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Does a DDR3 RAM Chip have a writable memory chip in it?

I will try to be a bit clearer. This is my OLD system and was new in about 2014. An i5 K chip. It worked great for years on Win7 Pro 64. I wanted to upgrade to 10 as a lot of software was starting to not be supported. I installed Win10 on a new SSD and set the PC up from scratch, changing nothing. It all looked OK, so I loaded up drivers from the Asus web site, most were listed for Win10 BUT the AI suite was hidden unless I said I had Win7...I thought well it's going to be backwards compatible.....I loaded it up and tried to boost the CPU...I know I can do it in the BIOS but I have used that tool for a long time to boost things up a bit...So it did it's thing I used the FAST, not Extreme setting in the Asus AI suite setting and re-booted the PC.

No boot, just flashing RAM and CPU fail RED LED's flashing at me......Reset BIOS, moved chips around, single chips in each slot etc etc...No joy

So I bought another motherboard the same an Asus P8Z77-V, with a CPU and two more RAM sticks and swapped out my old mobo with the "new" one under Win 10, it booted up and I installed more stuff, general software and I am sure I didn't try to overclock using the AI suite again...BUT upon the next re-boot after installing Thrustmaster Joysticks....It did the same thing. No boot-RED LEDS flashing at me....
Another two RAM chips seemingly toast....

I bought more "new" 2nd hand RAM chips and THEY WORKED in BOTH mobo's. I now have two systems the same, both working fine again under WIn7 and linux mint on the "old" mobo and Win, (an OLD install) on the "new" mobo.

Now I have a stack of six chips that don't work...
These chips are: Corsair Vengeance CML8GX3M2A 1600C9B 4GB sticks in a 8GB kit X4
and also
G-SKill RipjawsF3-12800CK9D-8GBXL DDR3-1600 PC3-12800 4GBX2 XMP 9-9-9-24 (X 2 CHIPS)

I am going to have another go today at trying these chips in my "old" mobo test system which now has just one stick of Crucial Ballistix sportBLS4G3D169DS3.16FER2 9-9-9-24 (4GB's) in it and it boots OK.

I found that one of these sticks had issues last night, as I was getting BSODS on my main PC and after testing all the chips found one to be bad, hence the one chip....
 
Use the LIFETIME warranty if and when, you do come down to safe conclusions.
 
All i can say here, is don't make assumptions. That makes diagnosis harder and slower and a lot of people fall for it.

kiriakost said:
Use the LIFETIME warranty if and when you come down to safe conclusions.
Click to expand...

I would be shocked if any DDR3 memory still had valid lifetime warranty, you know that's for the PRODUCTS lifetime - they stop making it, and it ends?
 
Mussels said:
I would be shocked if any DDR3 memory still had valid lifetime warranty, you know that's for the PRODUCTS lifetime - they stop making it, and it ends?
Click to expand...

Get ready to be shocked, DDR warranty this starts due the retail receipt, my Mushkin Blackline DDR3 sold officially end of 2020 in Germany.
Talked with Mushkin at Facebook two weeks ago.
While I got second hand goods, and have a copy of the German receipt, they told me to contact them back, if I ever face a problem.
 
putting a new stick in resets the BIOS to defaults (if the system lost power) with 'new hardware detected' from the BIOS

That would let your "new" ram boot succesfully at least once, but fail again the moment your bad BIOS settings got loaded

corrupt BIOS settings are a thing, did you reflash the BIOS? If not - do so with the latest BIOS.
 
My first thought is that the AI suite either messed up the IMC voltage or the RAM voltage, which then fried your memory modules. Considering you used two motherboards and two processors, the odds of all of them being defective is rather slim.

On the topic of life time warranty, I got a full refund for a set of 9 year old DDR3 Crucial Ballistix, last year. Since it was not possible to give me a warranty replacement anymore.
 
Calenhad said:
My first thought is that the AI suite either messed up the IMC voltage or the RAM voltage, which then fried your memory modules. Considering you used two motherboards and two processors, the odds of all of them being defective is rather slim.

On the topic of life time warranty, I got a full refund for a set of 9 year old DDR3 Crucial Ballistix, last year. Since it was not possible to give me a warranty replacement anymore.
Click to expand...
Or more likely, it saved a setting the RAM doesnt work with - and the only time it boots is when the BIOS temporarily resets to defaults

I ran into a 3770k system i sold a few years back, where the new owner couldnt get BIOS settings to work. Set it, save, reboot: shows in BIOS but doesn't apply. After a long ass testing with a spare board, we found that spectre and meltdown updates from the OS half corrupted the BIOS, and the only thing to get the settings (overclocking, mostly) working again was to reflash the BIOS after the updates broke whatever they broke in the IME firmware.
 
Calenhad said:
AI suite either messed up the IMC voltage or the RAM voltage, which then fried your memory modules
Click to expand...
I think this is what happened...BUT HOW? WHY? What actually happened? I would love to know. Somebody here asked to see a picture of one of the chips naked I could probably manage to do that if it might really help identify the issue. Re the BIOS being rewritten/flashed and re-set. Yes the bios was reset using the CMOS battery out, clear CMOS jumper pins method a few times on both boards and the BIOS's were updated....
This machine I am on now won't boot with these broken chips in but it's running very well again with different RAM chips, as does the original (my old) MOBO in my "new" test machine build from my old MOBO and the spare CPU's I had after buying more of them to trouble shoot the issue...
GAH! Nightmare...
 
UEFI BIOS this is a strange animal, I have Gigabyte Bios of 2018 (original), the version with spectre update.
Gigabyte CPU control software has the option for Low-power use ( other options = high performance, normal).
I did select that option for a test, DDR3 2400 XMP switched all by it self to Jedec 1600, I was unable to get the XMP 2400 to get activated again due BIOS.
I had to Load Bios Defaults three times, so the UEFI Bios this to recover at normal use.
I have dual Bios, never booted yet with the Number 2, so to see of what is stored to it.
 
Bleeding-Edge said:
I think this is what happened...BUT HOW? WHY? What actually happened? I would love to know. Somebody here asked to see a picture of one of the chips naked I could probably manage to do that if it might really help identify the issue. Re the BIOS being rewritten/flashed and re-set. Yes the bios was reset using the CMOS battery out, clear CMOS jumper pins method a few times on both boards and the BIOS's were updated....
This machine I am on now won't boot with these broken chips in but it's running very well again with different RAM chips, as does the original (my old) MOBO in my "new" test machine build from my old MOBO and the spare CPU's I had after buying more of them to trouble shoot the issue...
GAH! Nightmare...
Click to expand...
It's far more likely you have a BIOS/firmware issue, it's basically impossible for that to have occured
 
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