{"id":152244,"date":"2026-04-27T00:10:58","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T04:10:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/?p=152244"},"modified":"2026-04-27T00:10:58","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T04:10:58","slug":"how-to-correctly-diagnose-ram-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/how-to-correctly-diagnose-ram-problems\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Correctly Diagnose RAM Problems"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"daves-336379305\" class=\"daves-single-post-before-content daves-entity-placement\" style=\"margin-bottom: 25px;\"><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-7205184075006101\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display:block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-7205184075006101\" \ndata-ad-slot=\"2700504761\" \ndata-ad-format=\"auto\" data-full-width-responsive=\"false\"><\/ins>\n<script> \n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); \n<\/script>\n<\/div><p>RAM stands for random access memory, and to you and me, it&#8217;s the memory modules we have in our computers.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/memory-ram.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-151156\" src=\"https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/memory-ram-640x360.jpg\" alt=\"memory-ram\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/memory-ram-640x360.jpg 640w, https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/memory-ram-350x197.jpg 350w, https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/memory-ram-150x84.jpg 150w, https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/memory-ram-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/memory-ram.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, most laymen who are not familiar with RAM confuse PC memory with hard disk space, and I could write a book about the number of times I&#8217;ve heard my customers say &#8220;My PC is running out of memory&#8221;, when what they really mean is that they are running out of disk space.<\/p>\n<h2>My Recent PC Memory Error<\/h2>\n<p>The other day, I was writing an article for this esteemed publication, saved my work, left the PC running, and went downstairs to make a coffee. On my return a few minutes later, I was faced with a black screen, a beeping PC (one long and two short), and a Q-LED error E3 showing on my <strong>Asus Crosshair Hero VII motherboard<\/strong>. This was a tad alarming, and my first thought was that the GPU had gone belly up, so I hit the reset button, but ended up with the same error, so I powered it down and disconnected the power cable. I then disconnected all unnecessary peripherals except the mouse and keyboard, but the error persisted.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ryzen-pc.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-151374\" src=\"https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ryzen-pc-640x480.jpg\" alt=\"ryzen-pc\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ryzen-pc-640x480.jpg 640w, https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ryzen-pc-350x263.jpg 350w, https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ryzen-pc-150x113.jpg 150w, https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ryzen-pc-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ryzen-pc.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I then donned my scientist&#8217;s white lab coat, fired up my other PC, and searched for Asus Q-LED and beep errors, which I should have done in the first place. The first error was E3 and later, E5, both of which indicate memory initialisation. This was a bit scary at first because <a title=\"RAM Prices Set To Rise A Further 50% This Year\" href=\"https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/ram-prices-set-to-rise-a-further-50-this-year\/\" data-wpil-monitor-id=\"262\">RAM prices<\/a> are through the roof, and I had visions of having to replace one or more memory modules. On the other hand, it probably discounted a GPU error, but I would only know for sure once I had gotten something on the screen.<\/p><div id=\"daves-3134491445\" class=\"daves-single-post-in-content daves-entity-placement\" style=\"margin-bottom: 25px;\"><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-7205184075006101\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display:block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-7205184075006101\" \ndata-ad-slot=\"2700504761\" \ndata-ad-format=\"auto\" data-full-width-responsive=\"false\"><\/ins>\n<script> \n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); \n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<h2>Physician Heal Thyself!<\/h2>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been doing this kind of trial-and-error diagnosis for long enough to know that this is not difficult to pin down, so with the PC off and disconnected from the power source, I removed all four sticks of <strong>Corsair Vengeance Pro RGB 3200 DDR4 RAM<\/strong> and proceeded to check the modules one by one in each of the four slots.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ddr4-memory-slots.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-152248\" src=\"https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ddr4-memory-slots-640x594.jpg\" alt=\"ddr4-memory-slots\" width=\"640\" height=\"594\" srcset=\"https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ddr4-memory-slots-640x594.jpg 640w, https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ddr4-memory-slots-350x325.jpg 350w, https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ddr4-memory-slots-150x139.jpg 150w, https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ddr4-memory-slots-768x712.jpg 768w, https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ddr4-memory-slots.jpg 868w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>To my relief, the PC booted immediately with one 8GB module in slot B1, so I then tested the same module in each of the three remaining slots with no errors being thrown up. This meant that I could discount one memory module and all the memory slots.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/corsair-vengeance.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-152249\" src=\"https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/corsair-vengeance.jpg\" alt=\"corsair-vengeance\" width=\"600\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/corsair-vengeance.jpg 600w, https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/corsair-vengeance-350x350.jpg 350w, https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/corsair-vengeance-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It was probably unnecessary, but I then tested the other three memory modules in each slot, finally slotted all four back in their DIMM slots, and booted up with no errors. I then ran a few games with no problems, but did not run <strong>Windows Memory Diagnostic<\/strong>, which can be found at <em>Start&gt;search<\/em> and requires a PC restart for the process to begin, but I may run it in the future because it&#8217;s a very lengthy process, as I know from experience. Additionally, I had stripped the computer down to the metal and rebuilt it back in October last year and had not touched the memory modules since, so I can only put this down to a glitch, but I will be vigilant for any future errors.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;<\/p><div id=\"daves-1537577312\" class=\"daves-single-post-in-content-2 daves-entity-placement\" style=\"margin-bottom: 25px;\"><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-7205184075006101\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display:block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-7205184075006101\" \ndata-ad-slot=\"2700504761\" \ndata-ad-format=\"auto\" data-full-width-responsive=\"false\"><\/ins>\n<script> \n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); \n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"daves-3628845834\" class=\"daves-after-content daves-entity-placement\"><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-7205184075006101\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display:block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-7205184075006101\" \ndata-ad-slot=\"3225321574\" \ndata-ad-format=\"autorelaxed\" data-full-width-responsive=\"false\"><\/ins>\n<script> \n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); \n<\/script>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>RAM stands for random access memory, and to you and me, it&#8217;s the memory modules we have in our computers. Unfortunately, most laymen who are not familiar with RAM confuse PC memory with hard disk space, and I could write a book about the number [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1640,"featured_media":152251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,483],"tags":[14793,14869],"class_list":["post-152244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hardware","category-pc-computer-hardware","tag-memory-ram","tag-motherboard-beeps"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1640"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152244"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":152259,"href":"https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152244\/revisions\/152259"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davescomputertips.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}