BSOD Leads to DRAM issue, adjusting ram will fix.

[Saul-T]

Hello community.

I recently built a pc that is starting to give me weird issues.

Specs of my build are as follows:
ASUS STRIX - Z270E

INTEL CORE - I7-7700K

CORSAIR 16GB 8X2 D4 3000

WD 500GB M.2 SSD

Corsair HX 650 W

NVidia GTX 1050 TI SC 4GB
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I have the ram placed on the recommended areas which are a2&b2, and my CPU temperatures are at a steady 50-60 while playing GTA V, and GPU at around 40. Idles for my CPU are around 25 - 30.

Yesterday while I was playing a GTA V online modification I received a BSOD error, and subsequently my PC would not post. Upon inspection of the motherboard I noticed that the orange Dram light was on. After research someone with the same issue was able to post after placing only one of his rams onto the third slot. After being able to boot, I placed the ram sticks back to their original spots. Everything was working fine, but today my game(GTA Network) froze and when I attempted to restart, I once again got the Dram light issue. I fixed it once again by fiddling with the ram sticks, but I'm wondering what might be causing this issue. I've played 7+ hours on single player without issues but have not tested it out recently. Anybody have an idea what may be the cause?

 

[Saul-T]

Just want to add that I have enabled X.M.P on the BIOS which overclocked my ram to its advertised 3000mhz. Could that somehow be the issue?

 

[Oily_Goat]

I am experiencing the same problem with my new build. I am not having trouble booting, however I do recieve BSOD errors and the DRAM warning light. Apart from your GPU and PSU I am running the same specs as you. Like you I changed to 3000mhz but have since reverted to default speed to no avail.

 

[eyupo92]

A BSOD is caused by RAM errors, RAM errors are not caused by BSOD.

What is happening is as follows: one of your RAM sticks is faulty or the RAM sticks are not operating at their supposed timings etc or DIMM slots is faulty. I suppose it is the one you put into second RAM slot, as this occurs only after accessing lots of RAM - at one point RAM is tried to access and just like trying a access a bad block on HDD/SSD, the RAM stick 'drops from the system' leading to a BSOD.

At that time BIOS identifies the problem and that LED is light on.

You are using OC RAM and they have historically been instable and lead to ptoblems like this. Someone might say 'but it does this once every 6 months' - if it did every few hours or every boot, that RAM would not get out of factory floor, right? OC = occasional problems.

Contrary to popular belief, BIOS does not detect everything at boot time, once a device is identified, its settings are saved and used in subsequent boots.

To force the BIOS redetect attached devices, either the device must be taken off, computer rebooted, leading the BIOS to redetect those devices, then shutting it down, reinserting taken off device and rebooting the computer and allowing the device to redetect the device - or simply do a CMOS reset where all devices connected to computer are redetected from scratch.

So actually you are forcing the BIOS redetect RAM and their settings by taking out RAM and reinserting.

Next time it occurs try a CMOS Reset before changing RAM positions etc.

Look at your 'Show reliability history' in Windows and look what is reported. Reliability history reports event in 24 hour blocks, so you may need to wait to see details of your last BSOD, But you will see the pattern there.

 

[Saul-T]

My symptoms got worse before I was able to somehow fix it? If the ram was inserted in either A1 or A2 the system would not post at all. It would only post if I would place the ram on the B slots. I tried a CMOS reset with and without the battery removed but that didn't help at all. I finally decided to remove the processor to check for any bent pins, and they were all perfectly fine. I then cleaned my processor using a solution I received with arctic silver paste. After replacing it I was able to use my A slots again. The system is once again accepting dual channel ram. What could have caused this issue?

Would running a memtest help me figure out if I've got a bad ram stick?

 

[Saul-T]

I attempted running a memtest while on dual channel, and the test froze while on 59%. I restarted the test and instantly received 300+ errors with the message - unexpected interrupt halting cpu0. Afterwards, my PC once again would not accept ram on both A slots. I'm currently testing each ram individually on the B slots and they are passing.