Question Has anyone ever had a mother board damaged from inserting a memory chip that is faulty.

Alan Alan

Commendable
Aug 9, 2022
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I have a new mobo coming after one quit working. The startup diagnostic indicating a memory error after it quit. Naturally I tried each memory module one at a time but none of them would get past the memory test. It's not likely the mobo blew all 4 chips or 1 chip blew the motherboard but it seems possible. Thought I'd ask if anyone encounter a problem where defective memory has actually damaged a new motherboard. TIA
 
Could also be an issue with memory controller/CPU according to what you are working with.

I would suggest it was according to how and in what way they RAM was damaged or faulted. If it is shorting that could cause damage. Physical damage could as well, but this doesn't seem to be the case in this instance.
 
Could also be an issue with memory controller/CPU according to what you are working with.

I would suggest it was according to how and in what way they RAM was damaged or faulted. If it is shorting that could cause damage. Physical damage could as well, but this doesn't seem to be the case in this instance.
I'm not sure what happened, was playing video games 8 hours a day then it started saying waiting and started working. The next day it would make it thru the processor test but stopped the startup with the mem test light staying on. I think the memory driver chipset just failed. Maybe it got to hot, who knows. It would make me sick if I put in a new mobo only to have a bad mem module blow it up. I suspect the memory lines are pretty foolproof but who knows.
 
That is the "trap" as it were when guessing what went out and using suspect parts along with new.
RAM, particularly DDR4 is pretty cheap right now. If you feel sure it's only the RAM you could try that alongside the new mobo.

What are the spec of the system that failed?
 
That is the "trap" as it were when guessing what went out and using suspect parts along with new.
RAM, particularly DDR4 is pretty cheap right now. If you feel sure it's only the RAM you could try that alongside the new mobo.

What are the spec of the system that failed?
The mobo was a z370-a, the first generation of the board. There's literally nothing about bad memory damaging a motherboard online. If it were a problem it would be plastered all over the place. The chips stay dead cold when running the onboard memory tuning. It's a button on the mobo that runs the test. The memory led blinks slow for a while then changes its speed and tries again. Since I could test them one at a time and none work they are probably fine. There power pins are all in parallel and if one fails it could short the 1.2v line for all memory chips and protect them. I think the regulator went down since the chips don't warm up under test but who knows. I serviced electronics for 40 years and regulators were a common failure. Considering I was taxing the regulator for 8 hours straight on a memory intensive video game it probably overheated. I think they use mosfets for regulation to keep the heat down but they blew a lot in the past. All they do is switch on then off and release a bit of energy thru a coil then into a cap. The cap could be shorted too, that's another common problem. I guess when I get it out of there I'll take some measurements. I replaced it with a military grade board that has a five year warranty. Not to worried since no one else has responded to my post. I'm pretty sure mother boards have over voltage memory protection. The one I have coming does. I also have the evga G3 power supply. It has all kinds of over and under voltage protection.