Question Can ram do weird things to your computer?

rjcard32315

Commendable
Jul 29, 2018
131
0
1,590
I gave my friend a 4 GB DDR4 2666 Ballistix ram stick when i went over, he has a prebuilt asus with a i5, 8gb single dimm and 970. So we upgraded his ram from 8 to 12, and single dimm runs at 2133. Ever since we did that his PC soft locked (wouldnt show a display) but was on and it had never done that before. Also now his computer makes a high pitched noise when playing games that have 3d models. Also we cleaned out all the dust in his PC cause there was ALOT. it used to make a burnt dust smell now after cleaning it makes it alot more potent. His computer runs fine when doing nothing, can the ram incompatibility be causing these new issues?
 

Barty1884

Retired Moderator
Mis-matched RAM can be problematic - as can some RAM when paired with certain boards.
If everything was ok prior, and the only significant change is the RAM, then chances are pretty good its the culprit.

If you remove the DIMM you gave him, does everything go back to normal?
 

rjcard32315

Commendable
Jul 29, 2018
131
0
1,590
Mis-matched RAM can be problematic - as can some RAM when paired with certain boards.
If everything was ok prior, and the only significant change is the RAM, then chances are pretty good its the culprit.

If you remove the DIMM you gave him, does everything go back to normal?
He told me he removed the ram and after it did the exact same noise. He suspects it’s the GPU, maybe the gpu fans just happened to start producing coil whine coincidentally?