Long time RAM issues, could it be my case?

[Inspireless Llama]

Hey guys,

I have a question regarding my PC, which has been having issues for years now.
Every issue came back to the RAM not being detected or signs that appeared to be that the RAM was faulty.

The issues started after I moved. I didn't use my pc for a few months because i didn't have a desk yet but when I did, my pc would have random crashes and just reboots without warning that it didn't have before.
I've tried to replace so much (I went through 3 CPU's, 3 motherboards, 4 different sets of RAM and i'm on a new PSU now as well) because it kept coming back to random crashes, a memtest found 86.000 issues with my RAM set, new motherboard would have a LED on "No RAM detected" etc.

Last week I did the last set of replacements, including RAM, Mobo, CPU & PSU. I think you can imagine by frustration when it ran fine for about 36 hours before crashing and no longer posting with a RAM issue.

Anyway, about an hour ago I kind of randomly decided to take the mobo out of the case, connect my old PSU to it, jumpstart it and see what it does. And it works!

But now the question though; I'm pretty sure now it's my case that's somehow shorting my motherboard and creating RAM issues, but is there a way I can rule that out? I'm drawing to that conclusion now becaue the problems started after a move: A move usualy shakes things up quite a bit, so my pc might have been shaken arround a little. I can just purchase a new case, but I"m a bit weary about that. Listed above is the amount of money I've already wasted in not succesfully resolving the issue. And even though I feel like I'm getting closer to a solution, I rather ask for help to see what the issue might be over just wasting more money.

Anyway here my story, I can make pictures of my PC case if that's helpfull, and thanks in advance!

 

[Brian Boru]

Pending experts pitching in:

Are you aware of the issues which can result if the mobo isn't properly supported by standoffs?

Motherboard short-circuit with case if all the standoffs are installed

Hi everyone, I'm having a rather bizarre problem with my new build. It appears that I have to leave out one of the four (mini-itx) motherboard standoffs otherwise my pc won't POST. The DRAM led will light up and the mobo will reboot within a second or two. I've tested the DDR3 itself in...

forums.anandtech.com

 

[Colif]

CPU R5 3600
MB: Asus PRIME X470-PRO
SSD: 1tb 970 Evo
Ram: 32gb Corsair
GPU: 2060 Super

is that accurate since:

(I went through 3 CPU's, 3 motherboards, 4 different sets of RAM and i'm on a new PSU now as well)

What are current specs?

what haven't you replaced?

if you think its case, bread board the build and see if it still happens

How To - Breadboarding, stripping it down to the basics for troubleshooting

If you have to read this, something is very wrong with your PC such that you need to fully troubleshoot your system at the most basic hardware level, Breadboarding. A little background: breadboards were what we called our lab equipment in electronics school. I don't know why they started...

forums.tomshardware.com

At some point you should have taken PC to repair store if only for a 2nd opinion.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Damn that sucks, I would definitely try breadboarding it out like Colif said. Just wanted to say welcome back, sorry to hear about your PC problems.

 

[Inspireless Llama]

CPU R5 3600
MB: Asus PRIME X470-PRO
SSD: 1tb 970 Evo
Ram: 32gb Corsair
GPU: 2060 Super

is that accurate since:

What are current specs?

Those were the specs I had when I moved yes, below my current specs:

AMD Ryzen 5700X
ASUS ROG B550-F Gaming
1tb 970 EVO
16gb Corsair Vengeance @3200mhz
RTX3060ti

what haven't you replaced?

The only thing I haven't replaced by now are my SSDs , and my case.

if you think its case, bread board the build and see if it still happens

How To - Breadboarding, stripping it down to the basics for troubleshooting

If you have to read this, something is very wrong with your PC such that you need to fully troubleshoot your system at the most basic hardware level, Breadboarding. A little background: breadboards were what we called our lab equipment in electronics school. I don't know why they started...

forums.tomshardware.com

At some point you should have taken PC to repair store if only for a 2nd opinion.

Right now I'm typing this from my "PC", which is just placed on my mobo box haha. The reason why I think it's the case is because while being in the case, the pc wouldn't post and the mobo would give an error for no RAM detected. Now outside of the case and when I jumpstarted it, it posted every time, with every single set of RAM that I have currently lying arround.

 

[Colif]

I wonder what cause is. Something got bent out of shape when you moved the pc. maybe something behind motherboard tray, as you would think you would notice installing 3 other boards. can be a short somewhere?

New case good chance to find one that does something better than last one.

 

[Inspireless Llama]

I'm having trouble checking if anything bend, but the only thing I see that seems worth noticing is that I have 2 standoffs that seems to be either installed differently, or just different from the other standoffs. See images below.

Unfortunately I'm not enough of a standoff expert to know if this should be, if it could cause problems or anything else.

Excuse me for the low quality of the picture, but it's hard to get a proper focussed image of these.

Spoiler

This standoff is how 7 out of 9 are installed.

This is how the other 2 are placed: Interesting fact is that one of those seems to be very close to the location of where the RAM would be on the mobo.

In the end I guess it might be worth just replacing the case. It's a good case, but it's pretty useless if my PC doesn't work in it

 

[Colif]

looks to me like there are 2 sleeves, the outer layer with the finger grips and possibly an inner layer that can be screwed up and down.

Building PC isn't a hobby of mine.. @Lutfij might have a clue.

 

[Colif]

Colif looks at his 3d graphics score in Passmark. 30k is pretty good, he thinks... 97% percentile... looks at max ever... how. 245174... um... I have questions.

I suspect pro cards were used, my gpu compute score of 16161 is 99th percentile but the max ever is 973092

physics score on CPU. I am 99th percentile with a 2912 but max ever is 23056900

My storage always seems to score bad. Not sure what story is. It only checks one drive anyway.

 

[Inspireless Llama]

I don't see how that has to do with RAM issues

Either way, I think passmark can be fooled. I don't know about the videocards, but there's an option on an Samsung SSD to make it run about a 100 times faster, but most of the time passmark will recognize that and not officially register the baseline. Maybe that doesn't work 100% of the time. Forgot what it's called.

 

[Colif]

yeah, sorry, i got side tracked.

i figured the ram issues had been identified as a problem with the case.

Were the only errors you getting "no ram detected" and not errors caused by the ram itself?

replacing case isn't on this list - https://www.makeuseof.com/ways-to-fix-ram-not-detected-errors/ so its not a common answer.

 

[Inspireless Llama]

Yeah I think that's why I had so much issues trying to figure out what the problem was - it doesn't seem to be common. I tried all the things listed in that link, hence why I have different mobos by now (try different RAM slots), multiple sets of RAM (maybe the RAM itself was faulty), and CPU's (maybe the CPU controller was broken).

This is what constantly happened, except that this mobo has debug LEDS, which my x470 didn't.

Spoiler

My oldest set of RAM did give errors (about 16.000 of them) when I did memtest86. It came down to 1 error over 20% done when outside of the case, so I think that memory is done for. but right now I'm seeing if i can keep the system running for a longer period of time outside the case, so I'll know if the system appears to be stable.


Also thanks @Brian Boru for the link, I searched so much and never found someone else with a problem related to DRAM that appeared to be related to the case!

By reading a bit further, I do read comments to say not to place connectors on the bottom of your mobo, which I did becaues there are holes there. It does give me things to try without constantly buying new RAM sets, mobos and CPU's thinking the problem lies there

 

[Colif]

1 error is still 1 too many.

I was going to suggest memtest. generally helps to test 1 stick at a time. testing with multiple can be a waste of time as if you do get an error, you can't tell which was cause.

 

[Brian Boru]

how the other 2 are placed

That looks like ~25% extra height, assuming the extra top part doesn't come thru the mobo holes. That's potentially a lot of mobo warpage, especially if the 2 odd guys are close together. Warp is good for Star Trek, but not mobos

I recommend not using those two, try it with only 7 standoffs—assuming you can't easily pick up 2 others like the 7.

 

[Inspireless Llama]

That looks like ~25% extra height, assuming the extra top part doesn't come thru the mobo holes. That's potentially a lot of mobo warpage, especially if the 2 odd guys are close together. Warp is good for Star Trek, but not mobos

I recommend not using those two, try it with only 7 standoffs—assuming you can't easily pick up 2 others like the 7.

You might be onto it! I checked my box with extra screws, which I shouldn't have saved btw. I have so much now and for most I don't evne know what they're for, but I do have 2 extra standoff screws. Placing them next to each other it's hard to take a proper picture of, but I do indeed see a different in size.

I actually had to use some seriuos force gettting the standoffs out, they were really tight . Had to use a tool that I can't find the translation for but it worked so they're out.

As to where they were placed, they would make sense to cause issues for RAM, oen of these standoffs was placed between the RAM slots and CPU on the top of the mobo. The other one would be located between the RAM slots and the top m2 slot (just above the GPU slot) if you can imagine the locations.

I'm going to place the small standoffs instead now, and install the motherboard into the case tomorrow, I'm really curious to see if that fixes the issue.

 

[Inspireless Llama]

Okay , 3AM in the morning and I have rebuild my PC now. Interesting enough the replacing of the standoffs alone wasn't enough for the PC to post.

I'm completely confused as to how these are related, but for some reason if I do not connect my front panel RESET switch to the mobo pins, the PC does POST, but with fans full blazing. I can manually turn them to silent but I find it interesting.

I think I was using a wrong screw for the motherboard there too (diameter too big), but replacing that for a smaller one itself didn't fix the issue. I do think it's somehow the reset connector that's causing the issue.

Conclusion for me now is that it is indeed the case that's the issue, how or what I'm not sure, but I had the PC running completely fine for 24+ hours outside my case, and the moment it went back into the case it had issues, which I seem to have bypassed by now.
I've never used the physical reset button on my case, so the fact that it's not connected is not an issue for me.

EDIT:

As a matter of fact, could it be that the Reset Switch is constantly being activated ,therefor forcing my pc to reboot all the time, which makes it seem like an issue with RAM? Considering that's the first thing that's being checked.