RAM Shorting the PSU?

[stickman373]

I just put together a new build and when it starts up it will either just stay on with no video to the screen or will start up and then stop immediately.

Specs:
- MSI FM2-A55M-E33 FM2 AMD A55 (Hudson D2) HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

- Crucial Ballistix 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900)

- AMD A4-5300 Trinity 3.4GHz (3.6GHz Turbo) Socket FM2 65W Dual-Core Desktop APU (CPU + GPU) with DirectX 11 Graphic AMD Radeon HD 7480D

- COOLER MASTER Elite 460 RS-460-PSAR-I3 460W ATX12V V2.31 Power Supply

- Western Digital Caviar Green 500 GB SATA II 32 MB Cache 3.5-Inch HD

- Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower

I went through this guide here: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261145-31-perform-steps-posting-post-boot-video-problems

And when I got to the part that says "Pull everything except the CPU and HSF. Boot. You should hear a series of long single beeps indicating memory problems. Silence here indicates, in probable order, a bad PSU, motherboard, or CPU - or a bad installation where something is shorting and shutting down the PSU."

I got a series of long beeps as described. Then I did what it said "If you get the long beeps, add a stick of RAM. Boot. The beep pattern should change to one long and two or three short beeps. Silence indicates that the RAM is shorting out the PSU (very rare)."

That is exactly what happens. I get nothing with a stick of RAM in. Whats the deal??

 

[alexoiu]

It's not your case, because the board has integrated graphics. Therefore you won't hear the beeps signaling no video, because there is video. When you start the board, is the CPU fan spinning?

 

[stickman373]

Yes, the CPU fan and PSU fans are spinning the monitor powers on like it gets a signal, but all I get is a black screen.

No RAM = 3 beeps
With RAM = No Beeps, No Sounds

 

[alexoiu]

How do you connect the monitor?

 

[stickman373]

I've tried both the onboard VGA and onboard HDMI with the same result

 

[DRosencraft]

From my experience, either you've got bad memory sticks, bad memory slots, or a faulty BIOS chip. If you've got spare memory from a known working system, you could try swapping that in to see what happens. Otherwise you might need to RMA the motherboard.

 

[nao1120]

These are so hard to diagnose.

I built a system for my mother. Same exact issue...Fans spinned up and then shut down. (but it did power up and work for 2-3 days previously)

I naturally assumed...Power supply. So i bought a newer better one. Installed it, Same issue.

Ram shouldn't do this And you can prove it... Take it out, and it'll still "power on" but wont post.

My issue, was the motherboard was fried. I can only assume it was a cheap case (diablotek) and one morning it shorted the motherboard out on start up in combination with the badd PSU. On further inspecting i said....you know this motherboard is awfully close to the case...

Long story short, RMA'd the board on a educated guess, after already buying and getting the new PSU, and also purchased my mom a proper "decent" case which seemed better. What a hassle getting cheaper components. Once the new board was installed, new PSU and case, worked fine, and still works great. Lessons on buying a mid-premium case


Based on a similar experience....That may be it... 50/50 shot to the cpu being the issue or MOBO

Some of these things are trial by error... Unfortunately. Which is why they have places to diagnose this sort of thing. Staples diagnoses for free i think.

 

[pjmelect]

It is very unlikely that there is a "short on your memory" although I have come across this a few times due to the heat spreader on the memory chips being pressed down to short to the tracks on the memory module. A much more likely reason is that you need to clear the CMOS memory. Clear the CMOS memory the way it is described in the motherboard manual, simply pulling out the battery is often not good enough.

 

[nao1120]

Maybe more like 80/10/10 its the motherboard as fault Then CPU, then PSU. Very rarely do CPUs go bad unless you bend a pin or over heat it. Which is sad.....I bet there are alot of good cpus kicking around that can still be used.

 

[stickman373]

I tried clearing the CMOS through the jumper to no avail, same with the battery.

I guess I should first try and RMA the motherboard?

 

[alexoiu]

Test firstly the board outside the case, on a non conducting surface (for ruling out a short).

 

[Ljarnold4]

I had same exact problem on a newly built computer. I swapped out the motherboard & it's running great.

 

[Essej Sniggoc]

Here is a list of compnents that one can unplug to to check and see if it is a power issue. All optical drives of and size or kind (DVD, CD, floppy, or any kind of media drive), case fans (not one's CPU fan), any kind of USB add-on cards, if one's motherboard has on board video then unplug the graphics card. Leave one's hard drive plugged in. After everything is unplugged, turn on one's pc (at this piont, if one can enter one's motherboard's BIOS, one can now make the conclusion that it's a power issue) enter one's motherboard's BIOS (majority of the time it is delete button or F2 button). Read the motherboard's owner's manual to find out for sure what button it is. If one does not have the owner's manual, most companies post them on their website in PDF form. When one is in one's motherboard's BIOS, go to navigate to the section that has to deal with power. From this point enable all power saving options like cool'n'quit for your CPU and acoustic mode for your hard drive. If there are other power saving optoins enable them. This may make your PC run slower, but at least you can still use it. This will let one use the PC until one has the cash to buy a high wattage power supply. I have the motherboard and these steps fixed all of my power issuse. I hope this helps everyone with power issues.

THANKS FOR READING!!!!

-Evil can not exsist without the presence of Good.
-Good can not exsist without the presence of Evil.