RAM slots 3+4 not working.

Scott Macbeth · September 24, 2019

Hoping you can all shed some light on an issue im having at the moment, which means story time!. I have a Ryzen 7 3700x MSI MPG Gaming x570 motherboard and 2x 8GB corsair vengaence RGB Pro 3600 mhz. I recently removed the stock cooler that came with my ryzen chip and the cpu came out with it (stuck to the heatsink) managed to get it off and put the cpu back in the slot I can't 100% confirm yet as removing the stock cooler with the annoying retention clips is a pain but ever since I can only boot with my ram in single channel on slots 1+2 on my MB. When i put my RAM in slots 1+3 and 2+4 for dual channel it wont boot and my board throws out a EZ debug LED for ram and won't boot. I haven't tested if my ram works in slots 3+4 yet but is it possible that some thermal paste got on some pins on my cpu and stopped me being able to allow dual channel or is it more likely i have dead slots 3+4. All my parts are at most 2 months old and have previously worked before re seating the cpu. I can confirm there was no bent pins before putting the cpu in but with the retention cooler i can't confirm they aren't bent right now...

If anyone can tell me if its possible a couple pins with paste on would stop me being able to boot in dual channel I'll investigate that further. Any help appreciated kind folks!

*bump+edit* I have tested my RAM in slots 3+4 and neither slots work. Could this be an issue with possibly thermal paste on a few pins or dead slots in a motherboard? Any advice appreciated.