I'm having an issue with my PC where it sometimes crashes or shows a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) when I try to use 16GB of RAM. I have two 8GB modules that used to work fine together, but now they seem incompatible. Occasionally, I can get my system to recognize both sticks if I switch the RAM to slots 1 and 3, but it only works for one startup. After shutting down or restarting, it crashes and only boots with 8GB. When I test each stick individually, they both work fine. I've just put them back in slots 2 and 4 and left it alone. Any ideas on what could be causing this?
2 Answers
It sounds frustrating! To help figure this out, we need to check if there are any dump files from those BSODs, which are crash logs. If you can access Windows normally or in Safe Mode, look in C:WindowsMinidump for any files. If you find some, zip the folder and upload it to a file sharing site like Catbox or MediaFire. More files give us better insight! Additionally, you might want to configure your system to create small memory dumps if you're only getting one or none at all. Here’s a guide to help with that: [Creating Small Memory Dumps](https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/5560-configure-windows-10-create-minidump-bsod.html).
Have you checked your motherboard model? Sometimes RAM timing settings can be off, and certain slots may work better with one or two modules. Also, if you haven’t already, try updating your motherboard’s BIOS, as this can sometimes resolve compatibility issues with RAM.
My motherboard is a Gigabyte B450M DS3H WiFi, and the RAM speed is 2666 MT/s.
I actually got my PC in March 2024 and haven’t done any BIOS updates yet.