Compatibility or just bad ram twice in a row? B530 and RIPJAW V

potentia1

Honorable
Feb 17, 2013
31
0
10,530
Hey everyone,

I was upgrading another computer I have and got the same motherboard and RAM, B530 TOMAHAWK and RIPJAWS V g.skill ddr4.. I noticed recently that my gaming rig was only showing half the amount of RAM in the bios but all of it when I looked via windows or bench-marking, eventually came to fine out that one stick was bad and the computer was making virtual memory to support it. Anyways so I just sent those out for RMA and now Im looking at the same issue with this upgraded pc... and I LITERALLY JUST GOT THE PARTS! Does anyone have these two working or did I make a costly mistake by not gettting known compatible parts
 
Solution
Check the bios version. If it is not version 7A34v1C dated 2018-01-29 then I would update. There are like 10 bios updates for that board since the original version, and 7 of them include memory compatibility updates. It is likely that you simply did not have one of the sticks fully seated, but it is still a good idea to be on the latest bios, especially with Ryzen, because this is an infant as far as platforms go and there have been many improvements to the compatibility for memory and graphics cards along the way plus several updates to the Agesa microcode for the CPU to increase stability and performance as well.

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/B350-TOMAHAWK

It can't hurt, and can only help. That update should also not...

jacobweaver800

Respectable
Dec 15, 2017
1,539
0
2,460


Easy way to tell if its the ram or board, take the alleged dead ram out and put the working one in its spot and try and boot. If it shows no ram the slot it was in is dead, if it shows only half the ram in BIOS again its the stick that was dead.
 
Check the bios version. If it is not version 7A34v1C dated 2018-01-29 then I would update. There are like 10 bios updates for that board since the original version, and 7 of them include memory compatibility updates. It is likely that you simply did not have one of the sticks fully seated, but it is still a good idea to be on the latest bios, especially with Ryzen, because this is an infant as far as platforms go and there have been many improvements to the compatibility for memory and graphics cards along the way plus several updates to the Agesa microcode for the CPU to increase stability and performance as well.

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/B350-TOMAHAWK

It can't hurt, and can only help. That update should also not include the bad microcode that Intel released at the beginning of January for the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities which they later retracted but which some board partners have not yet removed from their downloads. That release is from after the Intel directive to not distribute the previous microcode and should simply be hardware performance/compatibility oriented.

Also, if you have not configured the memory settings manually or set the memory XMP profile in the bios, it would be a very good idea to do that as well.

It would be wise to check, either in the bios or using CPU-Z, to see what speed those modules are actually running at. It may be necessary, and probably will, to do some fine tuning in order to actually get them to run at 3200mhz, but I would do the bios update FIRST, and then set the XMP setting or manually configure the memory settings because you might be wasting your time trying to fight with the stability and the bios update might help to eliminate some of that.

Also, much as I hate to say it with a fairly good module like the Ripjaws, those are not the best modules around for achieving high clocks on Ryzen or even basic compatibility so I'm actually somewhat surprised they run at all, but as I said, they've been addressing compatibility a lot so things are improving. Those are CAS 16 sticks and Ryzen tends to like CAS 14 or 15 a lot better. More importantly though, those use Samsung E-dies, and B-die modules have far more success on Ryzen.

With Samsung E-die modules you may be limited to 2933mhz top speed, but again, with recent updates you might do better. The Trident Z modules that DO have the B-dies, the few Ripjaws using B-dies and any modules using SK Hynix A or M dies can usually achieve 3200mhz but results have varied among users depending on specific sticks and motherboard, as well as bios version.

http://www.overclock.net/forum/18051-memory/1627555-ryzen-memory-ic-collection-thread.html
 
Solution