well more likely the way the board is managing them isn't working is more likely than both sticks being bad.
is the boards bios up to date? update the bios and then try.
if that doesn't work try some different ram (different make/model) , if that doesn't work then try a different board (different make/model)
ram is SUPPOSED to be compatible with most boards and boards are SUPPOSED to be compatible with most ram. but it's pretty common these days to find combinations that either don;t work , or aren't working correctly and mismanaging the ram. with the large amounts of memory and speeds these days it's more and more common for these ram lockups to happen.