Aurora R4, Dimm slots 3 and 4 not working

Question

hi everyone.

I'm not well versed in computer tech so apologies in advance for my ignorance.

After 6 years my Aurora R4 is starting to creak so decided to give it a few upgrades.

Started with Windows 10 from Windows 7.

That seemed to be fine.

Next up was the ram.

It came with 16 gigs, I bought 32 gb ribjaws Z, 4× 8 to double it.

But the machine doesn't seem to recognise dimm 3 and 4.

I have all four ram chips plugged in, but still only have 16 gigs of ram.

I tried playing around with the slots and the old ram and came to the realisation the dimm 3 and 4 just aren't working.

Plugging all the old ram in left me with 8 gbs instead of 16.

When I try using the boot menu to fiddle around in the bios it's only showing two ram units to change the voltage for rather than the actual four.

The machine was running fine with the 4×4 ram chips before. I don't see why dimms three and four seem to have packed it in with a simple ram swap.

Has anyone else encountered something like this and have any advice for me?

Thanks!

Steissound · Answer

Hi all. Dunno of it helps, but I installed CPU Z It shows that my machine is running dual channel memory. Slots 3 and 4 are being ignored. Anyone know if I can manually set it to quad channel? The set of memory chips I bought Re quad channell, 4 x 8, and it originally ran in quad channel with 4 x4n so I don't understand why it's changed to dual channel and can't find an option to change it back Thanks in advance

r72019 · Answer

The last 2 slots could have been physically damaged during the RAM swap. This could have happened for example if you just clicked "shut down" and then swapped the RAM from there. Windows 10 has a feature where the default when you click "shut down," is to go into hibernation, and that means the RAM is still in use and getting voltage. To turn this feature off you need to disable fast startup under power options. If you took the RAM out in that hibernation state, it could have fried the slot.

Also, second though, is to unplug and re-seat the RAM. Common issue is that the RAM is not fully inserted, so removing and reinstalling sometimes helps.

If that doesn't work, you can try resetting CMOS.

When you swapped the RAM, did you remember to unplug the computer from the wall and discharging flea power before swapping the RAM ?

Steissound · Answer

Thanks a million for the reply, Tungsten. I think I removed the power plug before swapping out the ram. I did fail to insert the ram correctly on the first attempt. After shutting down again and inserting properly the ram slots have gone completely inactive. I've tried different combinations of the chips in different slots, I've confirmed that all the chips work, but the slots don't. From what you're saying it sounds like I might have fried the slots. Dunno what I can do about that. Thanks again for the response

Steissound · Answer

After messing with the bios a bit the computer failed to boot a few times, so I've had to reset the smos a few times to fix

S665 · Answer

I am having the same issue. Has anyone been able to resolve this?

Tesla1856 · Answer

I am having the same issue. Has anyone been able to resolve this? ===================== Since the Aurora-R4 above failed to work with original 4x4dimms re-installed, it appears that the motherboard was damaged during the process. The only 'resolution' would be a new motherboard. Other thing I read above that needs correction is there is no 'quad channel' memory on this motherboard/chipset. It's 2-memory-banks, comprised of 2-dimm-slots each. Each bank runs dual-channel. Hard to tell, but sounds like they lost use of a whole bank. The reply above by @r72019  is accurate.

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Aurora R4, Dimm slots 3 and 4 not working

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