R810 Memory Upgrade Nightmare

Greetings

We have a Dell R810.

• 4 x 8 core 2.6Ghz (E7-8837) CPU.
• BIOS: 2.11.0
• IDRAC: 6 2.90
• CPLD: 1.5.0
• 32 x 8GB DIMMs

We wanted to upgrade the RAM so we purchased a 512GB (16 x 32GB) DDR3-1066 MHz PC3-8500R ECC Registered Server Memory Upgrade Kit

Then the fun started.

We pulled out all of the old 8GB sticks and inserted the new 16 x 32GB thus:

A1,A3,A2,A4
B1,B3,B2,B4
C1,C3,C2,C4
D1,D3,D2,D4

Node Interleaving and Redundant Memory are both disabled.

Powered on and we get: "No configurable memory detected". "System Halted"

So first thing we do is remove all the new DIMMs and replace them with the old ones. Boots perfectly.

Reinsert the new ones and still the same error.

Then I found this chart:

which tells me (if I am not mistaken) that 16 x 32GB is not a supported configuration.

So then I go for the configuration on line 17 above with 32GB sticks in A1, A2, A3, A4 and the the old 8GB in A5, A6, A7, and A8 - same pattern across all the slots. The result was exactly the same - No configurable memory found.

For clarity, here is a shot of the old and new DIMMs. Old is (obviously) the top one.

and this is the sticker from the other side of the old DIMM.

The RAM vendor assures us that it "should all just work". They have even involved their Dell rep who advised us to update to Dell 11G CPLD, v.1.5.0, A03 and Dell iDRAC Monolithic Release 2.90 which we did (although in truth we were already at iDRAC 2.90.

Can anyone make any suggestions about this please? This has been going on for the last couple of weeks (we're in Australia and the Vendor is in the USA) and I'm about to take a fire-axe to the server cabinet with sheer frustration.

Regards

Nigel.