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Broken RAM slot? Help, please!

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Hello. I'm in a spot of trouble here, as it appears one of my mobo's (ASRock p67 extreme4 gen3) RAM slots no longer works. It has worked just fine in the past. I was just remounting my cpu cooler (which is a hyper 212 plus), and after I did that my PC would not start. It would not even show BIOS, just a blank screen, and the system would keep restarting. The debug LED said 55 (memory issue). I took one of the RAM sticks out, and it fixed the problem. I tried putting the stick that i knew worked into the other RAM slot, and it didn't work. I've now established that the slot itself must be the problem. What could have caused this? I never even touched the RAM area on the board, but could it be ESD? Can that spread to other parts of the motherboard? I'm stuck in single channel memory for the moment, and I know the board has a two year warranty from newegg (which is where I bought the mobo). I only bought it a year ago. Should I see if I can get a replacement? I don't really know what could be causing the problem, somebody said that it could be a short from the backplate of the cpu cooler (Which shouldn't be the case for me, as my cooler has been on my pc since day 1). I have no idea what could have caused this. This really bites, as I was just about to upgrade to a gtx 670, and the mount that I did (even though I somehow messed something up in the process) was the best one I have ever done, with really good cpu temp. If anybody could be of assistance, that would be great.

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vanwazltoff said:
if your mobo has 4 ram slots try putting them in the corresponding channels. also take out the one ram stick that might be bad and put the good ram stick in its possition, you might have a bad ram stick, thats easier to check


Thanks for the reply, but my cpu cooler blocks off the last RAM slot. I used dual channel with the last slot on the right (furthest from the cpu) and the corresponding dual channel slot that went with it. That slot is my problem. I can confirm that the 2 ram sticks are working good, it's just that if I try to put a RAM stick in the "problem slot", the PC will not start.
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might want to rma your board if you can then, if you cant maybe get another heat sink that will allow you to use that last dimm slot. if you cant do either than try non matched configurations or get one all mighty ram stick or low profile ram sticks. if it were me i would probably get another heat sink and get some spare thermal paste, it doesnt cost much but its a valuable thing to keep around.

its all up to you, there are a few actions you can take

Okay, So before I RMA it (or at least try to), I'm going to need to know a few things.
-Will they send me a new board if i ship all the motherboard stuff in a different box than it came in?
-Is my situation eligible for a replacement?
-How long might it take?

Some info I forgot to mention: Not only does the system not start, but there is 4 beeps that comes from the motherboard when I plug in the speaker. After that, the system will remain on for about 3 seconds, then it will automatically restart. I read somebody else that had the same problem as me (same exact ram slot, same cooler) on another site with the backplate on the hyper 212 plus(something about insulation). Insulating the backplate with electrical tape fixed his problem, and I did tighten the backplate even tighter than I did previous times I put on the heatsink. Could this be the problem? Might I have warped the board? I am going to test and find out.

First, I am going to try removing the whole mb out of the case, being EXTREMELY careful of esd (touching a hand on the power supply frequently!), and I am going to try the slot with the motherboard out. If that doesn't work, I am going to try putting a different cooler (stock intel) on it. If that doesn't work, then I know something's wrong, and then I'll RMA it. Sorry for the long post.

YYYEEEESS!! It appears the coolers backplate was the problem! as soon as I removed it, the pc was instantly able to work with ram in any of the four slots! So am I okay now, insulating the backplate with elec. tape? could any of my components be damaged from this incident?

Edit: I put the backplate back on with elec tape between the mb and backplate, and now the RAM works fine (for now). Only had enough paste for a dot method test application of the heatsink (which will not give you the best results with a hdt cooler). It started up just fine, so I'm assuming this problem is solved. Now I just need to get some more TIM, and I can put everything back in.

Since it's working, I'd leave it that way, but regular electrical tape may not be the best insulator since it generates enough voltage to cause ESD damage, and it's easy to pierce. Cardboard is better in both respects, but don't bother changing.
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