Issues with RAM upgrade

Hey everyone, I’ve got an Intel ASUS Prime H55M-S2H Socket 1156 motherboard, and I just popped in some 8GB of Corsair Vengeance LPX 1866
but I've hit a wall. The BIOS sees the full 8GB of RAM, but that’s where the story ends—nothing else loads, and the PC just refuses to boot. I already tried updating the BIOS from version F5 to F7 to expand compatibility for different RAM modules, but no dice. I even tried resetting the BIOS back to factory settings, which was a total waste of time. Has anyone dealt with this kind of headache before? Is there any other way to fix this, or am I just staring at a very expensive paperweight? Thanks. 🙂

Seriously, stay far away from those Intel motherboards. I've had some pretty nasty run-ins with their boards before because the BIOS is just straight-up garbage and they’re constantly pushing updates that are riddled with bugs. Total junk, honestly.

How exactly do you mean the computer won't boot? Where specifically is it getting stuck?

When I hit the power button, specifically during that initial boot sequence where the motherboard info pops up and the BIOS starts its routine checking the RAM, disks, and all that—you know, right at the very start when you’re supposed to mash the Delete key to get into the BIOS
... the system displays the data right up until the RAM check. It shows 8GB is detected, then everything just freezes for a few seconds before the whole damn computer forces a restart.
The thing is, it works perfectly fine with my old RAM.

Look, it's hanging right at the POST stage. I'm typing this on my phone, so I can't exactly pull up the motherboard specs right now, but there's a chance it doesn't play nice with high-density RAM modules—specifically anything 8 GB or higher. What kind of RAM setup were you running before this? If you were trying to upgrade from something limited, say two 2 GB sticks when you only have two slots available, you really should have just gone with two 4 GB sticks. Honestly, you don't even need more than that for this specific build.

crimsonfalcon38 said:Seriously, stay far away from those Intel motherboards. I've had some pretty nasty run-ins with their boards before because the BIOS is just straight-up garbage and they’re constantly pushing updates that are riddled with bugs. Total junk, honestly.

Do you honestly think it's fair to judge them based on two (maybe 😬) boards you've messed with in your entire life? For crying out loud, who knows what actually went wrong...

Maybe the OP is running into the same issue because they ordered RAM and plan to flash a BIOS that supports all sorts of things, yet doesn't support more than 2x4 GB (so 8GB total in BOTH slots), which is clearly stated right in the board's specs...

http://www.intel.com/products/pro...px?pid=3310#sp

2 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 8 GB of system memory

Thanks, darkowl72. Look, I’ll be the first to admit I’m no hardware guru—that’s exactly why I came to this forum in the first place. Anyway, the issue is sorted out now. 😁

Look, I’d suggest you don't take what guys like crimsonfalcon38 are saying too seriously—either he’s totally out of the loop or he’s just trolling at this point.

When it comes to motherboard sales, Dell usually leads the pack, followed closely by Intel. While those rankings might shift slightly from month to month, I can tell you one thing for sure: an Intel board isn't some piece of junk.

Larry Ortiz5 said:Look, I’d suggest you don't take what guys like crimsonfalcon38 are saying too seriously—either he’s totally out of the loop or he’s just trolling at this point.

When it comes to motherboard sales, Dell usually leads the pack, followed closely by Intel. While those rankings might shift slightly from month to month, I can tell you one thing for sure: an Intel board isn't some piece of junk.

My old Intel board was actual trash, though. Had issues right out of the box with the BIOS and that stupid dual BIOS setup they have—where the second one is just a backup. Honestly, I haven't seen such a weird workaround anywhere else, and they probably only need a backup because their stuff is so unstable. Long story short, I'm never buying Intel again.

I honestly don't even know what to say... EVERY decent motherboard manufacturer puts dual BIOS on their higher-end models...

Looking at a review for Intel X99 boards:

"Note that many high-end boards -- like MSI's Z97-GD65 -- offer a "dual-BIOS" feature. This is a good thing. The reason that flashing firmware can brick a board is because there exist no consumer means to recover a corrupted firmware chip. To update firmware, the board must first wipe the existing blocks housing the firmware, then apply the update block-by-block to the flash device. Failure or power loss during the 'wipe' phase will likely result in catastrophic failure -- or unrecoverable corruption to the Flash memory.

Dual BIOS eliminates this concern. If BIOS fails due to a bad flash, a physical switch on the board can be toggled to enable the backup BIOS chip."

darkowl72 said:I honestly don't even know what to say... EVERY decent motherboard manufacturer puts dual BIOS on their higher-end models...

Looking at a review for Intel X99 boards:

"Note that many high-end boards -- like MSI's Z97-GD65 -- offer a "dual-BIOS" feature. This is a good thing. The reason that flashing firmware can brick a board is because there exist no consumer means to recover a corrupted firmware chip. To update firmware, the board must first wipe the existing blocks housing the firmware, then apply the update block-by-block to the flash device. Failure or power loss during the 'wipe' phase will likely result in catastrophic failure -- or unrecoverable corruption to the Flash memory.

Dual BIOS eliminates this concern. If BIOS fails due to a bad flash, a physical switch on the board can be toggled to enable the backup BIOS chip."

That all sounds great in theory, but my issue was getting hit with two broken BIOS chips right out of the box. Both were unstable, so the backup kept kicking in every single time I rebooted. Now I'm just chilling on my laptop with a single BIOS and zero issues. Honestly, screw the dual BIOS system when a single BIOS works better than the "backup" ever did. And don't even get me started on how often Gigabyte drops new BIOS updates that are so buggy they have to release patches constantly. It drives me nuts—I'd much rather they just release one solid, stable version that actually lasts a year.