I posted in computer newsgroups as well but this may be more applicable, especially if there are any computer engineers.
I was running for about a year without problem two 1 GB sticks of DDR2 SDRAM in dual channel in a watercooled system.
I was having some random crashes over the past couple of days. Looked inside and turns out the waterblock on the Northbridge had popped off, with the clamp ripping out one of the looped fasteners on the motherboard it was attached to. Put the waterblock back but still no dice. After using memtest, it turns out that the second DDR memory channel (pair of slots) is gone--the same RAM module would work in the A slots one but not the B slots--errors in the second, with error rate seeming to be somewhat proportional to the FSB frequency I set in the BIOS.
Looked under the waterblock again and it looks like there's a missing surface mount ceramic capacitor. I think I may have crushed it while reinstalling the waterblock. So either from overheating or breaking the cap, some damage appears to have occurred and now I can only use one of my
1 GB sticks D: It's sure strange though that the second channel slots work at all; I wouldn't have expected a partial failure with error rates depending on the FSB...My question is, can I just replace the cap I think I crushed with a random one, or maybe unsolder one of the others around it and measure its capacitance with my LCR meter and use that, in the hope of restoring function? Or what if I didn't crush the cap and there's actually not supposed to be one there? I'm not sure how to deal with this.
I'm also looking for suggestions for the best place to ask this.