I can only get one stick to work

[alionbe]

Hi,

Ive had this problem for quite a while. Originally I had two sticks of generic Mushkin DDR 400 (512 x 2). I could only get one of the sticks to work. When I put the other in, I get no display and long beeps. I thought it might be a compatibility issue so upgraded to corsair (1gb x2) and I made sure it was compatible with my mobo on the corsair website..... plug em in and still not working. The only toggle in the bios pertaining to memory is the overclocking and thats set at default right now. Help! Im stumped.
Thanks

 

[Doughbuy]

Hmmmm, I'll suggest a couple of things. I used to work at a computer company where we would build hundreds of computers a day, and one of the biggest problems we had was dead memory. We QC'ed all our computers before they leave, and usually when a computer won't boot up and makes weird noises, the memory was bad. But before we go to extreme's and say you have bad memory, do a couple of tests. I doubt you have an expensive memory tester, but there are things you could do.

1. When you say you can only get one of the sticks to work, if you plug in the other stick and take the original one out, will it still boot up, if not, the stick is bad.

2. Try it in a different motherboard if possible. I doubt anything is wrong with your current motherboard, but thats how troubleshooting goes.

3. Try the stick that works into the other sockets and see if it still boots up. Doubt anythings wrong with the motherboard, but again, thats how troubleshooting goes.

Worse comes to worse, RMA it.

 

[sailer]

First thought is the obvious, that one of the Mushkin sticks was bad. Then I wondered if you meant that one stick worked ok, but when you plugged in the second the beeping and no display started. When you wrote that you tried two new sticks of Corsair and the problem continued, my thoughts go to a bad motherboard. Sure, you could be just unlucky enough to get two sets of ram that each have one bad stick, but that's unlikely.

As Doughbuy suggested, try the ram in another computer. If it works there, most likey its you motherboard that's bad. Try it one stick at a time, and then both sticks together. If one doesn't work, then as he said, RMA the bad stick. You might also run memtest86 to look for errors.

 

[maury73]

If you have problems with 2 different sets, it could be a defective socket or the mobo PCB. Theese defects should be traced by an ICT but often PCBs are damaged during shipping.