[SOLVED] ASUS motherboard 2 of 4 RAM slots not working Q Code 01 & 03 not booting

[Fin998]

I have an ASUS Maximus viii hero MB and intel i7 6700k CPU and the A1 and A2 slots are not working. I've recently bought four new sticks of ram 4 x 8 GB Crucial Ballistix memory 3200 DDR4. I've tested each ram stick individually and they all work fine. When I use one or two sticks in either slot B1 and/or B2 my pc boots up fine. However, if there are any sticks inserted into any of the A1 or A2 slots my MB keeps giving me 01 (Power On, reset type detection) and 03 (system agent initialization before microcode loading) Q codes and refuses to boot. My two old ram sticks were inserted into B1 and B2. If I remember correctly, I tried the recommended config for two sticks but it wasn't working so I just went with whatever worked and didn't think too much about it.

Here are some of the troubleshooting that I've tried:
Check the pins of the CPU
Readjusted the pressure of the CPU cooler
Compressed air the RAM slots
Clear CMOS
Updated BIOS
Turned DRAM Voltage to 1.35V

If those two slots are dead, I might buy a new motherboard when Black Friday comes around. But I just want to make sure I've tried everything and that it's actually dead.

Thanks for reading.

 

[geofelt]

You have done all of the tests normally required.

One of the common reasons for motherboard slots to not work is a bent pin in the cpu socket.
It is all too easy to damage them if you are not careful.
I would double check the pins again. Damaged pins are hard to detect. Even one will do it.

Next, it is possible that the motherboard was defective day one.
That is a very nice motherboard and you may have to pay through the nose to find a replacement at a decent price.

I had such a situation before which was difficult to diagnose.
It turned out that the processor was defective. Intel replaced it under warranty.
If you can borrow any compatible processor to test with, you can eliminate that possibility.

Was the 4 sticks of 3200 speed ram all from the same kit?
If not, that could be a problem whenever you finally get to run with 4 sticks.
Ram must be matched to run properly.

One option is to run in single channel mode with 16gb.
With a discrete graphics card, you will not lose much in fps or app run times. Perhaps 5%.

At this point, consider upgrading to current 10th gen processor and motherboard.
They are really very good.

 

[Fin998]

You have done all of the tests normally required.

One of the common reasons for motherboard slots to not work is a bent pin in the cpu socket.
It is all too easy to damage them if you are not careful.
I would double check the pins again. Damaged pins are hard to detect. Even one will do it.

Next, it is possible that the motherboard was defective day one.
That is a very nice motherboard and you may have to pay through the nose to find a replacement at a decent price.

I had such a situation before which was difficult to diagnose.
It turned out that the processor was defective. Intel replaced it under warranty.
If you can borrow any compatible processor to test with, you can eliminate that possibility.

Was the 4 sticks of 3200 speed ram all from the same kit?
If not, that could be a problem whenever you finally get to run with 4 sticks.
Ram must be matched to run properly.

One option is to run in single channel mode with 16gb.
With a discrete graphics card, you will not lose much in fps or app run times. Perhaps 5%.

At this point, consider upgrading to current 10th gen processor and motherboard.
They are really very good.

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately I don't have any extra parts to test with and I've had this PC for around 5 years now so warranty is out of the question. The 4 ram sticks are the same speeds. I'm currently running two of the new sticks in the B1 and B2 slots just so I can boot up and use my pc. I think you might be right, the motherboard was properly defective since day one.

 

[geofelt]

Just for future reference.
On ram, the same speeds means nothing.
Not even the same timings or even part numbers mean that disparate sticks can work together.
A motherboard must manage all the ram using the same specs of voltage, cas and speed.
The internal workings are designed for the capacity of the kit.
Ram from the same vendor and part number can be made up of differing manufacturing components over time.
Some motherboards, can be very sensitive to this.
This is more difficult when more sticks are involved.

Still even with separate sticks, your odds of working together are good. Perhaps 90%.