I read a few threads online saying that if you turned your PC on for even a second without the heatsink properly installed (it wasn't getting power when I first tried to run the computer) you would fry your processor. But the computer would not POST after the installation. The final thing that I had to install was a Corsair H100 cooler. I was extremely surprised that there weren't any major problems.

It actually went off without a hitch (initially). so running 4 sticks with one stick in each channel is enough to activate quad channel based on the 1 dimm per channel setup.I recently got help from the Anandtech forum members with a new build that I completed only three days ago. some of the h61 boards and other mATX and ITX boards can still run dual channel with 1 dimm per channel.

Technically you only need a single ram chip per channel to activate that channel. this would probably be for the users who need more memory capacity but dont need the memory bandwidth. not sure how well it would work with 6 dimms occupied, i would assume it would drop back down to single channel. if you use 4 dimms, you can get quad channel. of the 6 dimms, 2 are set up as 1 dimm per channel, and 4 of the slots are set up as 2 dimms per channel. according to this, its spread out a bit wonky over the channels. dunno how it works, havent really looked into it. one of many examples of 4 dimm quad channel. so running 4 sticks with one stick in each channel is enough to activate quad channel based on the 1 dimm per channel setup. Click to expand.technically you only need a single ram chip per channel to activate that channel.

Single stick of ram which slot