Interesting RAM Dilemma

Gh6512

Prominent
Mar 5, 2017
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510
There'sa bit of build up to the story but bear with me...

here's the story
Recently i decided to upgrade my RAM to a 16GB, but thinking to give it a shot, I tried my local craigslist to see what was on.

I found and bought what was advertised as a:
Mushkin Silverline 993770
16GB (4 x 4GB)
240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM
DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666)
Cas Latency: 9
Timing: 9-9-9-24
Voltage: 1.5V
Quad Channel Kit
Heat Spreader

I tested each stick individually to make sure that none of them were burned out (they weren't) and then loaded them up. I put them in and following, get no video output. So I start pulling sticks out one by one with a restart in between.

It turns out that I was sold
2 8GB 2X4GB setups
Because 2 ran just fine.

here's the question
I know the ideal thing would be to just scrap it and by a matching 4x4 set, but is there a way that I could simply underclock or overclock one of the sets of RAM so that it won't recognize them as identical sets, and mess with my system?

Windows 10 pro
Intel dx58so motherboard
Intel core i7 920
Gtx 750 ti
 
Solution
Ram is sold in kits for a reason.
A motherboard must manage all the ram using the same specs of voltage, cas and speed.
Ram from the same vendor and part number can be made up of differing manufacturing components over time.
Some motherboards can be very sensitive to this.
This is more difficult when 4 sticks are involved.
That is why ram vendors will NOT support ram that is not bought in one kit.
It is safer to get what you need in one kit.
But, it is a bit more expensive because of the added matching of all the sticks to insure compatibility.

What to do?
If you can get into the bios and increase the ram voltage a bit, that might get things to work.

Test with memtest86+
You should be able to complete at least one full pass with NO...

Lutfij

Titan
Moderator
If you were sold 2 sets of a 2x4GB kit by Mushkin, are they both from the same series? Or are they generic rams with the Silverline heatsinks added on top of them? It's always advised to drop in ram(as an upgrade) in a kit and not two or more individual pairs. Next thing is to make sure your motherboard BIOS is up to date before populating more ram+ensure maximum compatibility.

Within BIOS you could set the ram kits to all operate on the same frequency but in retrospect, 1333MHz is the base frequency(specified by JEDEC) for DDR3 rams. On another note, make sure that you're operating off of 1.5v.

Since you're on Windows 10, are you on the new OS via a license key or was this based off the free upgrade path(without the license key)? On that note, what was your older ram load out?

I hate to break it to(if it's bad news on your end) that Intel boards tend to be very picky with what you populate on them and they are super picky with what rams you use. In fact, I'd suggest that you take the Ebay bought ram kit and use it on a friends machine that can accept a 4x4GB kit like yours and see if the system boots up, if it does then the culprit is your platform, if not then the culprit is the rams being different.
 
Ram is sold in kits for a reason.
A motherboard must manage all the ram using the same specs of voltage, cas and speed.
Ram from the same vendor and part number can be made up of differing manufacturing components over time.
Some motherboards can be very sensitive to this.
This is more difficult when 4 sticks are involved.
That is why ram vendors will NOT support ram that is not bought in one kit.
It is safer to get what you need in one kit.
But, it is a bit more expensive because of the added matching of all the sticks to insure compatibility.

What to do?
If you can get into the bios and increase the ram voltage a bit, that might get things to work.

Test with memtest86+
You should be able to complete at least one full pass with NO errors.

If you decide to return the ram and replace it, go to a ram web site and enter your motherboard in their ram selection app.
You will get a list of compatible kits.

 
Solution