I recently upgraded my PC by replacing my old 16GB RAM with new 32GB Corsair DDR4 3200MHz sticks. While swapping them out, I accidentally inserted one of the new sticks the wrong way. After correcting it and reassembling the PC, I found that when I powered it on, nothing showed up on the screen. I tried switching the RAM sticks around, but still got no display. Initially, I thought the new RAM might be incompatible, even though I had done thorough research before buying them.
When I put the old RAM back in, the problem persisted. I started to worry that I might have damaged something on the motherboard when I mistakenly inserted the new stick incorrectly. I took my PC to a repair technician, who was surprised to inform me that everything was fine except the BIOS, which was "wrecked". He reinstalled the BIOS, installed the new RAM, and everything worked perfectly afterward.
Has anyone experienced this before? How does swapping RAM lead to a corrupted BIOS? Is there anything I could have done to prevent this?
3 Answers
While it's rare, unstable RAM could potentially corrupt the BIOS, especially if it's being heavily overclocked. It's usually not the standard XMP profile or a bad stick that causes this, but strange settings can wreak havoc. When you swapped your RAM, the BIOS might have struggled to adapt to the new parameters. Just resetting the CMOS or reflashing sometimes helps.
It sounds like you might just need to reset the CMOS. This is a common issue when changing RAM, and it doesn't really damage anything permanently but can mess with BIOS settings that affect your RAM compatibility. Just a small reset usually solves the problem!
I see, that makes sense!
Honestly, it's pretty unlikely that your BIOS would get damaged just during a simple RAM swap. Most of the time, BIOS issues stem from extreme conditions, like overclocking. Just resetting settings or reflashing should straightforwardly resolve the problem without any lasting damage.
But will the issue persist even if I put the old RAM back?