Question got 2 new ram, error 53 on z77 extreme4

[Zac Jones]

I tried resetting the cmos battery and the jumper but to no avail. i was wondering what i should do next.

 

[sizzling]

What exactly have you done? Did you add RAM to existing RAM, that is not guaranteed to work.

 

[Zac Jones]

What exactly have you done? Did you add RAM to existing RAM, that is not guaranteed to work.

i tried that and i tried just the new ram alone

 

[Karadjgne]

Some info/background would be nice. Such as what is the new ram, is it really new (it's DDR3 after all), where was it bought, how did you test it, does the old ram work in those slots etc.

The more complete the story/answer, the easier it is to help you as most of us are just plain mortals, who can't read minds.

 

[Zac Jones]

Some info/background would be nice. Such as what is the new ram, is it really new (it's DDR3 after all), where was it bought, how did you test it, does the old ram work in those slots etc.

The more complete the story/answer, the easier it is to help you as most of us are just plain mortals, who can't read minds.

im sorry i just dont know too much about ram to really answer those questions initially. but, i bought the ram at best buy. so its the 2x8 PNY 1600 MHz ram thats 40 bucks per stick, and i put it the pair in with the pair i already have in there (the pair already in there has 2x4 1600 MHz sticks in there). i got the error code 53 so i tried to reset the cmos but it didnt work. i was wondering what the exact steps are for resetting cmos on the z77 extreme4 motherboard because maybe i didnt reset it right. but after that i tried one stick of new ram for each and that didnt work either.

 

[Karadjgne]

Ok then. Some background of my own.

Ram sticks are made up of silicon chips. These chips are punched out of a silicon sheet. Now each sheet is slightly different, it'll have different mixes of other stuff, impurities, in it like aluminium, iron, zinc, copper etc. These impurities set up the ability of the ram to handle speeds and compatability. You see just the 5 primary timings, the 9-9-9-27 2T etc. In reality there's over 40 secondary and tertiary timings as well. It's those 40+ timings that also have to mesh with the other ram sticks. So when you buy 2x8Gb, the factory has already tested both those sticks to work nice together. You adding ram to existing sticks, you become the tester, there's no guarantee the ram will play nice at all. So it's always a gamble, they either work, need adjustments, or not work at all.

All that said, resetting cmos is easy. Unplug the pc, hold the power button down for 20 seconds, open the case, look at the motherboard by the intake area (lower right) and pull out the watch battery. Wait 15 minutes, put it all back together.

After that, try just the new sticks in slots 2 and 4 (starting at cpu with slot 1). If you get the same error, return the ram to Best Buy, for exchange. If it works, great, shutdown and install the old ram in slots 1 and 3. Hopefully it'll all boot, if it doesn't then reset cmos again and try booting again. If it still fails, the new ram is not compatible with the old.

 

[Zac Jones]

Ok then. Some background of my own.

Ram sticks are made up of silicon chips. These chips are punched out of a silicon sheet. Now each sheet is slightly different, it'll have different mixes of other stuff, impurities, in it like aluminium, iron, zinc, copper etc. These impurities set up the ability of the ram to handle speeds and compatability. You see just the 5 primary timings, the 9-9-9-27 2T etc. In reality there's over 40 secondary and tertiary timings as well. It's those 40+ timings that also have to mesh with the other ram sticks. So when you buy 2x8Gb, the factory has already tested both those sticks to work nice together. You adding ram to existing sticks, you become the tester, there's no guarantee the ram will play nice at all. So it's always a gamble, they either work, need adjustments, or not work at all.

All that said, resetting cmos is easy. Unplug the pc, hold the power button down for 20 seconds, open the case, look at the motherboard by the intake area (lower right) and pull out the watch battery. Wait 15 minutes, put it all back together.

After that, try just the new sticks in slots 2 and 4 (starting at cpu with slot 1). If you get the same error, return the ram to Best Buy, for exchange. If it works, great, shutdown and install the old ram in slots 1 and 3. Hopefully it'll all boot, if it doesn't then reset cmos again and try booting again. If it still fails, the new ram is not compatible with the old.

i did forget to mention that after trying to reinsert the old memory, it still came up with an error.
even after resetting cmos.

 

[Zac Jones]

i did forget to mention that after trying to reinsert the old memory, it still came up with an error.
even after resetting cmos.

my guess is that its just going bad, i will be buying a new system altogether here shortly. but i would like for it to work for other uses just to have as a backup.

 

[Karadjgne]

So now none of the ram works? And you are positive they are fully seated and locked in.

That's just odd.

Cmos is a shortcut fast reboot. It's a listing of hardware and settings. When you shutdown through windows, everything in your pc like hardware and drivers gets listed in cmos, so when you boot back up, it applies the list. Reset, hard boot or boot after power shutdown doesn't use cmos tables, it skips that and goes to a full bios search of your hardware, and loads all new drivers etc.

So you manually resetting cmos has the same affect, bios literally has to search and recognise all your hardware, cpu and gpu and drives and ram etc

If bios can't find any ram at all, something is really funky, either it's not fully seated, all of the slots are broken, all of the ram is broken, something.

 

[lynx1021]

I hope you were not trying to change ram while your motherboard was powered up or plugged in.