Strange problem with X470 Gaming Pro Carbon and memory

[celticgamer86]

Ok, so I had an issue that I seem to have resolved, however, I'm looking for some opinions as to why it happened, and just some reassurance that nothing is wrong with my motherboard.

Here are my specs.

Ryzen 7 2700X
MSI Gaming Pro carbon x470
ADATA XPG Z1 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3000 (PC4 24000)
RTX 2080
Thermaltake Toughpower Grand RGB Gold 750W

Basically, the computer was booting up and running everything fine, no issues.
However, when booting up and going into the motherboard Bios, everything came up fine, but for whatever reason, when exiting the bios, with no changes made, the computer would shut down, run for a few seconds, turn back off, boot back up, run for a few seconds, then shut off again. After doing this behavior approx. 6 times, it would finally boot up into Windows and everything ran. Note, this behavior only happened when entering and closing the bios.

All software like CPUZ, and HWinfo showed that both sticks were installed for 16gb, but there were two issues. 1. XMP would not function, and the memory sticks would not run at their advertised speed after making the change in the bios. 2. Windows task manager, although showing 16gb ram installed, would only use 8GB of this ram, even though it was showing 16GB installed. I confirmed this by running some games that I know for certain use over 8GB of ram.

I updated the motherboard bios to the newest version and the problem perserted.

I then tried removing the sticks, and reinserting them. Same issues.

On a hunch, I swapped the sticks positions around, and bam, everything is fine now. XMP is working and Windows is using all 16GB. No issues.

Note, I am using ram slots 2 and 4, and both of these memory sticks came bundeled together, and were not bought sepertaly. HWinfo64 shows everything is identical between the two sticks, other than the serial number.

So with all that said, can anyone speculate as to what the problem may be that I encountered? Reading around on forums it seems that Ryzen and their compatable motherboards can be buggy and sensitive to memory at times. Do you think that is the case here? Or could there possibly be an issue with the motherboard?

Any opinions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Dugimodo]

Some motherboards require RAM to be populated in certain slots when you don't fully populate the board, probably you just had the RAM in the wrong place to start with. Your motherboard manual should have some information on this, mine shows what slots to use for different combinations.

I have a gigabyte X470 gaming ultra and Gskill sniperX DDR4-3200, I can set XMP and boot up ok but I have to clock it at 2933 in order for games to not crash. I think that's the sort of memory issue Ryzen can have.

Just a note, RAM can show up in the BIOS and windows but be unusable if it is not completely installed properly in the slot. You did say you reinstalled it so probably not the issue here but it can happen.