I recently upgraded my PC by adding a second 8GB stick of RAM to my existing 8GB stick, making a total of 16GB. Both sticks are from the same kit, but I'm experiencing some weird stability problems. The first time I powered it on, I tried to play a game and it blue-screened pretty quickly, then went into a restart loop until I got to a recovery screen. After a few attempts, it managed to run okay for a while, but now I keep getting blue screens randomly while gaming. I've adjusted the RAM frequency to the maximum my motherboard can handle and made sure my graphics drivers are up to date. I'm worried it might be faulty RAM, but I haven't tested them yet since I'm not sure how. Some specific error codes I've seen include kmode exception not handled, unexpected kernel mode trap, and kernel security check failure. Any help would be appreciated!
Here are my specs:
- CPU: Intel i7-4790 3.60GHz
- GPU: GTX 1660 Super
- Motherboard: Asus H81M-K
- RAM: DDR3 (1866MHz) 2x8GB
3 Answers
Have you tried resetting the CMOS and running the RAM at stock speeds? It’s best to avoid using XMP settings for now. Also, ensure the RAM sticks are indeed the same model and specs. Just because they were sold together doesn’t always guarantee compatibility if they come from different manufacturers.
Double-check that the sticks are the same memory model. If they are, running a Windows Memory Diagnostic could be a good next step to see if any errors pop up. It sounds like you're doing everything right, but sometimes even new RAM can have issues.
I ran the diagnostics, and thankfully, it didn't find any issues.
What slots are your RAM sticks installed in? If your motherboard only has two slots, make sure they're in the correct ones for dual-channel. Sometimes, it can help to switch them around to see if that resolves the issue.
My motherboard only has two slots, and they're both filled.
Yeah, they came from the same kit and are identical in brand and specs.