Hi, I've been at this for a while now and can't seem to figure it out at all, so hopefully someone here can enlighten me.
Current Specs
- Intel i7-3770K
- Asus Maximus V Extreme
- 16GB Crucial Ballistix Tracer 1600Mhz 8-8-8-24
- Palit Jetstream GTX680 4GB
- Creative Soundblaster Recon3D Champion
- LG Blu-Ray Rewriter
- 1x 120GB OCZ Vertex 3 SSD
- 2x 240GB OCZ Vertex 3 SSD
- Corsair AX1200i
- Windows 8 x64
I run a custom watercooling loop so my psu is also powering 2 PMP450's, 8x 120mm fans (3 LED) & 3 140mm corsair SP140 fans.
The ProblemThe problem I have is that a few months ago I shut down a perfectly operational machine for the night. When I woke up in the morning the system wouldn't even POST. I stripped the computer apart, after trying different fixes, and checked for damages on the board but couldn't find anything. After rebuilding, the system had lost all information from my SSD's but it was able to POST - great. However, when I run my 4x4GB ram sticks, only 2 of them are picked up as total memory available. But... when I check the GPU.DIMM POST screen in UEFI it acknowledges that there are 4 sticks inserted, showing the correct details.
I should mention that the ram has activity lights.. all ram shows activity in the first couple seconds before POST screen shows, as soon as the screen shows up channel A sticks lose all activity while channel B is fine.
What I've tried:
- First and foremost was memtest86+. I tested each stick seperately for about 12 hours a piece - no errors found.
- Checked to make sure both channels are activated in UEFI
- I have taken the sticks out and inserted individually, as well as with their dual channel partner, in to each dimm/channel - everything is picked up fine.
- I have used spare components in conjunction with this setup: i5-3570K, GTX760, a different 120GB OCZ Vertex 3, an XFX 1000W PSU. The problem persists if I use any hardware on the M5E with the 16GB ram. Unfortunately I don't have 16GB of another type of ram lying around to test it directly.
- I then switched out the board for an ASRock Fatal1ty Pro, problem is gone using the same Crucial Ballistix ram.
- I have tried increasing the VCCIO a bit to see if it was being starved. Still nothing.
- I tried reverting to several older BIOS revisions, but the problem persisted
I did have a short term fix, I switched out to BIOS2, flashed to 1903, and it found all of the ram again.. for about 3 days.. and then it all happened again.. no POST from a cold boot and then SSD's losing all information as well as memory not being available.
I originally assumed dead IMC, but it happens with 2 CPU's which both work perfectly well on several other boards. I also thought dead DIMM or Channel, but everything works fine when running 2 sticks in either channel as well as the GPU.DIMM POST screen showing everything to be fine. The only common factor is the M5E.
Where you come inAs it is now, I POST and boot in to windows fine, but with only 8GB Ram available. Could this be damaged BIOS chips as one part of the BIOS see's the ram, while another part doesn't? Otherwise, does anyone have any suggestions or has seen this before? I'm at a complete loss here and it's frustrating the hell out of me..
Thanks in advance, any help is much appreciated.
ps. sorry about the sub headers, trying to break up the wall of text a little.
