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yakatz
Asked: 2023-12-08 21:39:58 +0800 CST

3/12 memory slots don't work - Dead processor or motherboard

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I have a Dell PowerEdge M630 blade with 2x Xeon E5-2630 v4 processors which support quad-channel memory. The blade supports 24 sticks of RAM, 12 for each processor, 4 channels of three slots.

I added RAM to fill it up (24x 16GB sticks), but the system says there is only 336 GB, not 384GB, and the iDRAC inventory shows slots B3, B7, and B11 are not populated. There are no BIOS warnings or iDRAC warnings.

I switched the sticks around to make sure that the issue wasn't with specific dead sticks. My next thought was to try switching the processors to see if it is an issue with the processor or the socket/motherboard, but before I go through the trouble, is there anything else I should check?

,RAM layout

memory

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Turns out it was likely an issue with uneven pressure of the heatsink on the processor. I went to swap the two processors to see whether that would move the issue and I found a piece of some kind of tape caught under the heatsink. When I put the processors back, all the RAM showed up.

    Tape under heatsink

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