Windows 10: Windows not activated after swapped RAM slots, troubleshooting does not resolve the issue.

Had abrupt PC crashes without BSOD about a week ago but eventually resolved it by taking advice from this article. What I did was uninstall all the core processors from the device manager and turn on Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling in the Graphics settings. I also swapped my RAM slots. In the process of finding a solution for the PC crashes I did try several other fixes such as swapping RAM positions 2,4 to 1,3, swapping RAM slots, resitting the GPU, updating/reinstalling drivers, reducing/switching off XMP settings in the BIOS. I also did a virus scan using bitdefender but the system

:)

 

Ram slot

Greetings my friend. Like 'Mike P', my dell has only two slots as well. There are several laptops that have four (4) ram slots. Lenovo, ASUS, some HP's and some dell's. I would suggest going to a website like newegg.com, or other computer accessory place,
and looking at their memory/ram selections. Reading their details should provide some insight as to the number of slots.

Of course, if your budget allows, the more ram you have, the better the laptop will be.

I hope this helps.

Derek

 

Why would swapping RAM modules around improve stability?

TL;DR

Swapping the RAM modules around in my PC appears to fix boot/startup issues, at least for a time.

Is there an explanation for why this would be? Or even better, does this suggest a proper fix for the problem and if so, what is it?

Long Version

I've been experiencing stability issues on a Windows 10 PC. It starts with hangs (or occasionally, spontaneous reboots) that most typically seem to be triggered by scrolling content within a window (doesn't seem to matter which application). They occur intermittently at first, but get progressively worse over several days/weeks until the PC no longer boots successfully. Which is to say that it will POST, start loading Windows, and then hang before it reaches the login screen.

Not really knowing what else to try, the first time this occurred I opened up the PC, reseated the graphics card, and swapped all the RAM modules around (as in, remove them, and then reinserted each one into a different slot). And bingo, it was back to normal...for a time. Then the problem reoccurred.

Long story short I've observed that removing and reinserting the RAM modules is what temporarily fixes the stability problem (fiddling with the graphics card, or any other components, isn't necessary). So far I've always reinserted them in different slots (though I've probably been through enough iterations that they've reached their original configuration at least once by now), but I suspect the trick will work just as well if I just put them back in the same slot. I'll try that approach next time.

Is there an explanation for what's going on here? Or even better, does this suggest anything that might be done to effect a proper, long-term fix to the stability problems?

In case it matters, the PC has 6x4GB RAM modules installed.

For those looking for further specs, they are:

• Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R Mainboard
  
• Intel Core i7 980 CPU
  
• G.Skill DDR3-1600 RAM (4GB * 6)
  
• Nvidia Titan X GPU
  

 

Windows update: one PCIe slot and one GPU kaput

Memtest86 is good, but no RAM tester can detect all possible RAM failures. I would suggest that you adopt a slow and careful step-by-step approach to troubleshooting this clear hardware issue.

I would suggest that you strip the PC to the bare minimum. Unplug all external devices except monitor, mouse, and keyboard. You've already removed the GPU, so remove all but one RAM stick (and try other RAM sticks too). Remove unnecessary PCIe cards (extra USB ports cards, WiFi cards, for example). If it fails in as stripped-down version as you can achieve then I'd look at the PSU, and then the motherboard.

This isn't a software issue though.