Bad RAM?

[Thadar]

Hello,

I built my PC about nine months ago and over the last few months (mostly since upgrading to Windows 10) I have been getting a LOT of BSODs focused around Memory_Management. There have been others, but mostly MM blue screens. Sometimes these crashes happen in quick succession and other times the PC can run all day with no issues.

I finally got off my backside and ran memtests. Here are my specs:

CPU: i7-4790k
MB: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 5
RAM: F3-12800CL10D-16GBXL

Oddly enough, I ran three tests. The first test Stick1 in DIMM Slot 1 (MB Slot 1) gave me a lot of errors. I will attach the results here.

The second test, I swapped out Stick1 for Stick2 in DIMM Slot 1 (MB Slot 1) and it came up clean. No errors.

The third test, I kept Stick 2 in DIMM Slot 1 (MB Slot 1) and added Stick 1 to DIMM Slot 2 (MB Slot 3) and it came up clean as well. No errors.

So, is Stick 1 bad? Should I RMA the kit and get a new set or is it something else? Thank you for any help you can provide.

Thadar

[David (PassMark)]

So stick 1 might only be failing in single channel mode.
Might has been interesting to test Stick 1 in Slot 2 by itself.

[Thadar]

Interesting. I will run Stick 1 in slot 2 solo and report back. Thanks David.

[Thadar]

So stick 1 might only be failing in single channel mode.
Might has been interesting to test Stick 1 in Slot 2 by itself.

David - Attached is the results of Stick 1 in DIMM Slot 2 (MB Slot 3) by itself. Please let me know what you think.

Thadar

[David (PassMark)]

I think the stick is bad, but probably in a subtle way such that the access timing effects the manifestation of the fault. Having the stick in dual channel will effect the access frequency and pattern of addresses hit due to interleaving.

You could try lowing the RAM clock speed in BIOS, but otherwise just replace the bad stick.