Compaq SR2044NX

[gudio34]

I have a PC that’s a Compaq sr2044nx, I have been pulling my hair out trying to make a decent media center for my home. In March of 2011 I bought some RAM for the machine, PNY optima 2GB upgrade kit. Well after getting it home plugging it in and running for few weeks the machine started wigging out, then (in the reviews of the Ram) i found a post stating to not purchase this ram for a HP/Compaq machine because the memory isn't 100% compatible and will have memory leak... So after it got to the point it was so corrupted it would hardly boot, i found that post. Granted that was after I bought a new PSU, and new graphics card. so after finding that i was angry and just packed the machine away until I felt like messing with it again. Before it was packed away the machine would boot to bios and allow me to boot into Windows from the disk. So a week ago i bought RAM specifically for the machine, receive it last night, plugged up the PC after about 8 mts of being stored. There is now no video to the monitor. I had left the RAM slots empty while in storage. After hooking everything back up I booted the machine, not getting a POST beep. The PSU is only used about 3 hours. I hear the hard drive spin up, as well as both fans. removed the graphics card and used the onboard graphics (still no video) and removed everything but the CPU, PSU, and fans. Rebooted the machine with no ram, got the BIOS beeps, tried 1 stick of ram in each slot, only made POST been when in the wrong slot. I am planning on testing the CMOS battery when I get home. I'm just at a loss, Beyond frustrate and don't know what’s going on. I also tested the monitor and cable and they both work fine on my laptop. I’m thinking the MOBO is fried... but I do know that the boot beep was disabled prior to placing the PC in storage. Any Ideas?

 

[tsnor]

"because the memory isn't 100% compatible and will have memory leak" this kind of hurts the posters credibility. Or they were joking. A memory leak is a software bug where software allocates memory and then loses track of it. Over time a software leak allocates all memory, but the program doesn't know it owns it. A memory dimm would never "leak memory"

Did you have the memory in an anti-static bag? Over time memory (and other sensitive electorincs ) will get killed by random static discharge in the air. Did you follow best practices when installing video and memory, like touch the power supply each time before you install to ground yourself relative to the PC?

That was good debugging. If the PC is dead (no beeps, no post) with the memory and beep "no memory" without the memory then probably the memory is fried. That is a good thing, memory is cheap. Did you try each dimm individually ?

What is the brand/model of the power supply you installed? A cheap PSU wil cause all of the problems you described if it cannot deliver the right voltages.

Suggestions:
You stored the PC with ram slots empty. Now one slot doesn't work. Get a can of compressed air and blow out the bad slot. Hopefully it just has dust preventing a good contact with the memory.

"only made POST been when in the wrong slot" When one slot is working does the video work at all? Focus on the intgrated video. Once you have stable video and a POST'ed PC then download a bootable diagnostic and run the hardware tests. If they pass then restore a new copy of windows from your recovery partition. If your previous memory was bad then your copy of windows could have gotten messed up. That would explain some of the problems you saw. So you all sorts of malware, virus, etc. Either way starting with a fresh copy of windows after your stabilize the system is a good idea.

Good Luck