Ram doesnt work in certain configurations

Cringe123 · December 13, 2022

Hello. I gave some old parts to a friend so they could make a budget gaming pc. (MSI MPG Z390 Gaming plus, i5-8400, crucial 2400 ram (4X4gb). I tested it all before giving it to them and it was fully functional with no problems. They built their computer but the DRAM led would turn on. I went to have a look at it, I was confident it wasnt the ram as I had just tested it and It was never removed after testing. I cleared cmos, removed gpu and used intergrated, tried redoing all cables but nothing seemed to work.

I tried the ram next and removing a stick of it fixed the problem. I then thought it must be a bad dimm, so I tried puting another stick of ram in the slot I just removed the ram from to make sure it wasnt the slot. It stopped booting again. I then thought it must be the slot so I removed all ram and just put one in that slot. It fully booted. I tried rearranging it a lot and I found a configuration that worked with 12gb. I have no idea why its doing it, it fully worked before and all of sudden it doesnt even though nothing was removed. The only thing they put on the board themselves were the cables, storage, and cooler. Could a wrongly installed cooler cause something like this maybe? They dont seem to care at all that theres only 12gb of ram now and just care it works so I dont know if its worth looking into further. What could it be? My main guess is that they installed the cooler wrong, if it is does it matter as long as its working now? Thank you.

SupaKomputa · December 13, 2022

Install memtest86 to a usb stick and test 1 stick at a time, and all at once.

before testing ,clean the ram thoroughly with pencil eraser (rub the gold contact gently).

Cringe123 · December 13, 2022

5 minutes ago, SupaKomputa said:

Install memtest86 to a usb stick and test 1 stick at a time, and all at once.

before testing ,clean the ram thoroughly with pencil eraser (rub the gold contact gently).

I dont have the ram on me anymore. Its with the person using the computer. I did however test all the ram and all sticks were fully functional. Its just with certain configurations. And again, before when I used it this was a non issue. So It has to be something to do with something they added to it like the cooler maybe.