RAM issue

GHxC · April 9, 2014

Alright, so I just recently came across this problem when I broke down my PC and reassembled it for dust cleaning, and everything was great until I tried booting up, when I realised that it would boot, but no output to the display or the USB keyboard and mouse, I quickly realised that it was something to do with the ram sticks.

(P.S. my system is based on second gen i7, and the motherboard isn't really that great, its just a base Intel board, and it only has 2 ram slots.)

I tried pulling out one stick and booting, then pulling the other and booting. (2x4GB 1333 MHz)(don't tell me to check if I've securely slotted in my ram sticks or not, I'm not that dumb)

So the PC booted with one of the ram sticks, but didn't with the other, so I came to the conclusion that the stick which didn't boot was probably dead, so I went to get a new ram stick. And just to be sure that its not the ram slot that's dead and it is the ram stick, I pulled out the working ram stick and slotted it into the other slot, and the PC booted, so both the slots are working, and it is infact the ram stick that's dead. But just as a test, I took the dead ram stick over to my friends place, and tried it in his rig, to my surprise, it functions perfectly, its detected in the BIOS and in the os. So now I'm kind of wonder struck.. The ram stick that I thought was dead is working in a friends rig, and and not in mine, but it used to work perfectly, just when I reassembled my PC, it stopped working. I've double checked all the connections, yes the 24 pin is plugged in perfectly to the motherboard. But if it isn't the ram's fault, and it isn't the motherboards fault, what is it?

Keep in mind this ram stick used to work perfectly before.

Now I don't want to buy a new ram stick and test it out for no apparent reason, if the ram stick I currenntly have is not dead, because I'm planning to buy a new PC near the end of the year, especially because of how expensive ram has gotten recently. But if I must I will get a new RAM stick, I was planning on doing that from the beginning. But I'm confused now, what could be the problem?

GHxC · April 9, 2014

I fixed it guys, but I still have some questions unanswered.

It turned out to be the 24 pin connector, the last 4 pins we're dead, so I removed them and used a different 4 pin in its place, and the PC booted with both the ram sticks, so I guess dismantling my PC caused the last 4 pins to break?

But I still have a question... why did only this one ram stick show all signs of being dead, while the other one was perfectly detecting and booting in either ram slot? just the dead stick wasn't working in either slot. But why? what made the system detect one ram stick in any slot, but not the other ram stick? I mean they're identical in every way, they're part of the same ram kit.. and to think I almost went out and wasted some money on a ram stick. Good thing I tested it out on a friends PC.