this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2026
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Mildly Infuriating

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Now I need to take a loan in order to afford 32gb for replacement thanks to the ai bros hoarding all the chips...

Tried on three different PCs, both Intel and AMD, both sticks are damaged, somehow

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[–] ascendings@fedia.io 113 points 5 days ago (2 children)

If you haven't yet, I would try disabling the XMPP/DOCP profile to see if that passes a test. This will tell you if the RAM is just dead or if it's degraded a bit and can't hit the same speeds as it did before. If it does pass, then re-enable that profile and try downclocking or loosening the timings a bit to see if that'll work.

Failing that, you could try increasing the voltage slightly (like +0.05V, I wouldn't go above 1.4V), but I'd be careful on this front to not cause anymore damage.

Sucks that this happened right now, but IMO it'd be better to sacrifice a slight hit in performance than to buy RAM by itself at these premiums.

[–] Beryl@jlai.lu 19 points 5 days ago

This guy RAMs !

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 13 points 5 days ago

RAM has Jabber stuff now? /s

[–] shittydwarf@piefed.social 86 points 5 days ago

The universe: Fuck this guy in particular

[–] Willem@kutsuya.dev 51 points 5 days ago

A lot of ram is under lifetime warranty, check the manifacturer site (usually a serial lookup is enough).

[–] tal@lemmy.today 35 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Do they run stably if you downclock the memory in your BIOS? I'd at least try that first if replacing them is going to be a major problem.

[–] Wispy2891@lemmy.world 31 points 5 days ago (1 children)

No, even tried to run them at 1866...

[–] tal@lemmy.today 50 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

Ah, fair enough. Long shot, but thought I'd at least mention it on the off chance that maybe it would work and maybe you hadn't yet tried it. Sorry.

tries to think of anything else that could be done

Are you using Linux? Linux has a patch that was added many years back with the ability to map around damaged regions in memory. I mean, if your memory is completely hosed and you can't even boot the kernel, then that won't work, but if you can identify specific areas that fail, you can hand that off to the kernel and it can just avoid them. Obviously decreases usable memory by a certain amount, but...shrugs

I've never needed to do it myself, but let me go see if I can find some information. Think it was the "badram" feature.

searches

Okay. You're running memtest86. It looks like that has the ability to generate the string you need, and you hand that off to GRUB, which hands it off to the kernel.

https://www.memtest86.com/blacklist-ram-badram-badmemorylist.html

MemTest86 Pro (v9 or later) supports automatic generation of BadRAM string patterns from detected errors in the HTML report, that can be used directly in the GRUB2 configuration without needing to manually calculate address/mask values by hand.

To enter the address ranges to blacklist manually, do the following:

Edit /etc/default/grub and add the following line:

GRUB_BADRAM=addr,mask[,addr,mask...]

where the list of addr,mask pairs specify the memory range to block using address bit matching
Eg. GRUB_BADRAM=0x7ddf0000,0xffffc000 shall exclude the memory range 0x7DDF0000-0x7DDF4000
Open and terminal and run the following command

sudo update-grub

Reboot the system

If you can't even boot the system sufficiently to get update-grub to run, then you might need to do a fancier dance (swap drive to another machine or something), but that's probably a good first thing to try. I'd try booting to "rescue mode" or whatever if your distro has an option like that in GRUB, something that doesn't start the graphical environment, as it'll touch less memory.

EDIT: If your distro doesn't have something like that "rescue mode" set up


all the distros I've used do, but that doesn't mean that all of them do


or it it can't even bring "rescue mode" up, because your memory is too hosed for that


then you probably want to do something like hit "edit kernel parameters" in GRUB and boot while adding "init=/bin/bash" to the end of the kernel command line. That'll start your system up in a mode where virtually nothing is running


no systemd or other init system, no graphics, no virtual consoles, no anything. Bash running on bare metal Linux kernel. Control-C won't work because your terminal won't be in cooked mode, everything will be very super-duper minimal...but you should be able to bring up bash. From there, you'll want to manually bring your root filesystem, which the kernel will have mounted read-only, as it does during boot, up to read-write, with:

# mount / -o remount,rw

Once that's done, do your editing of the grub config file in vi or whatever, run the update-grub command.

Then run:

# sync

Because you don't have an init system running and it's not gonna flush the disk on shutdown and your normal power-down commands aren't gonna work because you have no init system to talk to.

Go ahead and manually reboot the system by killing its power, and hopefully that'll let it boot up with badram mapping around your damaged region of memory.

EDIT2: It occurs to me that someone could make a utility that can run entirely in Linux to do memory testing to the extent possible inside Linux using something like memtester instead of memtest86, generate the badram string and then write it out for GRUB. That's less bulletproof than memtest86 because memtester can't touch every bit of memory, but it's also easier for a user to do than the above stuff, and if you additionally added it to the install media for a distro, it'd make it easier to run Linux on broken hardware without a whole lot of technical knowledge. I guess it'd be pretty niche, though


doubt that there are a lot of systems with damaged memory floating around.

EDIT3: Oh, that's only the commercial version of memtest86 that will auto-generate the string. Well, if you know how to do a bitmask and you can get a list of affected addresses from memtest86, then you can probably just do it manually. If not, post the list of addresses here and someone can probably do a base address and bitmask that covers the addresses in question for you. Stick the memory back into your computer first, though, since the order of the DIMMs is gonna affect the addresses.

[–] Wispy2891@lemmy.world 16 points 5 days ago (4 children)

wow i'm running linux, so it might be perfect

though i'm a bit scared that it will get worse over time. Today i got a freeze that forced me to test the ram with memtest86, but since september i got some random corruption in the btrfs filesystem (luckily always "useless" files like flatpak or docker stuff that i could delete and download again in seconds) and i assumed it was a btrfs bug, not hardware problem

[–] COASTER1921@lemmy.ml 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

If I were in this position I'd strongly consider using 16GB for the next year or two. Especially with an NVME SSD, good swap performance makes the impact of running out of memory much smaller than it used to be.

It's very strange both sticks failed at the same time, have you tried them in another motherboard?

[–] justlemmyin@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

I had to do this on my busted ddr4 2 weeks ago. Badram didn't work, but memmap did. I had to do bit flipping to get the translation from BADRAM as explained here.

I think the latest memtest86+ has the option to report in memmap format. But you will need to take a photo of the screen, coz it's Foss and not as fancy as Passmarks memtest.

Edit: Adding badram to grub broke grub for me, I have to undo the grub config using a live boot rescue thingamajig. Then I went hunting why.

[–] chellomere@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago

You can even make linux run an automatic memtest on boot and reserve the bad areas it finds. This is with the memtest=N kernel parameter, where N is the number of passes. memtest=17 tests all patterns. With this, the kernel will run an automatic test on every boot.

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[–] MigratingApe@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

doubt that there are a lot of systems with damaged memory floating around.

Let’s say that you would be surprised if we actually started checking this. I will not disclose my occupation but there are thousands of critical telco infrastructure pieces of equipment that run not only a non-ECC ram because of cost cutting, but with actually broken DRAM modules, regularly rebooting at least a few times a day and causing local outages…

Back to the topic at hand - doesn’t it seem strange that only CPU4 finds issues in memtest86? It could be a CPU or even motherboard that got damaged and not the DRAM itself, no?

[–] tal@lemmy.today 5 points 5 days ago

Back to the topic at hand - doesn’t it seem strange that only CPU4 finds issues in memtest86? It could be a CPU or even motherboard that got damaged and not the DRAM itself, no?

I noticed that, but OP said that he ran the thing in three different systems, so I'm assuming that he's seen the same problems with multiple CPUs. It may be


I don't know


that memtest86 doesn't, at least as he's running it, necessarily try to hit each byte of memory with each CPU, or at least that the order it does so doesn't have errors from other CPUs visible.

I also wondered if it might be a 13th or 14th gen Intel CPU, the ones that destroyed themselves over time. But (a) it's a mobile CPU, and only the desktop CPUs had the problem there, and (b) it's 11th gen.

[–] BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world 29 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)
[–] AlecSadler@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 5 days ago

I have two sticks of RAM worth $850 now that went bad but I was able to successfully RMA them - can you do that?

[–] Quexotic@infosec.pub 10 points 5 days ago

Could this possibly be caused by a bad connection of the ram contacts?

I'm grasping for ya.

If not.. F

[–] Adulated_Aspersion@lemmy.world 16 points 5 days ago

At least its DDR4?

Im grasping.

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 12 points 5 days ago

RIP OP's Kidney

[–] diabetic_porcupine@lemmy.world 14 points 5 days ago

Bro I’ve had my ram for yeaaaars. Anytime my computer glitches I just think “yep it’s time” and my wallet sheds a tear

[–] nialv7@lemmy.world 16 points 5 days ago (1 children)

On Linux you can mask out bad memory ranges. Don't know about Windows.

[–] rollerbang@lemmy.world 6 points 5 days ago

That's neat, I'll definitely have a look about the topic.

[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 5 days ago

Nightmare scenario. My condolences

[–] Glifted@lemmy.world 10 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Sounds dumb but check craigslist

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[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 13 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Does the BIOS support any overclocking/tweaking?

I'm not familliar with Rocket Lake (your CPU generation), but you may be able to bump the voltage or loosen the timings a bit to get it stable. Even without BIOS support, it's possible you could do this from your operating system, like you can with Ryzen.

[–] TheFinn@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 5 days ago

Someone else may have said this but try reseating the memory, making sure there isn't dust or anything in the slots

[–] devolution@lemmy.world 10 points 5 days ago

Might be cheaper to buy a pre built laptop at this point...

[–] Ashiette@lemmy.world 8 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Is this a laptop ? Are you in the EU ? Is 2x8 Gb enough for your needs ?

[–] Wispy2891@lemmy.world 14 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (5 children)

No it's some kind of hybrid bastard mobo from AliExpress where they use a soldered mobile CPU but with desktop memory in microATX form factor

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Unless it's ddr5 check your local ewaste recyclers, most have shops where you can buy used parts.

[–] Wispy2891@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago (7 children)

i wonder if it was the motherboard sending wrong voltage or something like that. What are the chances of TWO modules failing AT THE SAME TIME (although it's the same kit, identical memory, so maybe it could be damaged silicon and i never noticed before)

[–] MigratingApe@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 5 days ago

Exactly my thoughts. Take your RAM and test it with another CPU + MoBo combo. Ask friends. I bet the RAM is good.

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[–] ElectricTrombone@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago

What kind of RAM? DDR4? I can sell you old G Skill DDR4.

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[–] ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I am so sorry that this happened to you. My last computer was failing, but it was failing on two different accounts: The power supply was dying and the main harddrive was dying. When I got a new computer I got a new backup HD and my old HD gave its one last dying breath to transfer all the files before croaking.

[–] WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 days ago

it was a real hero

[–] Psythik@lemmy.world 6 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Well luckily you're on the right generation of Intel that allows you to use DDR4. It'll probably be cheaper to buy a new motherboard than it would be to buy DDR5

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I'm sorry. I hope you don't have kids who need(ed) to go to college.

[–] mvirts@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Looks like most of the nibbles are fine. Maybe something happened to the connectors or traces. At least you know it's the ram not your motherboard.

[–] WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

at least? wouldn't it be cheaper to replace the motherboard nowadays?

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[–] Strider@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago (4 children)

If I may ask: how?

(background: always owned multiple pc / built frequently / never had one stick of bad ram over decades. Was it just luck or better vendor or good handling)

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (4 children)

The only RAM issue I ever had was like the 3rd PC I ever built. Using 2 modules in single channel mode worked fine. Putting them in for dual channel fried both the 3rd and 4th DIMM slots on the motherboard and the RAM that was in the 3rd slot.

I RMA'd both. It happened again.

When I sent in for a second RMA, I started wondering what is the issue, the board or the RAM? I never got an answer. Instead I got two companies blaming the other and starting a flame war in my email inbox. The board was from ASRock. I forgot who made the RAM. I just ran that thing in single channel and it was fine until it just got old and needed an upgrade.

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