Damaged Ram Slot
Posted : admin On 3/31/2022Make sure you install the RAM in a clean environment. Whether you're installing RAM into a laptop or a desktop computer, chances are you're going to have to open the casing to reach the RAM slots inside. If there are stray liquids or dust or other pieces of debris in your environment, they may get inside and cause damage. A memory slot is a slot in your motherboard where you place your RAM (Random Access Memory) card. In layman's terms, the RAM is the 'temporary memory' that the computer utilizes whenever it is turned on. If the computer cannot detect a RAM card installed in one of your memory slots, you have to troubleshoot the problem immediately. So, if you have one or two Rams installed in your computer then take out all of your computer’s Rams from the motherboard and then place only one ram into the slot just for the testing purpose and then test your PC. In case, if you are able to use your computer without any problem that means your another ram is faulty, just buy a new one.
sfbayzfs
Active Member
I have a lot of system building experience, and generally held the belief that bad RAM slots on motherboards are uncommon. The first one I encountered was a couple of years ago - I opened up a brand new ITX celeron board and I eventually discovered that one of the RAM slots was bad. The motherboard wouldn't boot with any RAM installed in one of the two RAM slots on the motherboard - remove RAM from that slot, and the system booted fine with RAM in the other slot only. (Of course I had been storing the board for long enough that it was out of warranty, but that's another story...) I suspected a bad solder joint or tin whisker somewhere on the bad RAM slot, but my soldering iron was misplaced a while ago, and a visual inspection of the underside of the board looked OK.
I have been testing more boards than I used to over the past year, and I have found a number of other boards which have bad RAM slots, so I was wondering how many bad RAM slots others here have run into on otherwise good motherboards.
Also, has anyone ever successfully fixed a bad RAM slot, say with a solder reflow?
Broken Ram Slot Clip
So far, in terms of failure modes with bad RAM slots, either any RAM in that slot is not recognized and ignored, or else the system won't boot with any RAM in that slot, either locking up during POST or black screen before POST, sometimes with beeps. Any time I have had memtest rack up errors, I have eventually traced it to an actual bad stick of RAM, but has anyone else noticed bad RAM slots causing other symptoms?
On dual processor Xeon boards I have further findings:
Bad Ram Slot Macbook Pro
- If the blue (primary) RAM slot in a channel is bad, that whole channel is unusable
- If the first blue slot for a CPU is bad, that CPU socket is unusable
- If a non-blue slot is bad, usually only that slot is bad