PC that keeps killing RAM

[Telescuffle]

Hi All,

 

I recently bought a bunch of used computer parts/borrowed some to make a PC for my S/O.

 

The PC seemed to work fine for a few weeks, however, the GPU (GTX 550Ti) we were using was very old and pretty bad, so we bought a used RX570. This worked fine for a couple of hours, but then came the need to restart the PC in safe mode to uninstall the Nvidia drivers. The PC failed to reboot and appeared to get stuck in a boot loop with the motherboard pointing at the RAM as the issue (see my previous post here). The end result is that all 4 sticks of DDR3 in the system were dead.

 

My theory at the time is that the cheap PSU (650W) had surged on reboot with the increased power draw of the RX570. So I donated my EVGA 600W PSU (which has ran both an R9 Fury and a GTX 1080) and bought some more RAM. The problem seemed resolved.

 

Fast forward to last night and the PC has a Windows update. The PC attempts to restart to install said updates but like before, the PC doesn't manage to post. Again the LED indicating a RAM issue is shown. Today I attempted to use the RAM in my working PC, but the PC fails to post with either module inserted. I assume this lot is dead too.

 

I'm at a loss to what is causing this issue. The next most obvious thing is the motherboard - but all of these issues seems to have occurred after installing the RX570.

What do we think the cause is?

 

The system specs are as follows:

• Intel Core i5-3570k
• (RIP) 2x4GB 1800MHz DDR3 HyperX Fury
• Gigabyte AMD RX570
• 600W EVGA PSU
• Asus P8Z77-V LX

Any help is greatly appreciated. 

 

[keskparane]

Is the RAM overclocked at all in BIOS?

[Telescuffle]

1 minute ago, keskparane said:

Is the RAM overclocked at all in BIOS?

Nope, the RAM was always left at stock speeds. No overclocking was performed on the system. 

[keskparane]

If not overclocked the I doubt BIOS then but still might be worth checking the BIOS version. See if it's current, old, not a beta version, or anything like that.

 

Aside from that I'd think the motherboard would be the issue. I think I'm correct in say it's the motherboard that dictates the RAM voltage, and that's all that I could think would fry RAM.

[keskparane]

Of course assuming you've triple checked the RAM was firmly seated and the latches clicked into place

[Jurrunio]

It's after all an old board, could have developed memory killing habits even if thr 550 didnt retire.

[Telescuffle]

36 minutes ago, keskparane said:

If not overclocked the I doubt BIOS then but still might be worth checking the BIOS version. See if it's current, old, not a beta version, or anything like that.

 

Aside from that I'd think the motherboard would be the issue. I think I'm correct in say it's the motherboard that dictates the RAM voltage, and that's all that I could think would fry RAM.

Yup, running the most up-to-date BIOS (stable, not BETA). And yes, I also suspect its the board - just odd that all of this stemmed from getting the RX570   Though I guess its not impossible that the old PSU caused the motherboard to develop a fault which fried the RAM? 

 

35 minutes ago, keskparane said:

Of course assuming you've triple checked the RAM was firmly seated and the latches clicked into place

Yup, checked all of that a bunch. When it previously happened I took the bored out of the chassis and looked at every possible connection including reseating the RAM.  

 

6 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

It's after all an old board, could have developed memory killing habits even if thr 550 didnt retire.

This is true. The board had been sat doing nothing with my friend for years. So who knows... might have just been real unlucky with the timings.