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Computer not booting - RAM problem

Spoom182Spoom182 Registered User regular
edited February 2010 in Moe's Stupid Technology Tavern
When I got home today and started up my computer, I noticed it freeze in the POST. Right now it runs through my processor, that checks out, it detects the correct amount of RAM, then pauses after displaying SLI READY MEMORY - DETECTED.

I'm just really confused by this whole thing because first of all, my computer worked perfectly fine until I shut it off last night, then won't even start up this morning. Secondly, it detects correctly the amount of RAM that's in there, but it won't use it for whatever reason. Third, I've been swapping the RAM, putting it in different channels, etc, and I actually got it to boot once, restarted it, put in another stick, and it won't start again. After having removed the extra stick and returning it to the exact same setup the computer wouldn't start up.

I know it's a RAM problem because my fiddling with the RAM actually got it to work, as I said earlier. I just don't understand what to do, or what I did do that managed to get it working. Please help.

Spoom182 on

Posts

  • Dark ShroudDark Shroud Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Run a memtest on it with all the ram installed.

    Dark Shroud on
    http://gplus.to/DarkShroud
  • ArrathArrath Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Could it possibly be a problem with your video cards on board memory?

    The mention of SLI makes me suspicious.

    Arrath on
  • Spoom182Spoom182 Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Dark Shroud wrote: »
    Run a memtest on it with all the ram installed.

    Aside from the fact that I'm not entirely sure what a memtest is, I am not in much of a position to run anything. I get about halfway through the POST and then it just freezes there; no commands I enter will do anything.

    In response to Arrath, I highly doubt it's a video card issue. When I put in different types of ram in different channels I get slightly different responses on the POST (sometimes it doesn't even get as far as SLI READY MEMORY DETECTED), and some quick googling indicated the term "SLI ready memory" simply refers to RAM that can work with SLI, though I could easily be wrong, since my information is coming from other forums.

    Spoom182 on
  • Dark ShroudDark Shroud Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Spoom182 wrote: »
    Dark Shroud wrote: »
    Run a memtest on it with all the ram installed.

    Aside from the fact that I'm not entirely sure what a memtest is, I am not in much of a position to run anything. I get about halfway through the POST and then it just freezes there; no commands I enter will do anything.

    http://www.memtest.org/

    Make the cd and try booting to it to run the tests.

    Dark Shroud on
    http://gplus.to/DarkShroud
  • Spoom182Spoom182 Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    The problem is, my computer will not boot anything. When it was functioning, the computer ran through all the hardware, checked it out, then waited for me to press f1 before booting. Right now, it stops halfway through the hardware check and just freezes after saying that the memory is detected (I have a sneaking suspicion it isn't actually detecting the memory, it just says that because that's the step it's stuck on). Because I can't get far enough to hit f1 and start it, I can't boot anything at all.

    If there is a fix for this, it's gonna have to be all physical / hardware, unless there's a way that I'm not aware of to get it to run despite not responding to any of my commands.

    Spoom182 on
  • travathiantravathian Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Pull all the cards and drives. Put in one stick of memory, see if it POSTs. If not, try that same stick in every slot. Repeat with every stick in every slot. Once you can get it to post run memtest on that stick. Google memtest for what to do.

    travathian on
  • Spoom182Spoom182 Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Alright, I'll do that tomorrow. It's getting a bit late now, though. Just out of curiosity, if that were to not work, would that indicate that my RAM is dead, or my motherboard? Or possibly both?

    Spoom182 on
  • Spoom182Spoom182 Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Well, I just finished trying travathian's suggestion, and I learned that one of my three RAM sticks is not detected as SLI ready memory, other than that, I really got nowhere. I'm pretty much at a dead end now; or at least, I guess I should start looking into new parts.

    Spoom182 on
  • travathiantravathian Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    So none of the sticks work in any slot? As in the PC still doesn't POST no matter how configured? You did disconnect everything from the motherboard right? So no drives plugged in, no additional cards? If you have onboard video switch to that and pull the video card.

    Grab your motherboard user guide, follow its instructions for resetting CMOS. Don't just pull the battery, find the specific instructions for your mb and follow them. Then try booting with just one stick in.

    Was there a power outage, brown out, surge or any other weird electrical activity in your area that day?

    At this point it is looking like the mb, simply because the chance that 3 sticks of memory all go bad at the same time is pretty small. Could have been a surge or something I suppose.

    travathian on
  • Spoom182Spoom182 Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Yeah, I'd figured that it was the motherboard for pretty much the same reason. I had the video card on because I've got no onboard video, but other than that everything was off. I'll try resetting the CMOS later tonight. The timing of this is really puzzling, because literally nothing changed between the time I turned it off one night and the time it wouldn't boot the next day. No power outer outage, no hardware changes. The only thing that's recently changed was about a week ago I installed Windows 7, but it worked fine for the whole time. Anyways, thanks for the help, I'll post back later with the results.

    Spoom182 on
  • Spoom182Spoom182 Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    I'm pretty sure I reset the CMOS - I switched the jumper from one position to the other on a trio of pins called JCMOS. My motherboards documentation is painfully awful, and it doesn't help that the company has since gone out of business. Anyways, resetting the CMOS didn't change anything. That, or I did it wrong. Either way, I still got the same result after resetting the CMOS and booting with one of my good sticks of RAM.

    Spoom182 on
  • bowenbowen Sup? Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    The fact that it gets halfway through the post and then stops makes me believe it's definitely mobo.

    bowen on
    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • Dark ShroudDark Shroud Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Maybe try flashing the bios, it can't hurt at this point.

    Dark Shroud on
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  • travathiantravathian Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    You cant flash the BIOS if it doesn't complete the POST process. Flashing requires booting off a device and it apparently doesn't get that far any more. Hopefully it is still under warranty.

    travathian on
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