Switched around memory sticks

Roman1998 · November 16, 2020

Hey guys, just a quick question. I recently went on to cleaning my pc thoroughly. Since there was even quit a lot of dust between the RAM sticks, i pulled them out en cleaned everything. When I put everything back together I didn't quite remember which stick came from which slot. So I put them in randomly and, after reassembling my rig, it became stuck in a boot loop. Eventually I solved the problem by switching around the RAM sticks until it booted normally, and now everything is working fine, but here's my question; why did my pc get stuck in a boot loop? RAM is volatile right? So I can't imagine some left over data being the problem. Could anyone maytbe answer this question? Thanks!

boggy77 · November 16, 2020

cpus have preferred ram slots. they are usually 2 and 4. by putting them "randomly", you minimise the chance the xmp profile works.

boggy77 · November 16, 2020

1 minute ago, WikiForce said:

but what does that have to do with a boot loop? that would just make the sticks run at slower speed and no dual channel

if an overclock or xmp profile is applied in bios, the cpu will still try to run those sticks at xmp, even when they are in slots 3 and 4. and it can't run them at xmp when they are in slots 3 and 4, so it bootloops.

also, if this is a ryzen cpu, it is so picky with ram that it might not boot at all if the ram is not in slots 2 and 4, regardless of xmp/overclock