Added SSD - now having to reseat RAM every time I reboot - help

[nelsonjw]

I have a custom built PC that is a little over a year old. It has a Gigabyte GA-B85M-HD3 LGA1150 mobo (Intel B85) with 2 8 GB RAM sticks, which are Kingston HyperX Red PC3-12800 DDR3 1600MHz. It has worked great, until my most recent upgrade. Yesterday, I replaced a HDD with a SSD and since that change, my computer will not post on reboot or cold boot unless I remove one or both RAM chips. I can boot if I remove one RAM chip and boot with 8 GB, or if I remove both and swap their positions. Works every time if I do either. But unless I do one or the other, it will not boot, period.

I'm considering replacing:
CMOS battery
RAM modules
Power supply (current PSU is Orion HP585DB 585W)

Any suggestions on where to start? I know my PSU is on the weak side since I have a PCI-X 16 graphics card and a Hauppauge TV tuner in there, plus 3 HDDs and now 1 SSD. Should I assume PSU and start there, or pick up a new pair of 8 GB RAM modules?

Thank you.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Try bumping the RAM voltage up just slightly. What is the model and brand of your PSU?

 

[nelsonjw]

Current PSU is: Orion HP585DB 585W

 

[nelsonjw]

I bumped the RAM voltage up to 1.54. Also re-flashed Gigabyte BIOS. So far, so good -- 2 successful reboots since.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Nice. Hopefully that did the trick.

 

[nelsonjw]

I hope so. From a technical standpoint, why might the RAM have not worked properly at 1.5 volts after adding the SSD, but changing to 1.54 volts may have solved my problem?

 

[Darkbreeze]

Different current draws could be responsible. For example.


1) SanDisk Extreme SSD 240GB - 5 vdc; 1.6A

2) WD Scorpio Blue 500GB - 5 vdc; 0.55A


Manufacturers have, for some time, been designing mechanical drives to be more capable of running off USB ports without external power by way of docks and enclosures, so it could be relevant to the POST process if the overall circuit calibration was dropping below what the RAM needed to initialize properly. At least, that's the conclusion I've come to. I'm sure there is a more technical explanation but suffice to say that sometimes when more power hungry hardware is added it adversely affects the RAM and a slight bump is necessary to overcome the issue. It may even have been more related to the BIOS update having better SSD support. I've seen systems that wouldn't even recognize or boot with a new SSD on an older bios revision.