Strange issue with RAM

[ham___]

Had a very strange issue with my computer the other day. As I was walking into the room, a near empty air duster can fell on my tower case and caused it to freeze. No biggie as I slap the top of the case sometimes because fan noise and the same thing happens and the PC freezes once in a while, so I just restart it and it's all good.

This time though, when I restarted the computer, it made a loud grinding noise and shut off within 2-3 seconds and looped. Left it alone for a few minutes and this time it booted with no noise but CPU and DRAM ezdebug lights started flashing back and forth. Did some google searching and some guy posted,

Spoiler

Sorry man that must be so frustrating =(

So I had the same issue using a Z170a Krait motherboard where I would press power, the fans would turn on, but nothing else would happen (no boot into post), and the ram and cpu led lights would alternate flicker. I tried everything (except testing each individual part in a different setup) over two weeks E.g. taking it apart, putting it back together, breadtopping (just the bare bone components assembled on the mobo box), ram stick in each channel, refitting cables, pulling out the cmos battery to restore bios settings, etc. I had resigned to taking it to a repair shop when I found this thread: http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2774299/msi-z170a-krait-troubleshooting.html

What fixed it for me was moving my ram sticks from slots 1 and 3 to slot 1 and 2. It didn't work if I only had one ram stick in or any slot combination but 1 and 2. I've read that this sort of ram issue might have something to do with the CPU cooler being screwed on too tight. Apparently it can press on the CPU and interfere with the ram recognition or something.

Give it a try. If you're out of ideas, perhaps consider taking it into a shop (they'll be able to test each part and pinpoint the problem). I hope you get it working man. It sounds like it's been an absolute nightmare, but that will make it all the more sweet if / when you get it up and running. Good luck!

https://pcpartpicker.com/forums/topic/135773-msi-z170a-z170-krait-gaming-motherboard-wont-post-cpu-and-dram-debug-led-blinking-back-and-forth
I put my 2x 8gb sticks in the DIMMA1 and DIMMA2 slots and even though he's using a z170a it worked with my z270 gaming m3. to be clear, I had them in the DIMMA2 and DIMMB2 slots for over a year as recommended in the manual: https://i.imgur.com/B7xQbpp.png

I also noticed all my bios settings were reset to factory default. I'm just wondering what this all could mean.. are my memory sticks or maybe motherboard going bad? Could the cpu cooler be tied down too tightly, does that make sense? Why would memory suddenly start working in 1 channel only? Is it more likely that the DIMMB2 slot failed? Even though the manual says to always first fill the DIMMA2 slot, would I be better of running them in DIMMA1 and DIMMB1 to take advantage of dual-channel again?

MB: Z270 GAMING M3
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 DRAM 3200MHz

 

[boju]

Do you have a mechanical hdd? If a hdd receives a shock that will freeze the computer.

Were you overclocked at the time? Memory or cpu? The motherboard can reset settings if it thinks there was an overclock failure. Not always but it can.

The grinding noise could have just been a fan. Only other origin i can think of is the hdd going bad after so many knocks. Thats if your hdd is mechancal. An ssd wouldn't freeze on you from a knock.

Other components freezing the computer from a slight slap?(how hard are you hitting it?) Could be memory, gpu or other connectors not seated properly.

 

[photonboy]

*first, your system should absolutely NOT FREEZE from hitting it. That's extremely disconcerting.

1) Shut down the PC and unhook all cables from the rear of your HDD/SSD drives

2) Put the DDR4 memory back to the recommended slots

3) run a full pass with MEMTEST86 www.memtest86.com (USB stick or CD/DVD)

4) try hitting the PC with MEMTEST86 running to see if it freezes without an HDD installed (NO? then you've probably got a FAILING hard drive)

OTHER:
Grinding sounds like a failing hard drive unless it's the CPU FAN that failed... if so then you may have issues running MEMTEST86...if not then again probably an HDD issue.

EZDEBUG lights?
Huh... hard to say but based on the other stuff that does NOT sound HDD related. It sounds closer to either:

a) CPU FAN (overheating), or
b) PSU FAN (overheating power supply)

 

[boju]

*first, your system should absolutely NOT FREEZE from hitting it. That's extremely disconcerting.

Are you sure about that? i've had freezing issues with hdds before with case being on the floor and accidentally bumped into at lan parties but never froze with an ssd. Same config just different storage.

 

[ham___]

Hmm ok great info guys, thank you very much.

-I have 3 hard drives, 1 SSD as main and 2 mechanical used for storage.
-I did have overclocking enabled on both memory and CPU and also loaded my saved OC settings again after I saw everything was reset, everything has been fine for about 2 days now.
-I replaced 5 fans ranging from 120mm to 140mm back in June 2017 with the Corsair ML120 Pro LED and ML140 Pro LED. Two of these were for the CPU cooler, an older FRIO cpu cooler that still works amazingly great btw.
-I replaced the bigger 200mm ones on the top and side of case, at the same time in June 2017, that always seem to make a noise, but they started making noise again within a month and I just disconnected all 3 200mm fans.
--I just recently tried replacing them again but this time went with Noctua NF-A20 FLX. It wouldn't fit on the top so I had to order another standard Cooler Master MegaFlow 200 for the top 200mm fan and chose to put the Noctua on the side, so just 2 200mm fans. Both have been working fine, quiet for now and no slapping for a long while now.
-but when I did smack the top of the PC, sometimes it was multiple times and somewhat hard strikes. Sometimes it froze and needed a reboot, other times it was fine but never had any scary issues like this.

I have seen some reports of PSU being problematic during my research of this topic but I'm definitely going to have to run some tests with the hard drives unplugged. I've been worried about one of my storage drives, it has been a very long time so I think I'll need to retire one of the mechanical drives as well.

also I doubt it would be CPU overheating. It's always around 33-35c idle and never passes 70 while gaming. Stress tests do take it up to 75 but never past 80.
when the BIOS settings reset, I was actually getting 22-23c idle which was actually super tempting to just leave stock settings.. lol but I've reverted back to my saved OC settings for about 2 days now. (ever since this happened and reset the settings)

 

[boju]

Get a squeezie ball and put that on your case

 

[ham___]

hah should have been more specific. I used to hit the top of the case because of the 200mm fan noise.. hence the story of replacing all my fans haha

 

[boju]

Haha ok. Fan rage not nerd rage