Hey everyone! I just finished my build with an MSI x870e Edge Ti motherboard and Corsair Vengeance GDDR5 RAM (2x16 at 6000MHz). I accidentally installed the RAM in slots 1 and 3 instead of the recommended slots 2 and 4. When I tried to boot it, the PC wouldn't start, and I got an orange light on the motherboard indicating improperly seated memory. I've been stressing for the last 24 hours, thinking the slots might be damaged, but I found out from the manual that I was supposed to use slots 2-4. It booted up fine when I switched to the right slots, but now I'm wondering: is it normal for a PC not to boot with RAM only in slots 1 and 3?
1 Answer
It's a bit complicated, but generally, the reason your PC didn't boot with RAM in slots 1 and 3 is due to how the motherboard's architecture is designed. Ideally, you should be able to use those slots, but the manual specifies using 2 and 4 for a reason—it might be that the motherboard is set to not boot if it detects memory in those slots as a fail-safe to encourage the correct installation. So no need to worry too much about damage!
Would it be a good idea to just buy another set of RAM and try running 4x16? I can swing the cost, but I originally only got 32GB because I thought that would be enough.