Anyone ever had BOTH brand new sticks of memory come in DOA?

[Avalon]

Bought a pair of G.Skill 4GB DDR3 1600 sticks off Newegg. Can't seem to get either one working in either my Asrock Z77 Extreme4 or my Gigabyte Z68 UD3. Kind of unusual. I've experienced rare situations where one stick in a kit would be bad or dead, but not both. Regardless of what slot I put either stick in, the system just power cycles. When I pop in my older G.Skill set of DDR3 1333, it works just fine.

 

[Cerb]

Yes. I don't think the typical plastic/paper packaging protects the RAM very well. That's my speculation for such failures. I've even had it occur once with a Transcend registered ECC DDR kit (not exactly your average cheapo RAM), and it had to run underclocked, to boot (funky Opteron RAM dividers).

RAM in a cardboard box, with each stick in its anti-stat bag? That is how you protect sticks on their way from the factory to a computer (also how Crucial could get away charging more than others, on top of the extra cost of registered ECC -- note: I don't know that they still do this for the server RAM).

 

[VirtualLarry]

Hmm, never had that problem.

Had a pair of Centon DDR sticks, that threw massive errors when installed in an AMD64 S939 system, but ran just peachy in an Intel DDR chipset system.

I attribute that to the S939 A64 DDR memory controller putting the RAM through more of a workout than they would ordinarily get from an Intel rig, that still used FSB system.

I also had some GSkill 2GB DDR2-800 DIMMs, the popular blue ones, that ran just fine in nearly all of my rigs, but gave boot issues when attempting to upgrade my friend's rig with an Abit P35 board. Stuck his 4x1GB HP DDR2-667 back in, and it booted up no problem.

Edit: OP, did you clear the CMOS, after installing the new RAM? Sometimes, the sub-timings might be off, and need to be re-detected after a CMOS clear.

 

[BrightCandle]

Yes I have. It seems quite common for RAM to be marked as supporting a speed it genuinely can't reach. I suspect someone in the chain of RAM validation has got it wrong and its been packaged and shipped from so called "grey" suppliers.

RAM not working is actually pretty common, their validation process seems to be seriously lacking.

 

[Avalon]

@VL - Yeah we cleared CMOS. Prior to that, the settings were 1333 9-9-9-24 (what the older RAM was running). I think what I'll try doing is manually setting to 1600 9-9-9-24 (XMP settings for new RAM) with one of the older sticks in, save, and then swap out and see if it works.

Else I guess I'm just returning to Newegg.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I had that happen but it turned out my motherboard at the time was super picky with memory. Had to get the right sticks.

 

[bryanl]

Yes I have. It seems quite common for RAM to be marked as supporting a speed it genuinely can't reach. I suspect someone in the chain of RAM validation has got it wrong and its been packaged and shipped from so called "grey" suppliers.

I've recently seen major brand RAM with speed ratings beyond that of any chip manufacturer's. Obviously some people forgot the importance of maintaining credibility when telling lies.