Problems with 16GB of mixed RAM modules
Problems with 16GB of mixed RAM modules
I've been working with mismatched RAM for nearly five years without any problems. Until recently, everything was fine. My system runs smoothly with an i5 6402p processor, a B150 Bazooka Plus motherboard, and the following RAM setup: 8GB Patriot DDR4 2133, 8GB Kingston Fury 2133. If you want more details, just let me know.
Yesterday, my PC suddenly froze without any mouse or keyboard input. I restarted it, but it froze again shortly after. No use of the mouse or keyboard afterward. After a short wait, it froze once more before resuming. I restarted and saw this message: "All settings were reset to default values. The previous overclock settings have failed, system has been restored to its default settings. Press F1 to enter setup. Press F2 to load default values and continue." I chose the default option, and everything worked perfectly afterward.
About an hour later, it froze again. I restarted, but this time it kept trying to power on for over a second before shutting down repeatedly. Eventually, I had to turn it off with the power button.
I went online to investigate and tried troubleshooting by using only one stick of the Kingston RAM (the one farthest from the CPU). It worked perfectly. I've been using just 8GB now for about a year and everything is functioning normally.
However, I'm considering upgrading to 16GB of RAM again. I'm unsure if I need to adjust anything in the BIOS or make other changes. Since I've been using mismatched RAM for five years, this is the first time it's caused issues.
I also have a large collection of 7TB games spread across three hard drives. I'm hesitant about rebuilding my system around the GPU and case because of the massive storage load. I'm not sure what the best path would be to resolve this without running into problems.
This is just a suggestion in addition to the RAM issue. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Also, I'll keep this in mind: I don't have any overheating concerns; both CPU and GPU are operating normally.
Welp, it seems the Patriot stick is defective. That or maybe I could somehow change the timings and it'll run? Probably not. And here's why... The Kingston RAM passed the test with no errors while being in the last RAM slot I've always had it in. I switched it out with the Patriot RAM in the same last slot and turned on the PC. Sure enough, the PC froze while it was about to boot into Windows. On a side note, this same thing happened when the Patriot RAM was in the 2nd slot and the Kingston RAM was in the 4th slot. I also took the Patriot RAM back out and put the Kingston RAM into the 2nd slot away from the CPU because it seems like it's supposed to be there when using just 1 stick of RAM since that's the position the Patriot RAM was installed into when I bought my prebuilt. And sure enough, the PC booted up without issues. I would imagine this means the Patriot RAM stick is defective? Unless there's a way to manually set its timings differently or lower voltage or something and then it magically allows it to work? I would think not. So what I'm thinking I can do is one of the following... Buy a new $35 stick of 1x8GB DDR4 2133 CL 15. There's a Corsair kit with 15-15-15-36 timings and a G.Skill kit with 15-15-15-35 timings for the same $35. Buy a new $110 kit of 2x16GB DDR4 3200 CL 16. It's a Silicon Power XPOWER Turbine kit with 16-18-18-38 timings. Or should I go with a Silicon Power XPOWER Turbine RGB kit for $10 more? Same 16-18-18-38 timings. Either of these kits will just clock itself to DDR4 2133 right? I want to do this route so that when and if I build a new PC anytime soon I can just reuse this RAM.
Sure, I believe the motherboard offers limited flexibility in the BIOS, but it's worth giving it a shot—it might be the best approach. A budget-friendly DDR4 3200 kit should suffice. $110 feels a bit high for this price range in dollars.
I don't understand how to make the PC boot with both sticks in the RAM slots. I'm planning to use the $110 RAM, which is 2x16GB. I know 2x8GB would suffice, but I need 32GB for smoother OS and app performance. I really want to notice that difference. I can definitely feel the impact of having just one 8GB stick versus two 8GB sticks in my system right now.
When you start with one RAM module and add another, your system should notice a big boost in speed because it can now handle two modules at once or use both in dual-channel mode, offering double the data transfer rate compared to single sticks. But unless your workload is very demanding, switching from 16GB to 32GB might not improve performance much.