, 3 and 4

Also to note; XMP profiles are needed for when your motherboard supports up to a certain Mhz but you bought RAM with a higher speed, for example if your motherboard supports speeds up to 1600Mhz but you bought RAM that goes up to 2333Mhz, then in the BIOS you will need to enable a RAM XMP profile so your PC can run the RAM...

GameFreak01048

Honorable
Feb 17, 2016
694
1
11,360
What's the exact model of your motherboard? I can then have a look on the online manual.

In your motherboard you have 4 RAM slots, DIMM 1 (closest to the CPU) to DIMM 4 (farthest from CPU) I know with my motherboard it supports dual channel when you put the RAM in DIMM 2 and 4.

Your mobo might be like this;

1 RAM stick -> DIMM 1
2 RAM sticks -> DIMM 2 and 4
3 RAM sticks -> ???
4 RAM sticks -> DIMM 1, 2, 3 and 4

Also to note; XMP profiles are needed for when your motherboard supports up to a certain Mhz but you bought RAM with a higher speed, for example if your motherboard supports speeds up to 1600Mhz but you bought RAM that goes up to 2333Mhz, then in the BIOS you will need to enable a RAM XMP profile so your PC can run the RAM at the speeds it should be :)
 
Solution