Thought it was a bad ram stick, put new stick in, worked 10 min and then crash

[MorePower!]

So I had an issue where turning on my pc caused it to make 4 beeps and keep restarting before the monitors would come on. I took out the far memory stick and it would start. For a test I replaced the near memory stick with the far one and it wouldn’t start so I concluded it was the stick.

Today the new stick arrived and I put it in the far slot. 10 minutes into what seemed to be a successful fix, the pc crashed and when I rebooted I heard those dreadful 4 beeps.

My plan is to get another stick and use the other two memory channels on the mobo. I’m assuming something is wrong with that far slot. Does this sound like a good plan?

Also, for the time I’ve had this pc I was using the “secondary” two ram slots because the first looked too close to the cpu cooling fan. I tested the ability to use that nearest slot and I can fit a stick in there.

 

[Mr.Scott]

Are all the sticks the same ram, or are you just buying separate sticks and adding them in?
Unmatched ram is a bad idea.

 

[trents]

Check your motherboard manual to see which memory slots should be used for various numbers of sticks deployed. Many OEM computers require a particular slot to be populated when only one stick is used. Often times it is the one closest to the CPU socket. With aftermarket boards, when two sticks are used, typically you should use the second and fourth slots (as counted when moving away from the CPU socket).

 

[MorePower!]

Response to Mr.Scott.

They were the same brand, model type (CAS latency) etc

I’m now wondering if I played with the ram settings in BIOs when I was overclocking my cpu back in the day.

 

[MorePower!]

I have one stick of a two pack that I used when I first built my pc. One stick died. I bought a new two pack in 2016. I kept the good stick from 2011.

If I used the good stick from 2011 and the good stick from 2016 (both are identical except for production date), would this be ok?

 

[Mr.Scott]

Probably not. Manufacturers change IC's on their products like their socks.
Buy memory all at the same time.

 

[BugFreak]

Is this an Asus motherboard?

The two sticks may work together but you would need to run at the slower sticks speed and timings. To check if they are the same you could run typhoon burner to see what they are. They are most likely different like Scotty says but could work in a pinch.