[SOLVED] 4 GB Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR3-1600 DIMM ram stick very unstable

[SamsungASUS]

Hi everyone, I have a serious issue with a Crucial Ballistix DDR3 ram stick and have had the issue ever since. The ram stick was initially purchased with an another ram stick that is exactly the same as the problematic ram stick to make an 8 GB ram kit. The other stick is working perfectly fine, but the problematic ram stick didn't work for a long time, and still doesn't work to this day. Whenever I tried to use the problematic ram stick with the working one, installing Windows would result in a blue screen of death, regardless of the Windows version, and I mainly attempted to install modern versions of Windows like 7,8, and even 10. When I tried to use the problematic ram stick on it's own without another ram stick, it would blue screen immediately without even getting into the Windows setup. I initially used USB 2.0 flash drives to install Windows, but I highly doubt using an optical drive would've made a difference. I had attempted to fix the ram stick on my own, but every result ended up in a failure. I initially read that if a ram stick or slot is dirty, Windows would blue screen repeatedly. I knew it couldn't be the ram slot, because I had tested the ram stick on multiple DDR3 type motherboards, and every single one of them blue screened with the particular ram stick. I also read up that people cleaned their ram stick pins with isopropyl alcohol and even with a pencil eraser, but the ram stick still blue screened after the cleaning. I was going to attempt a final solution that I put a lot of research into. I had read that baking the ram stick in an oven at a certain temperature would reconnect some solder that could be loose in the ram stick. I've also been told that might not work. I realized that I don't have the proper knowledge of how to fix this ram stick, and that asking for help would be a better solution. If the ram stick is truly not fixable, I understand and will move on and either forget about the ram stick or attempt to try and find the exact ram stick for a good price and replace the problematic ram stick.

 

[Lutfij]

Don't bother baking, the fact that the stick of ram is problematic on all donor system's/platforms indicates that the stick of ram you have identified is faulty. If you're within the lifetime warranty period of the stick of ram, contact Crucial and see if you can get an RMA. Outside of that, baking won't do you any good. You're just depleting resources.

At this point, I'd suggest that you invest into a dual channel ram kit. As for your ram kit, what is the make and model of your motherboard and what BIOS version are you on at the time of writing? Make and model of your PSU and it's age?

 

[Mr.Spock]

RMA for sure, better than doing something ill-advised which may void your warranty

 

[SamirD]

Most ram has a lifetime warranty. I think you have definitively proven that module is bad (kudos for that work), so I'd just use the warranty.

 

[SamsungASUS]

Most ram has a lifetime warranty. I think you have definitively proven that module is bad (kudos for that work), so I'd just use the warranty.

Thank you so much for the advice. What you said worked, and I'm getting a new replacement ram stick from Crucial. Thank you so much for your help.