RAM problems. Channel A not recognized.

[Radeson]

Hello all,
I am having RAM issues. I have 6850k with 32gb 3600mhz gskill trident z. Channel A is not posting. Even with default settings. Channels B,C,D all are functional. I've tried switching dimms. I've tried 2 dimms and I'm able to post both in B, and D I believe. Whatever was recommended. I tried one at a time and channel A will not post. I tried pulling the CPU out and checking for bent pins. I found one that was questionable and realigned it. Now I've reassembled with all 4 dimms and channel A is still not working. I'm able to get into OS and use it but I'm not sure I should even do that. Also when I tried 2 dimms I'm able to post 16gb, but the next time it booted it only recognized 1 dimm. I'm at a loss and I'm seriously considering a 3900x AMD upgrade... Help please.

[JOSHSKORN]

If nothing else, I saw a guy on YouTube flip his board around, take a wire, strip two ends and solder them to the RAM slot contacts. Mind you, I have zero knowledge about this and I'm just trying to help. So in your case, I'm assuming if you were to even attempt this, maybe solder a wire to touch the contacts for A and B (I'm guessing). Don't even attempt this if you don't know what you're doing. You're gonna need a volt meter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj2KqrumVrc

Alternatively, if you're lucky, you can find a used Motherboard on Ebay. It's worth a shot. If you go that route, check the seller's ratings first, and obviously the item description to see if the seller noted any broken functionality.

[Radeson]

Thank you for the advice. I'm worried it might actual be the cpu itself doing it. Probably not though. It's old but still a good system. Anyone think I should just say ef it and buy a new motherboard cpu?

[JOSHSKORN]

Radeson wrote:
Thank you for the advice. I'm worried it might actual be the cpu itself doing it. Probably not though. It's old but still a good system. Anyone think I should just say ef it and buy a new motherboard cpu?

Man, you've got the 5960x just like I do. Six years later, I still haven't seen a game that kills it. I may decide to upgrade my GPU soon, though to possibly a 3090 or whatever AMD has to offer coming up, since my GTX 980 is my bottleneck for Microsoft Flight Simulator. CPU usage is still pretty low, even on that game, or, simulator.

Why not do some more research on a fix before you make up your mind? I would honestly not bother with this forum, since it has slowed down. As you can see, the latest replies from the last few threads aren't very recent. Maybe try HardForum, Overclock, Overclockers (there's .com and .co.uk) or TomsHardware. Overclock.com has a 540+ page thread on the Rampage V Extreme. Maybe try posting on it.

Again, I wouldn't know exactly if you could diagnose your problem with a volt meter and testing each slot like the guy did in the video. I also wouldn't know if you could just move one of the RAM sticks into one of he Black slots or if they're set up specifically for pairing with each other.

You and I both, we're still holding onto this setup because, it still works. I just upgraded my RAM to 64GB and the XMP Profile the RAM has does not work and won't boot. Community Support is essentially non-existent nowadays, unfortunately. Good luck.

[PipJones]

Radeson wrote:
Hello all,
I am having RAM issues. I have 6850k with 32gb 3600mhz gskill trident z. Channel A is not posting. Even with default settings. Channels B,C,D all are functional. I've tried switching dimms. I've tried 2 dimms and I'm able to post both in B, and D I believe. Whatever was recommended. I tried one at a time and channel A will not post. I tried pulling the CPU out and checking for bent pins. I found one that was questionable and realigned it. Now I've reassembled with all 4 dimms and channel A is still not working. I'm able to get into OS and use it but I'm not sure I should even do that. Also when I tried 2 dimms I'm able to post 16gb, but the next time it booted it only recognized 1 dimm. I'm at a loss and I'm seriously considering a 3900x AMD upgrade... Help please.

Have you tried increasing RAM voltage? Try 1.1365.

Do all 4x channels work with different RAM?

I'm running 4x4 Corsair 3600 on RVE with my 6900K, recently upgraded from 6850K - identical settings.

I could not get 3600 remotely stable and settled on 3400 15-16-16-33. This took a lot of more testing and tuning than any other RAM kit that I have used before.

Try aiming for 2800 or 3200 first, auto settings as much as possible. I think there's a rampage tweak in the memory settings, stick with 1. 1=compatibility, 2=performance,3=i can't remember!

[Super_Gnome]

Just curious about what led up to this problem. Did the one Channel just suddenly stop working? Or was this after you replaced some of the ram or something else? Was this after some kind of update? Or did you reseat your CPU, or reapply paste or something? Or did you do something in the Bios? Also, do you run Asus software like AI Suite?

In my experience, Asus software is often the problem--albeit I am far from an expert.

Other thoughts: Is your ram on the QVL list--if you just installed some new ram. Also, is your ram a single kit, or two kits? Lastly, I once had a similar problem and it turned out to simply be that one of the sticks was not properly seated--albeit, this sounds unlikely since you have shifted your sticks around. Oh, and one more thing: Have you set up the speed, etc. in the Bios? Oh, and yet another thought: Have you tried using different memory?

Also, some related links:

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/memory-channel-a-not-working.3390170/

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/channel-a-ram-slots-not-working.3194393/

It seems to me the problem could be your CPU socket. Could any of the pins have recently been bent?