I've recently received a computer from around 2016, specifically with an MSI z170a GAMING M3 motherboard, a Cooler Master CPU cooler, and it didn't come with any RAM. I bought two RAM sticks, but I've run into an issue where the CPU cooler is covering the first RAM slot, preventing me from using it. Since I want to eventually fill all four slots with RAM for dual-channel support, I'm looking for suggestions on how to handle this situation. Any thoughts?
1 Answer
You might not need to worry about the first slot right now. Typically, you should use DIMM slots 2 and 4 for dual-channel with just two sticks. I'd suggest checking the motherboard manual to see the ideal slot configuration. Once you get all four sticks, it might be fine to figure out how to work around that cooler.
Got it! I know to use DIMMs 2 and 4 for the two sticks, but I was curious about how to eventually utilize all four slots.