So i build my PC about 4 years ago. It has ASRock K4 Z170, 6700k and initially 16 GB of Vengance DDR 2*8 2400Mhz CMK16GX4M2A2400C16 RAM.
When i built it everything was fine and still sort of is fine. But about year ago i decided to do a little upgrade and brought a second set of same exact model of RAMs and expand storage with M.2 around the same time, M.2 not on supported device list in motherboard description, model did not exist when mobo was made.
So when i installed new/second set of RAM, everything initially was fine, Windows loaded fine, i managed to check task manager and it showed 32GB of memory, i think i managed to check device list and saw that i have 32GB of ram now. But about 1-2min after Windows loaded it blue screened, showing some message about memory error. And after restart it no longer was possible to get to Windows desktop as system either froze or continuously rebooted before even windows loaded. I could not manage to gen in to BIOS as it crashed before i could get in.
So i removed new rams and did an experiment, when i inserted one, got to win desktop but within minute or so system crashed with similar memory error.
Then i removed old RAMs and replaced with new ones, everything worked ok. And i had no crashes since then. I gave up figuring out what was the problem while back. My PC has been running with no crashes with those new RAMs for years now.
But recently, talking with my friend, i got suggested to update BIOS, so i did that yesterday. Took out my old RAM sticks from now slightly dusty packaging and tried again.
This time when populating all 4 RAM slots, screen did not even turn on. So with new BIOS i have gone backwards. System posted fans turned, but i am afraid it got stuck in constant loop and nothing loaded further. Tried again using single stick to get 24 GB, but still got the same result - screen did not even turn on with system just spinning fans and doing nothing.
I am using default/auto settings in BIOS, have not yet decided to OC, since PC performance is still great. But ASRock K4 Z170 comes with multitude of options.
What could be the problem ? If i use more than 2 slots of RAM my system does not work.
Thank you,
suggestions would be appreciated.