MOBO or RAM?

[devonuto]

Okay, so lately I noticed I'd been getting memory related BSOD's on my Win 8.1 64 machine, so I decided to run Memtest on it. I seem to be getting errors on all sticks, in all slots.

I have two sets of G.Skill Ripjaws-X 16GB Kit (8Gx2) DDR3-2133 F3-2133C9D-16GXH which I had been running at 1.65v

Problem is however, is memtest will not complete. It just randomly crashes. Last time it got to 5:21, with 56571 errors and just froze up. The state had stopped moving, and nothing happened for the rest of the night (this was left for about 8 hours) with the clock stuck at 5:21.

My question is, is it likely that I have fried all 4 of my RAM sticks by overclocking them, or is it more likely the MOBO?

This is a rundown of my PC specs, but the ram is now running much slower, as I changed the MOBO to reset default values for the RAM. Obviously it's not very accurate.

Operating System
Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit
CPU
Intel Core i7 4790 @ 3.60GHz 29 °C
Haswell 22nm Technology
RAM
32.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 666MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard
ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. Z97-DELUXE (SOCKET 1150) 28 °C
Graphics
E2240 (1920x1080@60Hz)
DELL P2212H (1920x1080@60Hz)
4095MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (Gigabyte) 33 °C
Storage
465GB Samsung SSD 840 EVO 500G SCSI Disk Device (SSD) 36 °C
3726GB Hitachi HGST HDN724040ALE640 SCSI Disk Device (SATA) 41 °C
Optical Drives
HL-DT-ST BD-RE BH12LS38
HL-DT-ST BDDVDRW CH12LS28
Audio
NVIDIA High Definition Audio

Keep in mind, this PC is only built in July last year.

[David (PassMark)]

Problem is however, is memtest will not complete.

Getting 1 or 2 errors is bad. Getting 56,000 errors is catastrophic. It is surprising the machine even boots. So no, the problem isn't with MemTest86 completing. The problem is with the hardware.

You kind of implied you already tested each stick in each slot? And all sticks provoked some errors in all slots?

If possible the best thing to do would be to test your suspect sticks in another machine that is known to be working. Or to borrow the stick from a known working machine to try in your machine.

[devonuto]

Yeah, I tried each stick one by one, and ran memtest on each slot. However, when I only had one stick in, when memtest would crash, the PC wouldn't start, so I'd add back other RAM and I'd get a "OC failed" message and I'd have to reconfigure the ram in my BIOS. Windows still starts through all of this, but it's very fickle.

My problem is I don't have access to another machine which would be compatible with this RAM.

Is it at all possible it could be something else, like a faulty PSU?

[devonuto]

Also wondering if it could be incompatible RAM, as it's not listed in the MOBO book under compatible RAM (but similar RAM of the same type/brand/speed is). However, I wonder why it's taken 6 months for problems to come up...?

[David (PassMark)]

Unless you got hit by lightning or something the chances of 4 sticks going bad at the same time are very slim. I guess it might be possible that you destroyed them at the same time if you pushed too much voltage into them as a result of overclocking.

I assume you aren't overclocking the CPU right?

If it worked for 6 months without a problem, then it doesn't make sense that it is a design flaw causing compatibility issues.

If you can't beg or borrow any RAM, I would buy a new 2GB stick of RAM ($20) for testing. If the new RAM doesn't work, start to consider getting a new CPU / motherboard.

If the new RAM does work consider buying a new set of 16GB / 32GB. Do you really need 32GB? Very few people even use 8GB of RAM.

[devonuto]

It's possible the unit got hit in a storm. I suspect my surge protector is useless.

No, the CPU is not overclocked, but I was cranking the RAM a bit, running it at 1.65v to get the full 2333MHz out of it.

As for the RAM; I am a videographer and do a lot of video editing on my machine. That can get pretty RAM intensive, although it rarely goes over 16GB.

The computer is only 6 month old, so I just contacted the supplier and they've requested I send the unit in for an RMA.