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So, I have a Gigabyte PV67A-UD4 that I got for free. I then bought a CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Evo, stupidly without measuring the clearance around it. So, I can't fit my just a tiny bit too large RAM under the cooler, which covers slot 0. Can I use Slots 1 and 3 instead of 0 and 2? The manual SEEMS to imply that it is fine as long as you put both RAM chips in alternate slots, but I'd love to hear from someone with more experience.

Sometimes it creates a compatibility issue but it really should not. I'm sure you've heard the refrain, "Swap them around in the slots and see if it works?"

Edit: Punctuation

My Johnson wrote:

Sometimes it creates a compatibility issue but it really should not. I'm sure you've heard the refrain, "swap them around in the slots and see if it works?"

What type of compatibility issue?

Actually, I haven't. This is my first time building a computer, rather then just upgrading a store-bought one.

It won't boot at power on, lock up hard or only during intensive activity. You'll now. Electrically should be harmless.

Another Edit: Looked at my Gigabyte mainboard manual and it only warns to have the power shut off during installation and use the correct DIMMs.

This would be a good reason to buy DIMMs that don't have gigantic decorative heatsinks attached.

P.S.: You haven't accidentally rotated the CPU cooler 90° from its normal orientation, have you? The fans should be blowing from the front toward the back, not from the bottom toward the top.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

This would be a good reason to buy DIMMs that don't have gigantic decorative heatsinks attached.

P.S.: You haven't accidentally rotated the CPU cooler 90° from its normal orientation, have you? The fans should be blowing from the front toward the back, not from the bottom toward the top.

They aren't that big, I got them based on the system guide recommendation and price:



However, the RAM slots are really close to the CPU:



No, I checked that the arrows on the fan show it pulling air from the front of the case and blowing it across the CPU towards the back of the case, which matches the airflow of the rest of the fans in the case. I just got too big a cooler for the motherboard.

The fan can be unlatched then repositioned on the cooler to mount a bit higher so that it clears the DIMM. The concern is that you don't have to push it up so far that it hits the side of the case. You might try removing the fan, installing the DIMM fully, then re-installing the fan.

If push really came to shove, you could move the fan to the opposite side of the heatsink, in a "pull" rather than "push" configuration.

Low-profile DIMMs like these will fit just about anywhere.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

The fan can be unlatched then repositioned on the cooler to mount a bit higher so that it clears the DIMM. The concern is that you don't have to push it up so far that it hits the side of the case. You might try removing the fan, installing the DIMM fully, then re-installing the fan.

If push really came to shove, you could move the fan to the opposite side of the heatsink, in a "pull" rather than "push" configuration.

Low-profile DIMMs like these will fit just about anywhere.

I can't remount it much higher (I just tried), but will consider moving it to the other side of the cooler if this doesn't work. Is there a downside to that configuration?

The fan has a little bit less capacity and is a little bit less efficient when it is in the "pull" configuration. It should still have plenty of capacity for keeping your CPU acceptably cool.

Using those two memory channels seems to be working fine. Thanks everyone.

OP, Socket 1155 can handle dual-channel DDR3 from those memory slots. That's assuming Gigabyte hasn't try to deviate from Socket 1155's spec.