A stick in the wrong slot halves bandwidth, and one that is not fully clicked causes random freezes. Both are fixed in ten minutes with the case open.
Check the **motherboard manual** for the slot pair, fill **A2 and B2** on most boards, and press each stick until **both clips click**. Then confirm the channel mode in the firmware.
Four slots, two channels, and the correct pair is not always the first and the third. The manual names the pairs for a two-stick kit; every other combination either drops to single channel or refuses to boot at rated speed.
Shut down, switch the power supply off and hold the power button for a few seconds. Unplugging the cable alone leaves the board partly energised and RAM does not like being handled in that state.
Push the clips outward, align the notch with the key in the slot and press both ends down at once. The clips close on their own when the stick is fully seated.
After the first boot, the memory screen shows the installed capacity, the speed and the channel mode. Dual channel should be listed; a single-channel entry means the pair is wrong.
Del or F2 at boot > Memory informationFirmware defaults run at the JEDEC baseline, which is often far below the kit's rating. Enable the memory profile if the board supports it, then verify the reported clock in the operating system.
Task Manager > Performance > Memory > SpeedA stick that is seated but faulty shows up as errors, not as a failed boot. One pass of a memory test over twenty minutes is enough to catch a badly seated module.
One stick is not fully in. Remove both, reseat one at a time and watch for the post beep or the debug light.
Single channel. Move the sticks into the pair the manual names.
A stick is not detected or is in a slot the board reserves. Test each stick alone in the first slot.
Seating, then the memory profile. Run the test at the default speed before you blame the modules.
Often yes at the slower speed. Identical modules in one kit are the reliable option.
It matters more for the integrated graphics than for a discrete card, but it is free once the sticks are in the right slots.
Nothing is written to the disk. Put the sticks back where they were and restore the previous memory profile in the firmware if you changed it.
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