Defective RAM question

Hi all,

I got my new system delivered last week (thanks Staffsmike and elcapitan for your help) and spent the weekend building it. I put it all together, and apart from a few noisy fans it all works.

When putting the RAM into the motherboard, i put only one stick in to make sure that it all worked, and it did! Booted up fine, OS installed and running fine. I then went back to put the second stick in, started it up. It did the memory check, which stated that it was ok, and then the system just hung. I noticed from other forums that the mobo (abit iP35) might have this issue, so went about adjusting the voltages slightly - no change. Then went back to one stick of RAM (the original stick) and it works fine. I then tried the second stick of RAM by itself, and it did it's hanging trick again. I've tried various combinations of RAM in different slots.

I'm therefore 90% confident that one of the sticks is defective, but I thought i'd just ask here incase anyone else has had a similar issue or if there's anything else I've overlooked.

Also, if I need to RMA it, because I got a 4Gb kit, would it be ok to only send the defective one back? (Sorry - noob at this stuff).

The relevant specs are:

Mobo: abit iP35 dark raider
RAM: 2x 2Gb G.Skill PC2-6400

Thanks

If you've got two indentical sticks, you put them in the same slot, one at a time, and one does not work, that stick is defective.

RMA time. Usually, you have to send both sticks back. Contact whoever you will be RMAing the memory to and ask them to be certain.

The only reason I even buy so called matched pairs is because they tend to be cheaper. I've had "matched pairs" that were not even built with chips from the same manufacturer.

Memtest86.com - Memory Diagnostic

this is what i use to test memorey ( burn to a cd and boot with it in drive )
but if you cant boot with second stick its pointless

RMA when i have done this before you have to return in pairs ( i have only ever got pairs ) but as oralpain says contact your surplier

i am asuming when you tried the second stick you tried it in the same slot as the first

Thanks for the advice, I'm pretty sure that one of the sticks was faulty, but I thought I would ask anyway.

Hopefully I won't have to send both sticks back, otherwise I won't be able to use my new system for however long an RMA takes!

3ds - I did try both sticks in the same slot (obvously at different times), it works for one, not for the other.

I don't know a lot about it, but it detects the memory and says OK (i.e. 2,147,483,648 bytes OK) and then hangs after that. I would have assumed that it wouldn't detect the memory if its defective.

you have done all that i would have ( using the same slot rules out a motherboard fault )
im sorry to hear its faulty there is nothing worse IMO