re: W10 will not boot with 32GB RAM installed [Update: Solved]

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If the machine runs fine with both sets of 16 in the first two slots, I’d give up and replace the mainboard especially if I were still running B350.

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this is what I'm going to do. I'll upgrade to a B450 board.

my deployment option ultimately failed, so i went back to memtest.
each module, when tested individually, passed. as did each slot.
however, when all 4 dimms were installed, errors occurred. turns out i never ran memtest with all the banks in use at the same time, only in mix and match pairs to test the dimm slots. this is almost certainly a motherboard issue - and linux must simply not be that picky compared to windows when it comes to this sort of thing

moral of the story: document your fricking TS steps. i had tried so many things, i had lost count. if i had documented this i would have figured it out about 8 hours ago.