PC will not fully boot into Windows after installing new RAM kit

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
W

Wicherekk

Prominent
Jul 9, 2017
10
0
510
Hey guys,

I bought 2x4GB DDR3 Ballistix Sport because I wanted to upgrade my RAM since I want to run a lot of VM's. I bought exactly the same brand and model of my existing 2x4GB which was bought about 2-3 years ago.

I checked the clocks and everything is the same, my mobo is Z97X Gaming 3 and it allows me to go into more details about the RAM timings, I noticed that 2 channels have different properties, as an example tRDC is 208 instead of 128 on the other channel.

My findings are that it works fine in all slot combinations with all RAM sticks but only 3 inserted at a time, when I insert the forth one and it doesn't matter which one it is, the computer will freeze at Gigabyte screen (the one that has options to press DEL to go into bios, F12 etc) but doesn't actually allow to press any button, I unplugged the keyboard and monitor (why not, I'm running our of options) and it works! It goes past POST and boots into Windows, so I plugged the keyboard back in + the monitor (after Windows booted) and it works too, after restarting the computer it doesn't work anymore so I have to unplug either monitor or keyboard for it to work.

My question is, does 1 extra RAM stick block the Windows from booting because of not enough power or something? I tried playing with the timings in BIOS, flushed and updated my BIOS ubt it doesn't help. I want everything to run like it used to and right now I'm writing to you on the PC that has this fault.

I looked at CPU-Z and checked the Timings on there and the tRFC is set to 128clocks, why not 208 like in BIOS, maybe that's a problem?

Please help, I'm not an electrician or overclocking guy, I bought the system with i5 already overclocked to 4.4ghz.
 
Solution
C
Sort by date Sort by votes
C

Curlev

Commendable
Jan 20, 2017
164
0
1,760
Even if u bought the exact same model there isn´t any guarantee that it will work, that´s why they often comes in kits.

Try to raise the ram voltage a little bit when you only have 2 sticks installed, then add the other 2 and see if that solves the problem.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
W

Wicherekk

Prominent
Jul 9, 2017
10
0
510


Hey man, thanks for reply. I understand they may not be compatible but they seem to be, they booted without monitor and keyboard plugged in without modifying any of the timings and clock speeds.

I have tried raising the voltage from 1.5 to 1.75 but that didn't help.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Ck1_13

Ck1_13

Distinguished
Mar 3, 2009
304
0
18,960
That is an interesting one alright, I know if you accidentally plug a PS2 keyboard into a PS2 mouse port, will sort of reproduce what you are experiencing, but I've never seen a PC not boot the way you are describing. Try a couple of simple things, Try going to safe mode, if the system works it's fixable via windows troubleshooting. Also try uninstalling the keyboard and mouse, restart and let windows reinstall them when it's working, and...try a live cd if you have access to one, windows 7 live, linux live, etc, see if problem persists may also indicate if this is really hardware issue or not.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
W

Wicherekk

Prominent
Jul 9, 2017
10
0
510


Can you guys please look at this? I made screenshots of all the timings etc, they differ slightly - so how do I make them work together, what do I change?

NEW RAM


OLD RAM


This is my setup


 
Upvote 0 Downvote
W

Wicherekk

Prominent
Jul 9, 2017
10
0
510


Looking at the CPU-Z pictures above, are you able to suggest what I change in the BIOS settings?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
C

Curlev

Commendable
Jan 20, 2017
164
0
1,760
Can't see anything strange actually.

Okay, try this if u haven't.

First: Make sure your PC doesn't have any power at all by unplugging the power cord and hold the power button for a few seconds.

Then: Remove all ram sticks, unplug the CMOS battery on the mobo for 5 minutes, plug in all ram sticks and see.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
W

Wicherekk

Prominent
Jul 9, 2017
10
0
510


Tried it.

I have changed the settings on my motherboard slightly and upped the tRFC on my OLD memory sticks to match the NEW memory sticks and things are slightly better, with about 2-3 restarts it does boot into Windows. I have done some gaming and VMware work on them and they work absolutely fine without any BSOD's however it's annoying that they don't boot outright.

I have also done memtest86 with both set of sticks in and it does detect 1 error on the same memory address space, in the same place. I have tested the NEW ram and detected no faults with 6 passes to it may be that my OLD ram is getting bad however that wouldn't prevent it from booting up normally I guess.

Any other idea? :(
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
C

Curlev

Commendable
Jan 20, 2017
164
0
1,760
You getting closer.

For me it sounds like a bug somewhere. If the ram sticks is working and all slots are fine then you shouldn't have a problem.

Wonder what that memtest-error is?

Maybe I would try to only put in the new ram, clear CMOS for 5 min, reset BIOS settings, put in old ram and reset BIOS settings again.

If that doesn't work maybe I would take a look at those pheripherals settings and see if there are something useful there. Only because you have no problem to start the PC when screen or keyboard is not connected.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
W

Wicherekk

Prominent
Jul 9, 2017
10
0
510


The error is: [Data Error] Test: 10, CPU: 0, Address: 637D49D0, Expected: 00000000, Actual: 00000002

It doesn't come up if I just put in NEW RAM kit, I haven't tried with the OLD RAM kit alone though yet.

I'll give it a go, before I do so does a BSOD "ACPI BIOS ERROR" mean anything to you? Apparently ACPI's purpose it to manage power consumption of devices including peripherals so maybe I need to tackle this.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
C

Curlev

Commendable
Jan 20, 2017
164
0
1,760

Okay. Try and do the memtest with the old ones also. If u get the same error try them one by one and see. Maybe one of those are faulty?

ACPI BIOS ERROR could mean a lots of things, including memory and devices. Have you updated the motherboard chipsets recently?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
W

Wicherekk

Prominent
Jul 9, 2017
10
0
510


I just found and according to my motherboard manual there's 2 PIN reset CMOS, I guess I'll do that next.

I have only updated BIOS to latest version and I've not installed chipset drivers from the website (I just done it now).
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
C

Curlev

Commendable
Jan 20, 2017
164
0
1,760

Yeah, u can use those pins to clear CMOS. Update how it goes!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
W

Wicherekk

Prominent
Jul 9, 2017
10
0
510
Did the reset, that didn't help.

I did some more testing and found that the OLD RAM is also fine... So seems like when all 4 are inserted the test 10 comes up as an error on that single address space.

At the moment, I'm unable to run 4 sticks of ram together anymore - I'm currently running 2 NEW RAM and 1 OLD RAM sticks.

Did some more testing and found our that when I plug in RAM like this: XOXX - NEW/NULL/NEW/OLD it works fine, If I do: XXXO - it doesn't work anymore, although the RAM slot works fine because I tested it with a single stick...

I also tried switching to legacy BIOS and that didn't help either.

I've also unplugged everything but the monitor which is plugged into my AMD GFX, I tried to also change the initial POST to onboard on a different monitor.

All of this seems so random I can't make up any judgement, it doesn't make sense at all to me. I'll do some more testing tomorrow but I'm about to give up..

EDIT: I just checked the memory support list and found out that the motherboards supports:

@1866

@1600


@1333


So need to take this information in and find out the setup.

EDIT: from what I can see the memory I have is not supported at all according to the part numbers (not sure if I need to take it with a grain of salt), even the OLD RAM is not compatible.

If there's anything that might say it's not compatible is the fact that the OLD RAM is dual-sided which if we exclude the part number difference, they're compatible. The NEW RAM however is single sided 4GB stick x 2 which would mean it's not supported @1600
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
C

Curlev

Commendable
Jan 20, 2017
164
0
1,760

Have you contacted Gigabyte? Maybe that mobo is sensitive when it comes to mixing single and dubblesided ram sticks. I guess youv'e tested all sticks in different slots i case they must sit in a specific order.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
W

Wicherekk

Prominent
Jul 9, 2017
10
0
510
Hey man, I got the computer to boot fine with all 4 sticks in, in a particular order: NEW/OLD/OLD/NEW with modified timings, I've modified tRFC to be in the middle of the new and old ram which came down to 168 clocks on both channels.


The NE RAM is brighter green colour.



It looks like all 4 sticks are running in Dual channel mode at correct frequency.

What I fear though is if I reboot the PC it will not boot up again so I need to check that but thought it would be nice to show you the fruit of our hard work :)

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
W

Wicherekk

Prominent
Jul 9, 2017
10
0
510
[/quotemsg]
Have you contacted Gigabyte? Maybe that mobo is sensitive when it comes to mixing single and dubblesided ram sticks. I guess youv'e tested all sticks in different slots i case they must sit in a specific order.[/quotemsg]

Hi man, I can safely say the computer is working fine now although I haven't tested under high stress.
It boot every time and works perfectly fine.

The solution was to put the RAM in particular order like in the pictures NEW/OLD/OLD/NEW and set the tRFC to median point which is 208+128 / 2 = 168.
However I've done both at the same time so either one could work as a solution, I would pick the tRFC tweak as the solution and that would mean even though the main timings are the same, the sub-timings also have to be close to be compatible.

Increasing the tRFC timing of the OLD RAM to match NEW RAM didn't help.

Thank you for staying with me the whole time as I would most likely not fix it because nobody was there to help! :)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
C

Curlev

Commendable
Jan 20, 2017
164
0
1,760

Have you contacted Gigabyte? Maybe that mobo is sensitive when it comes to mixing single and dubblesided ram sticks. I guess youv'e tested all sticks in different slots i case they must sit in a specific order.[/quotemsg]

Hi man, I can safely say the computer is working fine now although I haven't tested under high stress.
It boot every time and works perfectly fine.

The solution was to put the RAM in particular order like in the pictures NEW/OLD/OLD/NEW and set the tRFC to median point which is 208+128 / 2 = 168.
However I've done both at the same time so either one could work as a solution, I would pick the tRFC tweak as the solution and that would mean even though the main timings are the same, the sub-timings also have to be close to be compatible.

Increasing the tRFC timing of the OLD RAM to match NEW RAM didn't help.

Thank you for staying with me the whole time as I would most likely not fix it because nobody was there to help! :)
[/quotemsg]
Im glad to hear that you got it to work. Sometimes there are obstacles to overcome before everything will work :D

No problems man, Im just happy if I can help!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom