Dell Sandy Bridge Motherboard Does not work with 2 rams sticks

[Compman55]

If I place the factory OEM ram in the two slots that dell chose the motherboard keeps rebooting. If I put only one in, everything runs perfecto. If I take these two sticks out and test in another machine they test perfect in memtest and work fine.

If I take two other sticks from another machine and put in dell, same thing, constant restarts. So often in fact you cannot keep it running long enough to boot memtest.

The whole problem is the motherboard is not liking two sticks, and it worked for years with no problem, now all of a sudden. No bad capacitors by the way.

Any ideas?

 

[Puffnstuff]

Well I believe that you've answered your own question on this one by stating the obvious. You might try resetting the bios, de-energizing the board completely, try cleaning the contacts in the slots with a q-tip and alcohol and see if it makes a difference. Once done and the problem persists then you are right back to square one with is the obvious - that your board has gone bad and needs to be replaced.

 

[Compman55]

What would have gone bad on the board? The fact it will work with either stick but not with two, is perplexing. It used 150psi of compressed air to blow the dust out of the slots and whole computer.

 

[PhIlLy ChEeSe]

How do you know you don't have bad caps? They can bulge underneath, the only way to test a cap properly is to remove it from the board, if it was running all the time(you got bad caps).
But hey, what do I know :biggrin:

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Also make sure both DIMMs are rated identically for frequency and timings. OEM mainboards can be quite picky, and there are usually no way to change those settings.

 

[Compman55]

Also make sure both DIMMs are rated identically for frequency and timings. OEM mainboards can be quite picky, and there are usually no way to change those settings.

It is the OEM ram that shipped with the machine. Yes they are matched.

The caps could be bad I guess, but I can see the bottom and they look ok as well.

 

[lenjack]

You can't REALLY see the bottoms.

 

[Puffnstuff]

A dimm slot can go back which is why only one will work at a time. Is the slot not showing always the same one? If so then chances are that it has gone bad, could even have a weak finger or two that has pulled away from the dimm contacts. You can try using a precision tool and pull them gently so they extend fully to make contact with the memory and see if that helps you.