In article ,
Jeff Liebermann wrote:

On Wed, 16 Mar 2011 12:27:42 -0700, Smitty Two
wrote:

Recently starting building computers for a customer, using components
they supply, and have run into an alarming percentage (10?) of
motherboards that fail to recognize one RAM slot. Swapping the MB puts
them in order, and so far the customer has not had any problem returning
the bad MBs for credit to his vendor.

I haven't seen anything like that. However, I did have an unusual
problem when I purchased about 8 MSI motherboards from a distributor.
All the boards had a problem of some sort, but not all were identical,
which is usually the case with production defects. After some
investigation, I discovered that their shipping department had boxed
up and delivered the boards that were being returned by other
customers. This might be what's happening with the large number of
failures.

Is this a known epidemic? RoHS associated? I'm not being faulted for
this issue,

Not that I know about. However, it's considered standard practice to
assign the blame before the problem is identified and fixed.

but also wondering how likely it is that my (experienced)
employee is damaging the RAM slots when he plugs in the RAM.

Highly likely if he's using one set of RAM sticks to test the boards.
Unlikely if each board has its own set of RAM. Very unlikely if it's
the same slot that always craps out.

You might also check if the CPU is properly seated in its socket. That
has caused some similar (but not identical) problems.

All reasoned feedback appreciated.

The model number of the MSI motherboard and the exact spec of the RAM
might have been helpful. Some motherboards are VERY picky about the
type and speed of RAM that they use. On the borderline devices, a
given SDRAM stick will barely work in one slot, and fail in others.
You might be dealing with such borderline situations. Numbers please.

Thanks for your detailed response. I am out of office until Monday and
will post back with further info then.