Question Out of the blue, EXPO profile will not POST

[LegacyTH]

Specs:
CPU: i5-13600KF
RAM: G.Skill 2x16GB 6000MHz CL30 EXPO
MOBO: ASUS ROG Z690-F (ver. 3101)
GPU: RX 7900 XTX
PSU: ASUS ROG 850W

Description: I had taken out one of my ram sticks to check the batch number, and re-seated it shortly after. My PC wouldn’t post after reseating the ram stick, and was stuck with a yellow DRAM led on the motherboard. Clearing CMOS let’s me boot to Windows, but problem persists if I enable EXPO again. My PC worked fine with the EXPO profile and tightened timings for 4-5 months, so it’s strange how it stopped working one moment to another.

Things I’ve tried:
- I cleaned both sticks with alcohol and Q-tips.
- Clearing CMOS and re-applying EXPO profile.
- Enabling EXPO and increasing all ram related voltages slightly. Also tried decreasing frequency.
- Installed old BIOS firmware and then installed the newest version again.
- Reseated my CPU, retention brackets, CPU cooler, in case it was a contact issue.
- Tried using the sticks in slot A1-B1 instead of A2-B2, aswell as swapping the sticks around.
- Tried using one stick at a time. Both sticks can individually boot to Windows with the EXPO profile.
- Tried manually typing in the settings in BIOS, and loosened timings drastically. Only managed to boot to 6000MHz once with loosened timings, but next boot the same settings wouldn’t POST.
- I’ve tried both memory sticks in all 4 slots individually, ruling out that it isn’t a ram stick issue, nor is it a dimm slot issue.

Final thoughts: I can’t wrap my head around why this suddenly stopped working from one moment to another. It simply makes no sense. I don’t know if I managed to damage something on the motherboard while I was re-seating the ram. I want to e-mail the company I bought the parts from, but I don’t know which component is causing these issues. It could be CPU, motherboard or RAM, or a combination. Please help

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

I cleaned both sticks with alcohol and Q-tips.
You might want to take both sticks and use an eraser to wipe the gold contacts on the rams. make sure you've removed the lint from the eraser.

Instead of using EXPO, can you manually set the ram to DDR5-6000Mhz but with laxed timings, manually in BIOS?

 

[LegacyTH]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

I cleaned both sticks with alcohol and Q-tips.
You might want to take both sticks and use an eraser to wipe the gold contacts on the rams. make sure you've removed the lint from the eraser.

Instead of using EXPO, can you manually set the ram to DDR5-6000Mhz but with laxed timings, manually in BIOS?

I've tried. It seems super unstable. I managed to boot it one time with 6000MHz like it was rated, with laxed timings. But once I start tightening timings, everything stopped working again, even the exact settings which I succeeded booting 6000MHz.