RMA single stick?

[Donvito500]

Hello,

I am new to the forum and have recently purchased a memory kit from NewEgg and believe I have a bad stick in the bunch.

Details:

- F3-17000CL11Q-16GBXL Memory Kit 4096MBx4
- Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 Motherboard latest firmware F8 I believe
- Intel i7 2700K CPU

Problem:

- memory shows up perfectly when two or three chips installed
- put in the 4th chip and turn system on and it powers on for about 3 seconds then shuts off, powers on again then goes into endless loop of cycling on and off never getting to post

Questions:

- should I RMA the whole set back to NewEgg?
- should I RMA the suspected single bad stick to G.Skill?
- system is currently running stable with 12Gb (3 sticks installed) and would prefer not to have to send all back

Thanks for any response!

[Tradesman]

Best bet would prob be to RMA back through the Egg, that way they'll get you a full set back that have been tested to work together, doing a single stick you take a chance (especially at this freq) that it won't want ot play with the others. Have you checked each stick w/ memtest? It's possible the problem is with voltages or possibly even the BIOS isn't updated to take the 4 high end sticks. Might check with GigaByte and see if they have any input or could test the combo to see what voltages needed.

[Donvito500]

Hi Tradesman,

Sorry for the dumb question but I have never used mem test before. How would I go about testing to see if the stick is bad if I can't even get the system to boot when I hit the power switch? When I add the 4th stick in the computer turns on for like 3 seconds then off and goes into an endless cycle. Does memtest allow me to hotswap the memory while the system is on to run the test like one at a time to test each stick?

The odd thing was I RMA'ed the entire set to NewEgg taking a picture of the back of the package when I sent it and it looks to me like they sent me the exact same bunch of 4 sticks back but I can't prove it because I didn't write the individual serial numbers down on each stick.

I'm just trying to determine if I have a bad stick or bad configuration...so frustrating that 3 sticks at 12GB run fine and when I add the 4th one in the system won't even get to the bios.

Appreciate all of the help!

[Tradesman]

You can download and get the instructions from here:

http://www.memtest.org/

Best to run 1 stick at a time, actual running time can take hours, I normally let each stick run for about an hour or two depending on how much time I have, then shut down the system, change sticks and start again

[Donvito500]

I might have answered my own question. I put every stick one at a time in slot 1 and booted the system. Every single stick booted all the way into windows except one stick which wouldn't even post, and system kept cycling on and off.

Gotta be a bad stick in the bunch right???

[Tradesman]

Sounds like it, will want to contact rma@gskillusa.com or rma@gskill.com (world), there's info available on RMAs here:

http://www.gskill.com/rma.php