[SOLVED] Crash then infinte restarts craigslist pc

[Dell2305]

Hi, I recently bought a used gaming pc from craigslist. I'm now starting to experience some problems and I'm looking for help. The pc works fine until it randomly crashes, sometimes it will boot right back up and run fine for hours. Other times after the crash it will not boot at all and instead will try to boot but after 10 seconds die and then try to boot again, in an infinite loop with no beeps codes at all.

When this infinite restart loop happens I have got it to boot back successfully by removing one stick of ram, it will then boot with only 1 stick of ram in and the screen will say "noticed changed to ram or cpu" do you want to setup or normal settings. THEN, I shut the pc off reinstall the 2nd ram stick, reboot it and it works fine again for awhile until this happens again.

It does read both sticks fine at 8gb and I have tried the widows ram test and it did not show any problems. I'm looking for a permanent solution and need advice, im pretty new but I do know a little bit.

Here are my specs,

Intel core i7-2600k ,
msi z77a-g43 motherboard,
2 sticks of 4gb ddr3-1600,
radeon r9 280x 3gb gpu,
500gb ssd,
tx750 psu.

I noticed the ram sticks are miss matched and not the same brand which makes me wonder the umm integrity of these ram sticks. Should I just try 2 new ram sticks and see what happens? or could it be something else? Thanks in advance.

 

[Obakasama]

Mix and matched RAM can cause problems. To be on the safe side it's best to stick to RAM kits for assurance.

There is also the option of using Memtest86 rather than the Windows diagnostic to be more thorough with the RAM test to see if there is anything wrong. 8 passes, if memory serves, is recommended.

 

[USAFRet]

1. For any used PC, you personally need to do a full wipe and reinstall of the OS and everything else. You have no idea of what the previous users had in there, or how it was misconfigured.
2. Mix and match RAM often fails completely.

 

[Dell2305]

I did do a fresh install of windows 10, I think I am going to try the getting new ram, then I can at least rule that out. I feel like pulling the ram is just getting something to reset and that's why it will boot back up and it's not the actual ram though. because I can put it back in and it runs fine.

 

[Dell2305]

I may have found the problem, the ram was in slot 1 and 3 and i looked up the manual for the motherboard and it sais for dual channel it must be in slot 2 and 4. Maybe that was causing it to crash? Its hasnt crashed since i changed that, but i got to give it more time its been 2 days.