Memory or motherboard?

[Tullphan]

I'm working on a PC for a friend. It gives me a memory management error (blue screen). It has a fresh install of windows & only video drivers (from nVidia), cpu-z, p95, & core temp are installed.
He has an EVGA X58 SLI motherboard, 2x8800GTS in SLI. The memory he's using is G.Skill F3-12800CL7D-4GBRM. He has 12GB total, but they're 3 sets of 2x4GB kits.
I installed all 6 sticks at first & did fine. Ran P95 for 18 hours w/no problem (small FFT's after running 7 hours of large FFT's), 20 passes w/Intel Burn Test, an hour & a half of Furmark. No problems. I rebooted, the first screen (where it shows the CPU, HDD's, DVD/CD's, etc) showed 8GB ram & got into a constant reboot. I booted into Memtest86+ & as soon as it started it showed error after error. I quit, shut down, took out 3 sticks, restarted & all it did was run the fans. I moved those 3 sticks to the next slots & it booted, went into Memtest & again, errors. I took out those 3 sticks & put in the other 3, turned it on & just the fans running. I moved them to the other 3 slots, powered on & again to Memtest. This time it ran for hours w/no issues.
My friend swears up & down the memory is good. He told me he can fill up 4 of the 6 slots & it runs like a champ. I explained to him that it's set up for either 3 or six sticks. He told me that a tech from EVGA told him that he (the tech) would almost bet the problem lies with a bent pin under the CPU. Myself, I think it's the ram since 3 sticks booted & the other 3 brought errors.
Thoughts?

 

[tweakboy]

Neither. I don't think any of your gear is shady.

Try running all stock , and stock memory speeds and voltage and everything, stock it then run your test and let us know. No reason to replace your nice motherboard and solid ram. If its a error or blue screen after 2 hours of testing then its not the RAM or it would have done it sooner.. ya know..

 

[Tullphan]

The inconsistency i'm experiencing with this is about to make me pull the rest of my hair out.
I did check the socket for bent pins like the EVGA tech told my friend. They were all in perfect alignment.

 

[Denithor]

Check individual sticks with Memtest. There's nothing magic about running 3 sticks together, except you get the minor advantage of triple channel memory. For testing purposes though, you need to test each stick to make sure they are all fine.

Put one stick in the first slot and fire up. Run Memtest. If it errors out, try same stick in slot 2, etc. If it continues to error out the stick is bad. Repeat with the other sticks until you confirm either all sticks good and one (or more) bad sockets on the board or perhaps one (or more) bad sticks.

 

[Tullphan]

I ended up just using "auto" settings. Every time I tried changing the settings manually to the factory settings, it started acting stupid.