RAM speed issue, possibly faulty DIMM slot?

[Eastman51]

So I noticed that my PC has been taking very long to POST lately (since I went from 16 to 32GB of RAM). I also noticed that my RAM is only running at 2133MHz, which I know I have it set to 2933MHz in the BIOS. I decided to swap the RAM around for some troubleshooting. When I had single channel with 2 sticks in slots A1 and A2, I actually began to experience 3 beeps (means memory error on Strix B350-F) and consecutive reboots until it boots into safe mode.  When I used dual channel, 1 stick in A2 and sticks in B1 and B2, I could POST fine (was still a little longer than it should be though, maybe 8 seconds). When I added the last stick back into slot A2, I got beeps again. I have swapped all my sticks around and know that they all work, my newer kit has not been confirmed to function at 2933MHz since I apparently have not been running higher than 2133Mhz; but I know my original kit works at that speed from when I first setup the PC.

Edit: Basically, if there is a stick of RAM in slot A2, then I cannot run my RAM at any speed faster than 2133MHz

 

I also tried resetting and reflashing the BIOS, with no change in results. I'm thinking that the motherboard has a faulty DIMM slot (possibly since I got the board, but never noticed until I added more RAM), and I've already filled out an RMA form and am getting ready to ship it out sometime in the next few days. I figured I'd ask here in case I'm missing something that could fix/solve this problem.

 

PC specs:

Ryzen 5 2600x

Asus Strix B350-F

2x8 Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000MHz (black DIMMS)

2x8 Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000MHz (white DIMMS)

[Windows7ge]

Things may have changed since DDR3 but back then it was know when occupying every single slot it become more difficult to achieve higher RAM clocks. Try removing the 2 new sticks and enabling XMP. If everything works as it use to my suspicion is a possibility. You can try swamping to the new sticks to farther test this.

[Turtle Rig]

16 minutes ago, Eastman51 said:

So I noticed that my PC has been taking very long to POST lately (since I went from 16 to 32GB of RAM). I also noticed that my RAM is only running at 2133MHz, which I know I have it set to 2933MHz in the BIOS. I decided to swap the RAM around for some troubleshooting. When I had single channel with 2 sticks in slots A1 and A2, I actually began to experience 3 beeps (means memory error on Strix B350-F) and consecutive reboots until it boots into safe mode.  When I used dual channel, 1 stick in A2 and sticks in B1 and B2, I could POST fine (was still a little longer than it should be though, maybe 8 seconds). When I added the last stick back into slot A2, I got beeps again. I have swapped all my sticks around and know that they all work, my newer kit has not been confirmed to function at 2933MHz since I apparently have not been running higher than 2133Mhz; but I know my original kit works at that speed from when I first setup the PC.

Edit: Basically, if there is a stick of RAM in slot A2, then I cannot run my RAM at any speed faster than 2133MHz

 

I also tried resetting and reflashing the BIOS, with no change in results. I'm thinking that the motherboard has a faulty DIMM slot (possibly since I got the board, but never noticed until I added more RAM), and I've already filled out an RMA form and am getting ready to ship it out sometime in the next few days. I figured I'd ask here in case I'm missing something that could fix/solve this problem.

 

PC specs:

Ryzen 5 2600x

Asus Strix B350-F

2x8 Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000MHz (black DIMMS)

2x8 Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000MHz (white DIMMS)

As long as you choose a supported RAM speed and the timings are proper.  Set settings to lower spec RAM basically.

[Eastman51]

11 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

Things may have changed since DDR3 but back then it was know when occupying every single slot it become more difficult to achieve higher RAM clocks. Try removing the 2 new sticks and enabling XMP. If everything works as it use to my suspicion is a possibility. You can try swamping to the new sticks to farther test this.

My motherboard is an AM4 board, so it doesn't have XMP (at least I don't see an XMP option anywhere). 
Edit: but I will try the old config (slots A1 and B1) with both the new and old kits of RAM. I will double check my other test (slots A1, B1, B2) with every possible stick config.

 

8 minutes ago, Turtle Rig said:

As long as you choose a supported RAM speed and the timings are proper.  Set settings to lower spec RAM basically.

what?
When I only had 2 sticks (in slots A1 and B1) I could run the 2933MHz I was aiming for. When I have that A2 slot filled and have the speed set higher than 2133 I get beeps and it boots to safe mode (which means it pretends I haven't set the RAM speed).

[Windows7ge]

4 minutes ago, Eastman51 said:

My motherboard is an AM4 board, so it doesn't have XMP

? XMP has been a standard feature for quite a long time. It should be there somewhere.

 

Edit:

But if it's not you should be able to set the voltage/timing/speed manually.

[Eastman51]

1 minute ago, Windows7ge said:

? XMP has been a standard feature for quite a long time. It should be there somewhere.

I'll look when I get home, but I'm 99% sure XMP isn't there.

[Eastman51]

1 hour ago, Windows7ge said:

? XMP has been a standard feature for quite a long time. It should be there somewhere.

 

Edit:

But if it's not you should be able to set the voltage/timing/speed manually.

XMP is definitely not there, but yes I can manually edit things

[Eastman51]

1 hour ago, Windows7ge said:

Things may have changed since DDR3 but back then it was know when occupying every single slot it become more difficult to achieve higher RAM clocks. Try removing the 2 new sticks and enabling XMP. If everything works as it use to my suspicion is a possibility. You can try swamping to the new sticks to farther test this.

Going back to this: New sticks work great in dual channel (A1, B1). Old sticks work fine in single channel (A1, A2). Something else may be amiss here....

Edit: New sticks also POST in A1, A2 @ 2933Mhz

[Eastman51]

Cleared POST with all 4 @ 2933MHz

new sticks A1, A2

old sticks B1, B2

 

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

what is going on?

[Eastman51]

Bumped it up to 3000MHz, immediate fail. 

Edit: dropped back to 2933MHz worked flawlessly again. Voltage or timings maybe?

[Eastman51]

Changed DRAM voltage to 1.35v, now posted at 3000Mhz. 

[Eastman51]

I'm not sure what the hell happened, but I was having issues posting beyond 2133Mhz with slot A2 filled the other day. Now its working. And with the voltage change I can actually run 3000Mhz now. 

 

I ran Fire Strike and Time Spy is running right now, we haven't crashed so I think I'm going to call it good from here on out. Thanks for the help everyone

[Hans Power]

I'd check if you have some kind of Fast boot option for the RAM in the bios. If so, disable it. On my Gigabyte Mainboard it was on by default and it resulted in a pretty dodgy boot-up sequence or no boot at all. As far as I know that feature can result in RAM not getting detected correctly which can lead to various problems.

[Eastman51]

1 minute ago, Hans Power said:

I'd check if you have some kind of Fast boot option for the RAM in the bios. If so, disable it. On my Gigabyte Mainboard it was on by default and it resulted in a pretty dodgy boot-up sequence or no boot at all. As far as I know that feature can result in RAM not getting detected correctly which can lead to various problems.

I always disable Fast Boot, every machine I ever configure/use I disable it.

[Hans Power]

48 minutes ago, Eastman51 said:

Changed DRAM voltage to 1.35v, now posted at 3000Mhz. 

I checked for the correct timings and voltage on the Corsair Website and your memory appearently runs at 15-17-17-35@1.35V so you set the voltage correctly which is good and how it should be. If you haven't done it already I'd also check if your timings are set right. If so you should be golden.