Can't boot old PC after tinkering

HangTime

HangTime

HangTime

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Inherited an old PC (A4-5300), been tinkering a bit to try and optimise RAM speed. Had some issues booting Windows or BIOS a few times, was able to fix this by removing CMOS battery, just standard stuff when you are pushing the envelope on RAM speed/timings.

Anyway so the latest attempt I was on, I noticed in BIOS it was only detecting 2GB RAM when it had 4GB installed, what was odd was I hadn't actually moved any RAM sticks around, and this was previously picked up as 4GB But OK I thought lets go and reseat the RAM, try different sticks etc in case a RAM module or slot has died.

The PC is now unbootable, can't get into BIOS even leaving the CMOS battery out for an hour. Have tried:
-Different PSU
-Different RAM
-Unplugging all drives and fans

Now it's possible I could have killed the CPU or mobo I suppose, it's on stock cooling and because it's so underpowered I took a bit of a YOLO approach this week, I mean nobody rocks up to a dinner party and says "so I made sure everything was on stock voltage..." amirite? I pushed it up to 4.7ghz previously from 3.4ghz stock with a bit of extra voltage coarsing through it but the irony is my latest testing was all on stock CPU speed/voltage, I'd ramped that back down and was just trying to optimise the RAM after swapping it for a CAS7 kit.

Any ideas? I don't have a compatible mobo/cpu to test with.
 
I've had weird behaviour like this with older boards, it's usually a ram problem, it may not boot then you come back a couple of days later and it boots. Try one stick in both slots.
 
Have you tried the CMOS reset header and shorting the pins with a jumper? Memory was changed and only thing it can be now is cpu or motherboard.

If that doesn't work I guess :-

n4hW7r5.jpg
 
Unless measured to have proper voltage, could be also "BIOS" battery.

Also what's the PSU?
If it's as old as rest of PC and originally cheapo, it would be also suspect.
 
As mentioned I tried a replacement PSU, this rig shouldn't need much as it literally has just a mobo cpu and ram (tried single sticks in either slot) nothing at all plugged in any slots, cpu is 65w tdp at stock.

Tried shorting the cmos jumper with a screwdriver, but the previous half a dozen times with this system I didn't need to do that, just removed cmos battery.
 
Have now tried:
-Different CMOS battery
-Shorting the CLR_CMOS jumper
-Removing the front USB and Audio cables
-Holding down the power button when booting to try and force it to use backup BIOS

Literally all that is connected to the motherboard now is the cpu, cpu fan, 1 stick of RAM, 4pin power, 24pin power, front panel cables (power/reset/led etc) and a DVI cable.

Board is a Gigabyte GA-F2A88XM-DS2.

Only thing I can think left to try is removing the mobo and running it outside the case in case it is shorting in some way (seems highly unlikely it would randomly just start doing this), if that doesn't work I'll probably give up and put an old Core 2 Duo setup in the case instead.
 
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