[SOLVED] ddr3 ram making beep sound when powering up?

yupu

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Dec 15, 2016
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Hello, i have a pc that uses ddr3 ram, yeah yeah i know its old, anyways so recently one of my ram sticks died so i bought two used ddr3 ram sticks from a guy, so when i put the ones he sold me and power on the pc the pc beeps 3 times and theres no signal on my monitor. the beepinig only happens when i put the ram modules i bought from that person and my original ram modules are out of the system, ive also tried putting them one by one and still both of them give me the same result either when they are both in the pc or just one, when they are all in the pc with my original modules on the pc powers on but no signal to monitor, ive done some research on the internet and ive mostly have found that 3 beeps means that the ram modules could be dead or may have a problem, but is there anything else that could be the problem? could it be different ram speeds or if the ram ive obtained have faster ram speeds could it be that my motherboard wont work at those speeds? the pc im using is a dell optiplex 990
 
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yes they are ram kits, both run at the same speed, they run faster than the ones i used to have, but even when i put one of the new ones i got alone it beeps, both of them do, when i put them all together with the ones i already have the pc powers on but nothing shows in screen and no beeps. some people have told me that ram speeds dont matter and if they are faster that the least that can happen is my pc accepts them but runs them at a slower speed. ill try to clean them as much as i can thanks for that advice.

Yes that's true. RAM speed doesn't really matter as your motherboard will set it to it's default speed it can handle.. Most of the time for newer versions of DDR3 boards it's 1333mhz, above that will be OC. Make sure...

madartzgraphics

Reputable
Jun 29, 2019
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Hello, i have a pc that uses ddr3 ram, yeah yeah i know its old, anyways so recently one of my ram sticks died so i bought two used ddr3 ram sticks from a guy, so when i put the ones he sold me and power on the pc the pc beeps 3 times and theres no signal on my monitor. the beepinig only happens when i put the ram modules i bought from that person and my original ram modules are out of the system, ive also tried putting them one by one and still both of them give me the same result either when they are both in the pc or just one, when they are all in the pc with my original modules on the pc powers on but no signal to monitor, ive done some research on the internet and ive mostly have found that 3 beeps means that the ram modules could be dead or may have a problem, but is there anything else that could be the problem? could it be different ram speeds or if the ram ive obtained have faster ram speeds could it be that my motherboard wont work at those speeds? the pc im using is a dell optiplex 990

Are they RAM kits? If you bought it as ram kits, either one of them or both are dead. Try cleaning the gold pins with an eraser and make sure it's properly seated on the slot..

If they are not RAM kits, then you got a problem right there. Even an identical make can be incompatible with each other. The chance of incompatibility increases like for example, both have different speed / spec and make or brand. It can also be that it is not supported by your motherboard.
 
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yupu

Honorable
Dec 15, 2016
44
0
10,530
yes they are ram kits, both run at the same speed, they run faster than the ones i used to have, but even when i put one of the new ones i got alone it beeps, both of them do, when i put them all together with the ones i already have the pc powers on but nothing shows in screen and no beeps. some people have told me that ram speeds dont matter and if they are faster that the least that can happen is my pc accepts them but runs them at a slower speed. ill try to clean them as much as i can thanks for that advice.
 

yupu

Honorable
Dec 15, 2016
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10,530
Check model names of those modules.
They might be registered/buffered modules intended to be used in servers.

If you can't identify them, then post photo of labels on new ram modules.
(upload to imgur.com and post link)

they are hyper x models.
Kingston HyperX FURY 4GB 1600MHz DDR3 CL10 DIMM - Blue (HX316C10F/4)
 

madartzgraphics

Reputable
Jun 29, 2019
282
26
4,790
yes they are ram kits, both run at the same speed, they run faster than the ones i used to have, but even when i put one of the new ones i got alone it beeps, both of them do, when i put them all together with the ones i already have the pc powers on but nothing shows in screen and no beeps. some people have told me that ram speeds dont matter and if they are faster that the least that can happen is my pc accepts them but runs them at a slower speed. ill try to clean them as much as i can thanks for that advice.

Yes that's true. RAM speed doesn't really matter as your motherboard will set it to it's default speed it can handle.. Most of the time for newer versions of DDR3 boards it's 1333mhz, above that will be OC. Make sure it is running at default maximum of your board via bios..

Can I know how many gigs you're trying to add and if you can see any indication of ECC / non-ECC, registered, buffered/unbuffered on the label? Since it is a prebuilt machine, you need to match every little thing to make sure it'll boot.

A google search gave me result of:
4GB DDR3 SDRAM as the original default.

You should check your board's total RAM capacity including max capacity of each slot just to make sure you are not going over the maximum...

If anything else failed. Definitely, you need to try it on different machine or run a diagnostics tool like memtest.
 
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