Chased a boot loop for 6 hours before I realized my RAM wasn't seated all the way

I spent my entire Saturday night thinking my PSU was dying or my motherboard was bricked. Turns out one of my DIMMs just wasn't clicked in on the right side, I swear I heard the click but I guess not. Six hours of swapping parts, running memtest over and over, and reading forum threads from 2014. Has anyone else ever spent way too long on something that dumb simple?

2 comments

2 Comments

hugo_ellis18d ago

The classic "click but no click" mistake. That little tab on the right side is way too easy to miss when you're pushing down. Best trick I ever learned is to seat the stick at a slight angle first, then push both ends down at the same time until you hear two clear clicks. Another thing that helps is to actually look at the slot from the side to make sure the whole thing is flush and even. I also like to run a quick CPU-Z check before booting just to confirm it's detecting all the RAM. The worst part is when you're sure you heard it click but it was just the motherboard flexing, not the clips actually locking in. At least now you know for next time, the RAM is almost always the first thing to double check before blaming the PSU or the board.

holly_gonzalez6118d ago

Oh man, I feel your pain on this one. I did almost the exact same thing last year and wasted a whole evening because one stick was barely out of place. It is always the simplest stuff that gets us, drives me nuts every time.