Search
Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in

Opinions wanted please.

Last response: in Motherboards
Share

Hello, I apologise if this is in the wrong section. From memory I'll try and explain as best I can about what was happening with my desktop PC, it's been a while.

Problems started with boot fail every other day, I was able to temporarily fix that by popping out one of the sticks of ram. 2-3 days later, boot fail again, fixed by popping the stick of ram back in. This kept happening for a few weeks until I eventually bought 2 new sticks of ram. After replacing the ram I thought that had cured it because it didn't happen again for approx 3 months. One night while I was playing cod4 the game crashed to desktop, I didn't think allot of it at the time. About 30 secs later a red bar appeared across the top of my screen and the PC shut off, it never booted up again :( 

When I fire it up these days, all the fans come on, there's no beep and that's all it will do. Fans don't slow down like they normally would and the only way to kill it is to flick the power switch on the back of it, sometimes it does power off by itself after 30 secs, but not most of the time.

Any ideas as to what might be the problem ??



More about : opinions wanted

Register or log in to remove
Motherboard Master

Welcome to Tom's Forums! :) 

Right section...

I would manually set the RAM in the BIOS. Often this problems happens with 4-6 sticks of RAM, and especially with 4GB sticks. Often the problem is, like suckling pigs, not enough power is going across all the DIMM slots under 'Auto' settings. If this is the problem then set the DRAM Voltage at or slightly above the RAM's rated voltage at rated speed. {e.g. RAM running at 'Auto' typically has a lower voltage than that of rated speed. 1600 MHz ~ 1.65v but same RAM running 1066 is 1.50v}.

Therefore, please post both your MOBO and RAM {RAM I prefer link(s)}.

Glad it's the right section :) . I should have said, most of the technical talk means little to me unfortunately. Only things I can say going off of what you've said and should probably have added to start with are...

I cant do anything with the BIOS because when it fires up nothing comes up on-screen, just black.
I only have 2x 1GB sticks of ram.

Quote:
set the DRAM Voltage at or slightly above the RAM's rated voltage at rated speed


Have absolutely no idea how to do that :??: 

MOBO is... ASUS P5N-MX REV 1.04 G

RAM, no links sorry, but maybe the numbers/letter will help...

Crucial 1GB 240-PIN DIMM 128Mx64 DDR2 PC2-5300 UNBUFF

Other system info that might help, from memory...

OS - Win XP Pro Service pack 2
Graphics - Nvidia 9600 GT
Processor - Q6600
Memory - 2GB
HD - 200GB
Sound - Realtek HD
Related ressources
Ask the community
Motherboard Master

1. Download the Manual
2. Boot into your BIOS {DELETE} key

See pages 2-21~2-23 {pdf pg 69-71} for the illustrations on what you need to do. Use your Arrow. TAB & Enter Keys to navigate the BIOS. Play around and look at the settings; NOTHING is changed until you save & exit. So if it's your firs time in there just get the feeling and reboot into BIOS to make the 'real' changes, to Save TAB over to the Exit tab on the main screen; then choose Save & Exit = Yes.

If you screw-up then boot back into the BIOS -- Exit tab -- choose 'Load Setup Default' then Save and Exit = Yes; puts everything back to defaults. See page 2-38 {pdf pg 86}.

Good Luck!
Motherboard Master

Yeah, I thought when you pull the 'other' RAM it boots?

If you're getting a Post Failure no matter what you do then pull all but one stick, get in the BIOS make changes then add the sticks.

However, if that fails then it's a sign of a bad PSU; if you have another PC try a different PSU. Frequently, a bad PSU is often blamed on all sorts of other components. A tell tale sign of a bad PSU other than 'odd' behavior is periodic boots and/or partial boots.
Register or log in to remove
 
Ask the community
Read discussions in other Motherboards categories
!