Question No POST after incompatible memory installed.

tandlion13

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Mar 25, 2014
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I tried installing 2 sticks of DDR3 memory taken from an AMD AM3+ system on a Gigabyte B85M-HD3 motherboard. Which is an Intel system board of LGA1150 socket and it was working fine prior to this.

The system booted into Windows successfully with each of those modules installed one at a time. But when I tried with both modules together, the system's not posting. I also heard a loud high pitch snap soon after I pressed the power button there :( ..... I then suspected something was going wrong but not quite sure how serious it is until I dived deeper into the issue.

I tried clearing CMOS hoping for an easy fix, no help. Tried different memory modules / kit, not helping. Using different graphics card / swap to on board graphics, still no luck. Even tried swapping to a different CPU and again, no difference. I now am pretty the problem is with the motherboard.

So, could I have caused any serious damages to the motherboard from what I've described above? Is there any chance / hope of fixing this? What could I possibly do?
 

tandlion13

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Mar 25, 2014
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what the speed on the ram?
exact model of the ram?

Oh, excuse me. I was a quite out of focus and failed to provide enough detailed and crucial information.

So the culprit RAM kit is Kingston HyperX Genesis 2x4GB DDR3-1600 CL 9-9-9-27 rated 1.65V :eek: ... The model number reads KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX. There are 8 memory chips on a single side.

I was running another Kingston 2x4GB DDR3 (1333) kit on the B85M-HD3 board @ddr3-1400 CL 9-9-9-24 1.5V with an Intel Pentium G3258 CPU which is also overclocked to 4.4 Ghz. I didn't reset the bios to default settings when installed the new RAM kit.

I also tried installing the kit on an Asus Z77 motherboard with i5-3570k. The system as well, failed to boot with the two modules installed. But the board seems to have some sort of features that saved itself from any damages while trying to boot with a bad memory config. So it's still working normally after that.

So I assume, that memory kit might be the "AMD only" RAM thing people were talking about back in the day. Not sure if that's the case and I haven't had much experience with older AMD systems.

After the incident I tested each memory modules involved individually and they're all still working. I have an i3-4130 that I'm sure is working and tried installing it on the B85 board but no luck. I don't have another working 1150 board to test the G3258 unfortunately, but I'm pretty sure it's still fine. So the problem seems to be with the B85 board as other components of that system seems to be working fine.
 
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tandlion13

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Mar 25, 2014
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voltage require for the ram is higher then what the mobo can provide

So, could that have permanently damaged my motherboard? Since the system now failed to boot normally after clearing the CMOS and going back to the old configurations. I'm afraid some serious damages have already been done :( ... The board ran out of warranty so no hope for RMA and fixing a serious issue like this on my own seems to be out of reach.

Is that the case?
 
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