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Question

Possible Defective Ram Slots

Oct 21, 2015 4:08AM PDT

Hello everyone, recently my computer (which has run for ~2 years in its current configuration) has been experiencing total system freezes just recently.

Equipment in question:
Mobo: ASRock z77 Extreme 6
http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z77%20Extreme6/
*I believe a year or two ago, it was this same board model that blew a capacitor (which woke me up), and I had that one rma’d (computer would not boot at all).

Ram (4gb x4): G.SKILL Ripjaws Series DDR3 1600
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314

CPU: Intel Core i5 2500k
http://ark.intel.com/products/52210/Intel-Core-i5-2500K-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_70-GHz

What I’ve noticed is that all 4 ram sticks will run by themselves and together in the B1 and B2 slots, but the boot process will fail with error 55 (memory not installed correctly) when using the A1 or A2 slots either by themselves or with a second stick in either an A or B slot.

I’m guessing that points to a Mobo failure? Is there anything else I should try? Just before taking the computer apart, I ran Memtest for 1 full pass which found 0 errors (not sure what that means given my current findings).

Any ideas are appreciated, thank you for reading.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Memtest is far from conclusive.
Oct 21, 2015 8:22AM PDT

There are many prior posts where memtest passes and there are memory problems. So I agree, try another board.

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Answer
I had an issue with an older laptop.
Oct 21, 2015 10:52AM PDT

Well the laptop wouldn't start up and i though it was the motherboard. Well I got a call from the place saying it was the memory. So I had them replace the memory and the thing worked fine. Well the battery reached about 5 years old and whenever I had a power outage the laptop would no start back. Well by accident I discovered by testing the memory one stick at a time I discovered that if I removed the memory from the front slot and started the machine it would boot. Then once it rebooted i could shut down and put the memory back in and it would boot. The laptop is 10 years old and this first happened around 5 years ago. So technically it probably was the motherboard from day one but when they used the different memory stick it just worked.