RAM Failure?

CesarV01 · December 30, 2020

Hi All,

So recently I built my gaming PC and unfortunately it doesn't seem to be stable. It all started when Windows randomly gave me the Blue Screen of Death saying it was an issue with the memory (RAM). I ran Windows Memory Diagnostic and it found issues with 1 of the 2 sticks installed. I tried swapping them out and using different Ram slots to be sure.

I tried rebooting my PC with only the good Ram Stick installed but when I launch Call of Duty Warzone, the game freezes as soon as the match loads. I can play for about 5 mins before the issue repeats. I ran stress tests on the CPU/GPU and it was able to push through them with no issues. Any idea if this may be a software issue or if I should replace anything else besides my RAM? I have absolutely no overclocking on this PC, all stock. The game also crashed with Battlefield as well. Running regular windows and surfing the web gives no issue at all. All Nvidia Drivers are installed, latest windows update installed as well.

My Specs:

AsRock Steel Legend B450m

32GB Corsair Vengeance Pro (Running with 1 Stick @ 16GB at the moment) XMP loaded to 3200mhz, sticks are originally rated at 3200mhz.

1 TB NVME WD Black

1 TB Samsung SSD EVO (Windows Boot Drive)

RTX 3060ti 8GB

Ryzen 3700x with Stock Prism Cooler (AMD software reports the CPU around 50C with no major tasks open/idle).

NZXT C750 - 750W Power Supply

Senzelian · December 30, 2020

Motherboard manufacturers offer a QVL list on their support website for each individual board, in which you can see, which specific RAM kits should work at which speeds and the number of DIMMs. It might just be that your current RAM kit simply doesn't work at this speed in combination with your motherboard.

If the RAM kit isn't on that list, it doesn't mean that it doesn't work tho. It can still work just fine, but the QVL lists are a good way of making sure that the RAM works before you buy it.

Here's the list for your motherboard:
https://www.asrock.com/mb/amd/b450m steel legend/#MemoryMS (It's important to check the product number)

Instead of buying a new kit, you can try to manually overclock them to 3200Mhz, but instead adjust the timings to something higher.

Or you lower the frequency to let's say 3000 and instead also lower the timings. That's something you'd have to play with to see what's stable.

But if you don't want to deal with that, I recommend either a slower XMP profile or return the RAM and get something on that QVL list.

CesarV01 · December 30, 2020

4 hours ago, Senzelian said:

Motherboard manufacturers offer a QVL list on their support website for each individual board, in which you can see, which specific RAM kits should work at which speeds and the number of DIMMs. It might just be that your current RAM kit simply doesn't work at this speed in combination with your motherboard.

If the RAM kit isn't on that list, it doesn't mean that it doesn't work tho. It can still work just fine, but the QVL lists are a good way of making sure that the RAM works before you buy it.

Here's the list for your motherboard:
https://www.asrock.com/mb/amd/b450m steel legend/#MemoryMS (It's important to check the product number)

Instead of buying a new kit, you can try to manually overclock them to 3200Mhz, but instead adjust the timings to something higher.

Or you lower the frequency to let's say 3000 and instead also lower the timings. That's something you'd have to play with to see what's stable.

But if you don't want to deal with that, I recommend either a slower XMP profile or return the RAM and get something on that QVL list.

So oddly enough I was able to swap the kit at Best Buy for another one. Same type, same speed and to my surprise it's able to game now. I even Ran Windows Memory Diagnostic and all passed. The Kit isn't on the AsRock QVL list but somehow the new kit works fine @ 3200mhz. Perhaps I just had a bad batch? I noticed the bad kit had Ver.4.32 on the back (Which I'm assuming is the revision version) and the new set installed was Ver.8.32 (Perhaps a more recent revision?). Corsair's site also listed this ram as Ryzen Compatible and had the same model for 16GB (8x2) listed on their QVL for this board. Really weird if you ask me.

On a plus side, I'm now hauling about 120-130 FPS on COD Warzone all maxed out settings at 1080P

Senzelian · December 30, 2020

8 hours ago, CesarV01 said:

So oddly enough I was able to swap the kit at Best Buy for another one. Same type, same speed and to my surprise it's able to game now. I even Ran Windows Memory Diagnostic and all passed. The Kit isn't on the AsRock QVL list but somehow the new kit works fine @ 3200mhz. Perhaps I just had a bad batch? I noticed the bad kit had Ver.4.32 on the back (Which I'm assuming is the revision version) and the new set installed was Ver.8.32 (Perhaps a more recent revision?). Corsair's site also listed this ram as Ryzen Compatible and had the same model for 16GB (8x2) listed on their QVL for this board. Really weird if you ask me.

On a plus side, I'm now hauling about 120-130 FPS on COD Warzone all maxed out settings at 1080P

Good to hear it worked out for you in the end!

It could indeed be that this kit was simply of lower quality or that they changed a few things around with the revision to make it more reliable. Who knows...