Question PC wont boot after installing new ram

[Cardboard box243]

I had two 8 gig ram sticks in the 2nd and 4th slot of my motherboard working fine. I then powered off the computer however while powersupply is still on, I proceeded to install a new 8 gig ram stick in the 3rd slot. Booted the computer and it enters a boot loop, powered off again and tried booting again with no avail. I tried removing cmos and putting it back again and also tried each ram one by one with powersupply off, all of then resulted in either
a. Computer turns on (fan on lights on etc...) but no display output, just black screen and no indicator light (only light when it first boots)
b. Computer turns on but cpu indicator light stays on and no display output (however I could sort of hear a very subtle electrical kind of sound repeating over and over from the motherboard)

Could it be that my mother board or ram is broken because of not turning off powersupply while changing ram?

 

[Order 66]

I had two 8 gig ram sticks in the 2nd and 4th slot of my motherboard working fine. I then powered off the computer however while powersupply is still on, I proceeded to install a new 8 gig ram stick in the 3rd slot. Booted the computer and it enters a boot loop, powered off again and tried booting again with no avail. I tried removing cmos and putting it back again and also tried each ram one by one with powersupply off, all of then resulted in either
a. Computer turns on (fan on lights on etc...) but no display output, just black screen and no indicator light (only light when it first boots)
b. Computer turns on but cpu indicator light stays on and no display output (however I could sort of hear a very subtle electrical kind of sound repeating over and over from the motherboard)

Could it be that my mother board or ram is broken because of not turning off powersupply while changing ram?

Some PCs don't like having mismatched RAM, You should probably buy another 8GB stick for 32GB of RAM because 3 8GB sticks is not a common arrangement. Or better yet buy a 2x16GB kit with 2 matched sticks. In short, using 3 sticks of RAM that are also unmatched is a recipe for disaster. Does the PC boot with 2 sticks?

 

[Cardboard box243]

Some PCs don't like having mismatched RAM, You should probably buy another 8GB stick for 32GB of RAM because 3 8GB sticks is not a common arrangement. Or better yet buy a 2x16GB kit with 2 matched sticks. In short, using 3 sticks of RAM that are also unmatched is a recipe for disaster. Does the PC boot with 2 sticks?

No it doesn't boot with 2 sticks, even with just one (tried all 3) it either turns on but no display or turns on but cpu indicator stays on and no display as well

 

[Flayed]

I had two 8 gig ram sticks in the 2nd and 4th slot of my motherboard working fine. I then powered off the computer however while powersupply is still on, I proceeded to install a new 8 gig ram stick in the 3rd slot. Booted the computer and it enters a boot loop, powered off again and tried booting again with no avail. I tried removing cmos and putting it back again and also tried each ram one by one with powersupply off, all of then resulted in either
a. Computer turns on (fan on lights on etc...) but no display output, just black screen and no indicator light (only light when it first boots)
b. Computer turns on but cpu indicator light stays on and no display output (however I could sort of hear a very subtle electrical kind of sound repeating over and over from the motherboard)

Could it be that my mother board or ram is broken because of not turning off powersupply while changing ram?

Memory is sold in matched pairs or quads. This is to ensure compatibility. If you mix and match ram you can run into problems. You should buy a ram kit of matched modules.

 

[Cardboard box243]

Memory is sold in matched pairs or quads. This is to ensure compatibility. If you mix and match ram you can run into problems. You should buy a ram kit of matched modules

In that case how would I get it to work with the original matched pairs I had from the start? Because right now it doesnt boot with the 2 sticks I had at the start

 

[beyondlogic]

In that case how would I get it to work with the original matched pairs I had from the start? Because right now it doesnt boot with the 2 sticks I had at the start

you may have fried your board or cpu or the ram never install ram with the system on especially old systems all it takes is a bit of static dust.

things to try turn off the computer

remove the power plug
hold down the power button this will cycle out any remaining electricity in the capacitors of the motherboard. you may see the pc spring to life for a second this is normal.
remove all ram sticks insert only 1 ram stick in slot 2 for most motherboards some are slot 1.

plug back in the power and hit f2 or whatever your motherboard manufacturer says to get into bios.

once in bios hit set everything to default and save it then. add the remaining sticks.


you should always set your pc to default in bios before adding new ram as diffrent ram sticks have diffrent timings this can cause a boot loop and sometimes it will damage the motherboard.

 

[kira-faye]

In that case how would I get it to work with the original matched pairs I had from the start? Because right now it doesnt boot with the 2 sticks I had at the start

Unplug the power supply, pull the CMOS battery, and hold the power button for like 20 seconds, then leave it alone for a few minutes. Put the CMOS battery back in and try again with just one of the two original sticks.

 

[helper800]

As others have suggested or said outright, a PC still has power running through it unless you flip the switch to off on the back of the PSU or pull the plug from the PSU or wall outlet. Because you installed the third RAM stick without turning off standby power to the PC you could have caused a short. @kira-faye and @beyondlogic have made the appropriate suggestions. Before you or anyone else trys to add more RAM to a system you should set BIOS to default so that any RAM profiles like XMP or DOCP are set to default before the motherboard trys to do its initial RAM training.

 

[Cardboard box243]

Thanks for the info @helper800, @kira-faye, and @beyondlogic. Next time I do anything such as swapping parts I'll definitely turn of the power supply and drain out any remaining power (holding the power button).

In my case I took out the cmos left it for about an hour, held down the power button for 20ish seconds and booted it back up and it works, it even worked with all 3 of the ram sticks since the bios got set to default.

 

[helper800]

Thanks for the info @helper800, @kira-faye, and @beyondlogic. Next time I do anything such as swapping parts I'll definitely turn of the power supply and drain out any remaining power (holding the power button).

In my case I took out the cmos left it for about an hour, held down the power button for 20ish seconds and booted it back up and it works, it even worked with all 3 of the ram sticks since the bios got set to default.

Perfect. Usually shorts on hardware are harmless, but not always. If you notice that the PC is a little slower just know that may be because the RAM is running at default speeds rather than their advertised XMP / DOCP speeds.

 

[beyondlogic]

Thanks for the info @helper800, @kira-faye, and @beyondlogic. Next time I do anything such as swapping parts I'll definitely turn of the power supply and drain out any remaining power (holding the power button).

In my case I took out the cmos left it for about an hour, held down the power button for 20ish seconds and booted it back up and it works, it even worked with all 3 of the ram sticks since the bios got set to default.

great also just so you know your pc may act a bit slower due to not only the default speeds but because the computer will only run in duel channel mode and single channel more a flex mode.

so once you have gone beyond the 2 stick pair in terms of ram usage the 3 stick will run at single channel speed. so you may see a knock on performance once it exceeds the matching 2 sticks.

e.g say you have 2 sticks pair of 4gb and 1 other stick of 4gb.

once you exceed the 2 stick pair of 4gb =8gb once you hit 9gb youll start using the other stick which only has a single channel bandwidth.

 

[Cardboard box243]

@beyondlogic @helper800, I enabled XMP and even got a small overclock which seems to be stable, but something I was wondering is if the placement of the third ram which is running in single channel mode (either in the first slot or third slot from the left) would affect performance?

 

[beyondlogic]

@beyondlogic @helper800, I enabled XMP and even got a small overclock which seems to be stable, but something I was wondering is if the placement of the third ram which is running in single channel mode (either in the first slot or third slot from the left) would affect performance?

the original pair

should be running in slots 2 and 4 will run in duel channel there a pair and there working on the same channel

slots 1 and 3 are a diffrent channel of bandwidth but when 1 slot is active it will only offer half of that bandwidth of that channel.

as i mentioned once the pair in slot 2 and 4 have been used up it will jump to the single channel ram now when it does this it will cause performance to go downward instead of up. this is because the ram is slower on a single channel. you may gain some small benefit from it e.g some stability but the overall performance will be lower. e.g you may not get stuttering but you might get a higher framerate or the reverse could be true as its switching between lanes you may get input lag.

e.g a system that has 4+4+4+4
will beat a system with 8+8+4

mainly because the 4+4+4+4 can pull more bandwidth