Error during memory overclock and intermittent freezes one year post-assembly.
Error during memory overclock and intermittent freezes one year post-assembly.
Hi, I recently assembled my first PC in November and have been fine until now. Recently, it started freezing and became unresponsive. The mouse, keyboard, and screens got stuck, requiring a power cycle to restart. A few days ago, I encountered an issue where the PC wouldn’t boot and the EZ Debug LED on my MSI board showed a RAM error. After a couple restarts, it would boot but with a memory overclock warning. I have two G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series sticks (2 x 16GB) at 3600 MHz, enabled XMP during build and never had overclock issues before. I turned off the overclock this morning and haven’t seen any crashes yet. Could the RAM be faulty or is there another problem? I’m hoping to reach full speed from my RAM. Thanks!
Generally, whenever a RAM light flashes, running memtest86 can be a useful step, even though memory issues can occur randomly. There’s a chance it relates to cosmic rays. Another option involves testing one stick at a time for a short period to check if the issue resolves, then switching to the other. Issues appearing on just one stick suggest a faulty RAM module, while none on both may indicate another problem such as a loose connection. Memtest86 isn’t perfect—it’s the most reliable version available. It performs better than the basic Microsoft tool, which is often too lenient and may require a second run even after passing. Doing a full test on one stick with an extra check can be time-consuming, sometimes lasting weeks.
Edited November 12, 2022 by Bombastinator