While the solution seems clear (throw away RAM and buy new one) I’m would like to understand what happened here:
I have a PC with a ~1 month old B650M motherboard with a AMD Ryzen 9 7900.
RAM (4x32Gb) was scavenged from a lenovo computer. The lenovo PC became unusuable after a failed repair attempt but RAM seemed ok.
I used the new PC with the full 128Gb of RAM for about a month. Yesterday, the PC wouldn’t turn on after restarting.
Usually the first thing I see on the monitor is the bitlocker password (even before UEFI) which wouldn’t show. The motherboard has LEDs indicating different components and the one next to ‘RAM’ was shining red.
The only way I found to get the computer back on was to use 1 specific RAM stick in 1 specific position (the ‘A2’ position):
When I use that particular working RAM stick in any other position, I’m unable to turn the PC on which I guess makes sense as it says ‘first’ as can be seen on the picture above.
Any of the other 3 RAM sticks won’t work in the A1 position.
It seems that the 3 RAM sticks are broken but it’s just hard to believe that all 3 RAM sticks stopped working simultaneously after a normal PC restart.
I am confident that at least >90Gb of RAM were used ~2 weeks ago when I checked with Windows task manager indicating that all 4 sticks seem to have been in use.
I had 2 questions:
- Is it expected that a single RAM stick would only work in the A2 position? In other words, is there also a problem with the motherboard?
- Any ideas what can happen to destroy 3 RAM sticks simultaneously? Any other things you like to test/do before giving up on the RAM?
