So I have been building a computer for the past 5 months(saving up enough money to buy all new parts) and about 2 months ago I started building. From the first day onwards its been a nightmare. My default HP case was a bitch to work with, my front panel connector cables were wired incorrectly and glued together and on top of that my psu was shipped DOA(thanks corsair...). Now, unsurprisingly, I have another massive problem. I am experiencing random freezes and crashes(BSOD, color bars on screen) when booting into windows, when installing windows, and when running RAM diagnostic OSes. My friend told me that sometimes default RAM from a manufacturer such as HP, Dell, etc.. doesn't work with certain motherboards. I have not found any citations for that statement and just figured that as long as the DIMMs were DDR3 then you are good to go. However I could very well be wrong. So, is that possible that my RAM is causing my random freezes, blue screens, and reboots or could it be a mobo or cpu problem? Thanks in advance!
Note: I have already ruled out that its a HDD problem, power supply problem or a graphics card problem and my RAM works 100% fine in its default hardware config.
My guess is also the ram. it could be that the timings are messing with it, or the speed. go to http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/FM2A88M%20Extreme4+/?cat=Memory, and get one of the sticks it recommends. I have ran into this issue on older computer builds myself. Even if the ram has the same speed and timing it just wont work. Buy one of those try it, and if that does not solve it send it back for a refund
I guess you could say that I'm 'glad' to hear that. So now I know that older RAM/proprietary RAM can cause issues with newer motherboards. I will probably go looking for some new sticks this weekend. Thank you for your help!