Windows Automatic Repair after RAM upgrade

[Menzenski]

First here's my system config: 2500k, Z68X-UD3H-B3, 8GB G Skill 1333 DDR3, GTX 570 Classified, Seasonic 660W platinum, MX 200 250GB.  I am running Windows 10 Pro which was installed through the upgrade process from Windows 8.1 Pro.

 

Today I installed a new ram kit.  The new kit is 32GB G Skill 1600 DDR3.  After installing the new ram, I booted the computer, it posted just fine, but seemed to fail getting into windows.  When I say fail, I mean that it showed the windows logo, but nothing else.  No spinny circle, no words, just a logo.  So I powered down the machine by holding the power button in after 10 minutes of waiting.  I then entered the BIOS to check the ram settings, all 32GB is detected in the BIOS, and I set the speed manually to 1333.  

 

After saving the BIOS, Windows went directly into "Preparing Automatic Repair" which lasted for 30 minutes, then a black screen with a cmd window that briefly popped up named winpeshl.exe from what I could tell.  Then the screen just went full black.  I let that go for another 30-ish minutes figuring windows was working on something, before hard resetting again.

 

Is this fixable?  Does the RAM upgrade automatically require a "repair" in Windows 10 Pro?  

 

And another related question:  If I need to reinstall, how do I download Windows 10 Pro from the Media Creation Tool?  Trying to create install media from my laptop does not give me the Windows 10 Pro option in the drop down.  I suspect that has to do with my laptop having Windows 10 (non-pro).  How do I go about that?

 

Thanks for any help.

[Demoux]

Sandy bridge only supports up to 1333Mhz. Check your bios and see if you have an XMP setting, you may be able to force it to work.

http://www.intel.com/consumer/game/extreme-memory.htm

[Menzenski]

Just now, Demoux said:

Sandy bridge only supports up to 1333Mhz. Check your bios and see if you have an XMP setting, you may be able to force it to work.

http://www.intel.com/consumer/game/extreme-memory.htm

hmm, well XMP is disabled in my bios, and I manually set the frequency to 1333MHz.  My board posts just fine each time and all the ram is detected in the bios.  What I fear may have happened is that I interrupted some sort of post configuration change when I first hard reset it, and that prompted the auto repair which is failing.

[Demoux]

Have you put the working RAM back in just to check?

[Menzenski]

Just now, Demoux said:

Have you put the working RAM back in just to check?

I have not tried that yet, but that is a good idea.

[Demoux]

9 minutes ago, Menzenski said:

I have not tried that yet, but that is a good idea.

Try that, and if it works fine, try using an XMP profile with your new RAM. also is your new RAM dual or quad channel?

 

[Menzenski]

8 minutes ago, Demoux said:

Try that, and if it works fine, try using an XMP profile with your new RAM. also is your new RAM dual or quad channel?

 

Well interestingly enough, I put the old ram back in and it booted right up normally.  New ram is dual channel.

[Demoux]

6 minutes ago, Menzenski said:

New ram is dual channel.

So you have 2 sticks at 16gb each?

[Menzenski]

9 minutes ago, Demoux said:

So you have 2 sticks at 16gb each?

Its a 4 x 8GB kit, but its dual channel.  I just reinstalled the new ram and my board posts just fine.  However it didn't let me get into the bios.  On screen is the normal windows start up logo and circle spinner, but its been on screen for about 5 minutes now and it usually is there for 5 seconds.  

 

I went and found a PS2 keyboard that I'll try to get into the bios with after I see what happens with this boot attempt

[Menzenski]

Got into the bios, enabled XMP, made sure all the timings and voltages were correct (9-9-9-24, 1.5v) and rebooted.  Currently starting at the same start up screen, circle spinner going round and round and round.

 

If this goes no where I'll try taking out two of the sticks and seeing if I can get into windows with a less demanding memory config.

[Menzenski]

I did another hard reset.  Before removing any modules I checked the settings again and noticed the timings were tighter than what the memory is rated for.  So I disabled XMP, and manually set 1333MHz, 9-9-9-24, 1.5v.  After rebooting it went immediately to "Preparing Automatic Repair" again, so I'm not sure this will be any different than the other times but I'll update with what happens.

[AnnoyedShelf]

1 hour ago, Demoux said:

Sandy bridge only supports up to 1333Mhz. Check your bios and see if you have an XMP setting, you may be able to force it to work.

http://www.intel.com/consumer/game/extreme-memory.htm

Doesn't matter.  My Nehalem i5 is running 1866Mhz memory at 1333MHz just fine.  It doesn't matter the speed of the RAM, the motherboard will automatically set it to the maximum speed supported.

[Menzenski]

1 minute ago, AnnoyedShelf said:

Doesn't matter.  My Nehalem i5 is running 1866Mhz memory at 1333MHz just fine.  It doesn't matter the speed of the RAM, the motherboard will automatically set it to the maximum speed supported.

Yeah that too.  I'm pretty darn sure that this is a windows issue, not an issue with any of the hardware.  My motherboard has posted every time without issue and all the ram is detected.

[AnnoyedShelf]

8 minutes ago, Menzenski said:

Yeah that too.  I'm pretty darn sure that this is a windows issue, not an issue with any of the hardware.  My motherboard has posted every time without issue and all the ram is detected.

Yeah there's no way RAM could have anything to do with this.  Maybe do a couple memtest's just to be safe though.

[Menzenski]

Just now, AnnoyedShelf said:

Yeah there's no way RAM could have anything to do with this.  Maybe do a couple memtest's just to be safe though.

The interesting thing is that putting by old 8GB kit back in completely resolves the issue.  Boots straight into windows without any issues at all.  So something must be happening.  For all I know it could be a bad ram slot on my board, I've only ever used two of them after all.

[AnnoyedShelf]

Just now, Menzenski said:

The interesting thing is that putting by old 8GB kit back in completely resolves the issue.  Boots straight into windows without any issues at all.  So something must be happening.  For all I know it could be a bad ram slot on my board, I've only ever used two of them after all.

could also be a bad RAM stick.  Try any and all configurations if you can.  A friend of mine bought RAM for his laptop and had a similar issue.  Returned the RAM for different DIMMs and it fixed his problem

[AnnoyedShelf]

1 hour ago, Demoux said:

Try that, and if it works fine, try using an XMP profile with your new RAM. also is your new RAM dual or quad channel?

 

Could only be dual channel if he's on a 2500k FYI

[Sors]

I just had a very similar problem with an old i3, I bought new ram and when I put it in the system started failing similar to what you describe, I spend a lot of time trying to troubleshot it and as a last resource I took an old DDR3 module from another PC, then the system worked perfectly fine.  

 

This machine also had an old gigabyte board, so I am sure that your problem is incompatibility between the board and the RAM modules.

 

These old boards do not like modern 1600 memory.    I always thought that any DDR3 module would work with any system, but that is not true.

[Menzenski]

40 minutes ago, AnnoyedShelf said:

could also be a bad RAM stick.  Try any and all configurations if you can.  A friend of mine bought RAM for his laptop and had a similar issue.  Returned the RAM for different DIMMs and it fixed his problem

 

Beginning to look like that is the case.  Currently booted into windows with 16GB total, with one stick in each of the slots I've always been using (the primary channel).  So these two stick and two slots probably aren't the issue.  Going to swap to the other two sticks in the same slots and see if I can boot again.

 

28 minutes ago, Sors said:

I just had a very similar problem with an old i3, I bought new ram and when I put it in the system started failing similar to what you describe, I spend a lot of time trying to troubleshot it and as a last resource I took an old DDR3 module from another PC, then the system worked perfectly fine.  

 

This machine also had an old gigabyte board, so I am sure that your problem is incompatibility between the board and the RAM modules.

 

These old boards do not like modern 1600 memory.    I always thought that any DDR3 module would work with any system, but that is not true.

 

Interesting.  Well, I'm now able to report that these modules work in the board (at least two at a time).  Were you able to get any success on your system with the newer modules?

[Menzenski]

Just swapped in the other two modules, and booted straight into windows without any problems.  I might be missing some bios setting that could be useful here, I'll have to dig deeper - at least after I swap to the other pair of slots to make sure they work.

 

EDIT: Yep, the other two slots work just fine.  So at this point I know that (at least for experimentation purposes) all four slots and all four modules are working.  Going to dig through the bios now.

[Sors]

I couldn't made the system work with the newer memory, so I just ended plugging the new modules in my PC, and using the old ones I had in it for the i3.

[AnnoyedShelf]

1 hour ago, Menzenski said:

Just swapped in the other two modules, and booted straight into windows without any problems.  I might be missing some bios setting that could be useful here, I'll have to dig deeper - at least after I swap to the other pair of slots to make sure they work.

 

EDIT: Yep, the other two slots work just fine.  So at this point I know that (at least for experimentation purposes) all four slots and all four modules are working.  Going to dig through the bios now.

This is such a bizarre issue.  Why would the BIOS fuck with that?  Wait does your RAM have the same timings?

[Menzenski]

2 minutes ago, AnnoyedShelf said:

This is such a bizarre issue.  Why would the BIOS fuck with that?  Wait does your RAM have the same timings?

Yes, manually set the timings to what they're rated for, 9-9-9-24.  Also tried 10-10-10-27 and no beans.  Currently trying with three sticks.  And the ram timings are exactly what the old kit was so.

 

I've found a couple other threads around the internet with this issue, windows 10 upgrading to 32gb ram on the Z68 chipset, and none of them have posted solutions so...

 

Here's some of the other links if anyone is interested:

http://www.tenforums.com/general-support/39274-ram-upgrade-32gb-windows-10-wont-start.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2668880/upgraded-20gb-32gb-ram-fully-boot.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2871849/windows-boot-32gb-ram.html

[Menzenski]

And three sticks works just fine for 24GB... I'm not sure what to try here at this point.  

[AnnoyedShelf]

Just now, Menzenski said:

And three sticks works just fine for 24GB... I'm not sure what to try here at this point.  

I'd say try installing windows 10 on another drive to see if a reinstall is the fix, but now that your windows key is stored on your mobo, don't do it.