RAM is unlikely to “go bad”
Possibly damaged during transit or storage is the most likely scenario.
It’s strange, I think it’s just a matter of failed ram training.
Manual timings would fix it, but that means you need to get into the BIOS first.
Some sticks I have wouldn’t boot on their own, they need a “helper” stick like a boring Crucial and they’d pass multiple loops of memtest86 just fine. But then again that motherboard eventually died and wouldn’t boot with any kind of ram, so maybe that was more about was failing mosfets.
Ram is just strange, that’s probably why brands like Corsair and G.Skill command a price premium.
Highly unlikely scenario is death by static electricity in a cold and dry environment, but if the ram’s been stored in its packaging then that’s not it.
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