GA-Z97X-Gaming 7: Won't boot with Dual Channel memory installed

[zer0w1re]

Hey folks,

I am having a bit of trouble. I recently got a GA-Z97X-Gaming 7 motherboard, and at first I thought it was DOI (might still be, we'll find out). I have 4x8gb ram installed (F3-1600C10D-16GAO, this isn't on the compatibility list however I would expect most DDR3 modules to work regardless...). It won't boot when all four sticks are installed, nor will it boot with just two configured as Dual Channel.

Right now I have my two sticks installed in slots 1 and 3. Putting any stick in slots 2 or 4 at any time will cause the system to reboot before POSTing, and I see the debug code "C0" which in the manual just says "reserved".

I've done a lot of research, and a lot of people having this problem have found bent pins in the CPU socket, however I have looked and I can't see any. Here are some pics if anyone is able to identify any bent pins that I can fix.

https://imgur.com/a/eygDG

When I am able to boot with the two sticks installed in Single Channel mode, I have tried numerous BIOS changes, such as manually setting the memory latencies and stuff like that, to no avail.

Anyone have any ideas? This is my second board, the first one just stopped working after the first day, and I couldn't figure out why so I RMA'd it.

[dmdilks]

If you RMA it, did they send another or the same one. I have RMA many boards and I have always got back the same board. If you have two sticks of memory in there you are running dual channel.

If it is telling you are in single channel then the board is still screwed up. The thing is that the memory controller is in the CPU. That is why people will ask if you got bent pins. There could be something wrong with the CPU too.

But that is very rare when that happens. The other thing is all the stick work if you have tested them in 1 & 3 right. You have two channels. 1&3 is channel one and 2&4 is channel two. But if you have them in 1&3 you are in dual channel.

[zer0w1re]

On the board, the memory slots are configured as:   [CPU] [4][2][3][1]

It is set up so that slots 1 and 2 are channel A, and 3 and 4 are channel B. I just verified this with the colors of the slots too. When I am able to boot (Slots 1 and 3), CPU-Z shows 16GB _SINGLE_ channel, and the ram is also 1600MHz, and it is only showing up as 800MHz in CPU-Z.

I guess I didn't really RMA it, but I had a Gaming 5, that I returned through Amazon. They gave me a refund, and since the Gaming 7 was actually less on Newegg, I got that. So, the board is brand new. Regardless, it is my second Gigabyte board in less than a week that is causing me problems.

The i7 4790K is brand new as well.

Would you suggest replacing the board, or is there anything else I can try? I already opened a ticket on esupport.gigabyte.com so if you suggest replacing it, I'll continue it through there. I'd really like to get it working if I could though...

Thanks

[dmdilks]

The first board why did you send it back for the same thing? On the memory slots I didn't know they change it. For years it was 1&3 2&4. On my board it is 1,3,5,&,7 & 2,4,6,&,8. If it was the same thing, chances are that two different boards doing the same thing is rare.