- Apr 15, 2014
- 4
- 0
- 4,510
So I recently upgraded my (approx.) four-year old box:
Pentium Wolfdale E5400 processor
Gigabyte GA-G41MT-D3 mobo
2 x 2GB Kingston 1333mhz DDR3 RAM
No-name 680w PSU of indeterminate age*
....built at the time for cost-effeciency, never intended to run high-end games. However, I've started doing graphics-intensive work and threw in a Nvidia GTX660 GPU as well as figuring a bit more RAM couldn't hurt.
No probs with the GPU, at least. The RAM, however, I bought Kingston 2 x 4GB 1333mhz DDR3. (This mobo only supports RAM speed up to 1066mhz and has been happily downclocking the old RAM for four years. (It is also far easier and in some cases cheaper to buy 1333mhz over 1066mhz.) Also only has two RAM slots, so as far as upgrading goes, buying bigger sticks was the only option.)
As I said, no probs with the GPU. All sweet. Installed it before changing the RAM, ran beautifully. Changed the RAM. Wouldn't boot. POST gives continuous short beeps, which, according to Gigabyte, means (rather vaguely) "power error" and not RAM error. (The RAM error beep, I can attest, is not what is happening here.)
I do think the PSU is suspect. However, I did think I could prove that by taking out the GPU and just trying to boot with the new RAM. No luck. I have tried one stick, I have tried two. I have not tried mixing the new and old RAM, because I am not sure what that would prove. When the old RAM is installed (2 x 2GB, dual-channel) there is no problem except that I am reaching the limits of my exhausted system.
Cost-efficiency is still a goal here, which is the only reason I didn't just scrap the whole lot. This is also the reason I want to explore any last, even far-fetched avenues of what may be going wrong here before I just buy a new PSU.
If there are any, ANY, possible issues I could solve or at least test before going shopping again, I would love to hear them.
ETA: *Found the PSU: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1391761 which doesn't give me much hope for its continued use.
Pentium Wolfdale E5400 processor
Gigabyte GA-G41MT-D3 mobo
2 x 2GB Kingston 1333mhz DDR3 RAM
No-name 680w PSU of indeterminate age*
....built at the time for cost-effeciency, never intended to run high-end games. However, I've started doing graphics-intensive work and threw in a Nvidia GTX660 GPU as well as figuring a bit more RAM couldn't hurt.
No probs with the GPU, at least. The RAM, however, I bought Kingston 2 x 4GB 1333mhz DDR3. (This mobo only supports RAM speed up to 1066mhz and has been happily downclocking the old RAM for four years. (It is also far easier and in some cases cheaper to buy 1333mhz over 1066mhz.) Also only has two RAM slots, so as far as upgrading goes, buying bigger sticks was the only option.)
As I said, no probs with the GPU. All sweet. Installed it before changing the RAM, ran beautifully. Changed the RAM. Wouldn't boot. POST gives continuous short beeps, which, according to Gigabyte, means (rather vaguely) "power error" and not RAM error. (The RAM error beep, I can attest, is not what is happening here.)
I do think the PSU is suspect. However, I did think I could prove that by taking out the GPU and just trying to boot with the new RAM. No luck. I have tried one stick, I have tried two. I have not tried mixing the new and old RAM, because I am not sure what that would prove. When the old RAM is installed (2 x 2GB, dual-channel) there is no problem except that I am reaching the limits of my exhausted system.
Cost-efficiency is still a goal here, which is the only reason I didn't just scrap the whole lot. This is also the reason I want to explore any last, even far-fetched avenues of what may be going wrong here before I just buy a new PSU.
If there are any, ANY, possible issues I could solve or at least test before going shopping again, I would love to hear them.
ETA: *Found the PSU: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1391761 which doesn't give me much hope for its continued use.
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