Memory Trouble

rickg100

I have an Aspire z5101 all-in-one. It came with 2x2G of RAM and I added 2x2G more. Thing worked fine for a while, then I started getting BSODs - always followed by the machine not booting (powers on, the blue front LEDs come on, but it never gets to the POST screen). Unlugging for a few hours gets it booting again, but only until the next BSOD (sometimes hours, sometimes weeks).

 

Eventually, I relaized this is a memory issue, so I started troubleshooting.

 

If I remove all but 1 stick of RAM, things work perfectly. Any 1 of the 4 sticks I have work perfect, as long as I have it in slot 1 (or maybe it's 4, I don't know which side to count from). But as soon as I add a 2nd stick (I add the matching stick, and put it in the matching colour slot), the BSODs come back (usually within minutes).  If I do a memtest, it runs for a bit, then I get a screen full of "snow" (colours dots everywhere). Same thing happens if I have 1 stick in any other slot.

So for now, I'm running with just the 1 stick of RAM, but running Windows 8.1 with 2G RAM isn't ideal.

 

So, I'm pretty sure all 4 sticks are good. Could it be that all 3 of my 4 DIMM slots are suddenly bad? Any suggestions would be greatly appricited. 

 

finlux

Hi rickg100!

 

I presume all the sticks are the correct type for your mobo?

 

Try testing out each stick ONE BY ONE in the first slot. Usually bad RAM will make itself known sooner rather than later.

 

If the PC continues to work fine, with all the sticks (tested in the first slot), then it may well be a motherboard problem.

rickg100

I did that, each stick individually works fine in the 1st slot. They also all seem to work in the 3rd slot, and I can get a pair to work if they are in slots 1 and 3.

 

Where it fails when I put 2 sticks in 1&2 or 3&4 - going into dual chanel mode seems cause the problems.

finlux

Then you may have mismatched RAM.

 

Try Crucial's scanner. This program scans your PC and will advise on the type of memory you have, and what you'll need to upgrade. You can then check to see if the second set of memory is correct.

 

The link is for the UK site, but you can change it to your country by clicking on the flag in the top right corner.

 

But, if all appears well, then you may have a mobo problem...