Help, what have I killed?!

Phunky Phish

Phunky Phish

Phunky Phish

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Joined
3 Jul 2006
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869
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St. Neots
Spec as sig.

Updated some cooling bits, got it all working on Sunday and ran fine all day.

Shut it down and it would not start Monday!

Its really strange as would not boot at all, not even into BIOS.

Reset that and still would not boot.
Unplugged all drives, still nothing!
Unplugged 2 sticks of RAM and it booted!

SO
I created a memtest CD at work today and ran it on the 2 sets of dual channel ram
1st set, 2 passes, no errors.
2nd set, 2 passes, no errors!
It will not boot with all 4 in! Its run fine for god knows how long now this :(

So, do you think it is the RAM? Should I run each set for like 4 hours each?

OR could it be my mobo?
The other thing is it is now not recognising my 1st hard drive!

Good job I just moved all the important stuff to my NAS and my laptop is still working!

I have unpluged the hard drive thinking it could be this but still no joy.

HELP PLEASE!!
 
Choose one set of RAM, make sure they are set up correctly in BIOS then leave them running memtest overnight.

If they pass Memtest then continue to use your computer as normal and see if any weirdness is going on (can it see hard drive etc).

Once you got this far you can breath a sigh of relief, if you can't get this far then swap out the memory for the second set and repeat overnight memtest and again use PC normally.

Sounds like either you have a bad set of RAM or your motherboard has changed some BIOS settings or perhaps your PSU is a bit ****
 
I'd boot with 2 sticks into bios and check your volts on the ram and your nb. Did you have to up then originally to get the 4 sticks working? has it reset itself?

I myself can't get to even 400fsb with 4 sticks of 2Gb ddr2 6400 geil ram, even with 2.3v on the ram and 1.4 on the nb.
 
4 sticks is also more difficult for the memory controller as its having to do more work.... Have you overclocked in any way? I presume your on stock when you're trying to boot etc.
 
Its run with 4 sticks of ram @ 2.1v for about 2 years!
NB volts was high.
Thing is, if it was the ram I would expect the ram to fail immediately as it does not boot AT ALL :(, wont even post.
I reset the bios and then set all settings back to what they where before the crash, thank god for manuals and pencils! I wrote all settings down for reference.
With 2 sticks I can get into the bios to set the ram volts and timings to what they should be.

Hmm. I think I will run the memtest over night. If it returns no errors with 2 sticks then I can run it all day tomorrow with the other 2 and see. If no errors memory will be out and it will be down to mobo or PSU.

I think all the restarting has killed the HD as the P35 was one of those dual start mobos, so when I start it it starts, stops, then starts again! I want to flash the bios incase its corrupt but dont have a floppy drive and cannot find a dos cd boot image to burn to cd :(

You guys think this is good route?

PC's, great when they work, @*~# when they dont!
Getting CoD5 withdrawl symptoms!
 
you mention you changed some cooling bits, what exectly did you change? have you checked and double checked all power connections? how are your temps?

Is your northbridge now not getting a flow of air like it might have before?
 
Right, just home so first set of ram on memtest for the night, second set tomorrow!

I changed the CPU block. Did not remove the cpu so sure its not this.
Air flow show be improved as now have fans blowing air directly onto mobo from side and below. These fans where not there before. And everything worked sunday all day and stopped between turning off sunday and turning on monday night!

So I think its something borked!

Fingers crossed its the ram! Nice and easy :)

If the ram comes back clean then am thinking it must be the mobo.

Am thinking a Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3R. A better board than I have now you think?
 
Other set of ram run for 11.5 hrs, 28 passess no errors.
Turned off and restarted and hey presto it will not boot! Not even to the bios screen.

So, anyone think my mobo is borked? Or is it the psu?
 
This mightn't be the problem but I find with my 4x1GB sticks of Geil ULL ram that I need to give them 2.2-2.3V in order to run at stock speed. In reality they only seem to be getting their required 2.1V at that setting.
 
My ram has run for 2 years or so at 2.1v with all 4 sticks no problem so I dont think its that, and they were overclocked at that!
At the moment I am only running 2 sticks at stock speeds and it still will not boot :(
 
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Well I cannot get it to boot.
I have the dos boot files as it boots from the CD, but I cannot seem to create a bootable USB using the HP boot util.
So, its new mobo time and a rebuild I think.
AAARRRGGGHHHH!
 
Hey Phunky Phish, just had a quick re-read over the thread to see where your at . . .

So the first set of RAM you tested passed Memtest no problem, it's not clear weather the machine will restart normally with the first set from what you have said.

The second set of RAM you tested also passed Memtest no problem but the machine wouldn't start properly after you rebooted?

Not sure what to make of that but it seems a bit more likely the memory isn't at fault and perhaps the chipset is wigging out a bit *or* perhaps your PSU is getting a bit flakey?

Anway I just read your last post talking about flashing the BIOS, obviously you need to make sure your machine is half stable before performing a task like that as you could really naff the board with a failed flash. Anyways the modern ASUS boards use a neat system for flashing built right into the BIOS, all you need to do is copy the BIOS file only onto a USB stick and then plug it in to your mobo, enter BIOS and look for the EZ-Flash 2 menu, load that up, point it towards the USB stick and the rest should be obvious.

I'm not sure a BIOS flash is the way forward but at least you now know how to do it if needed, other than that it's really not obvious what is going on?

  • PSU naffing up
  • Weird Motherboard/BIOS settings
  • Case Headers/USB/Firewire not connected properly after your jiggle
  • Not enough Northbridge volts?
 
Cheers Big Wayne but the bios flash you discribe is for an Asus board, mine is an Abit.

I am positive its not any usb plugs wiggling as all bar the one I am trying to boot from to flash to mobo are unplugged. In fact, all HD, USB, firewire, soundcards etc are unpluged/removed/disabled.

The northbridge volts are standard which should boot fine with only the 2 sticks in. In fact, with only the 2 sticks in it boots and I can get to the bios everytime now, its just annoying that it seems my C: drive has now crashed with all the restarts (hence unpluging everything) so I cannot see if it will load windows!

As it is now booting fine into bios etc I am sure its not the PSU. I have a 50/50 guess to make and am thinking its just my mobo has given up.
Actually, I really dont know! Its getting to the point where I am thinking *@["£* it all, lets replace the mobo and see where we go from that! Its been a week of unpluging this, trying that, now killing my C: drive!

I know what you say about flashing the bios may not be the best thing to do with an unstable system, but its as stable now with only the 2 sticks in as ever, if you see what I mean. It will boot to a dos 6.22 cd but will not see the usb drive, even though the bios see's it. AND it is formatted in FAT, not NTFS so thats not it. And when I use the boot disk files to create the bootable usb it just reports format failed.

Feeling very deflated!
 
Oops sorry about that, I'm wrongly read your using an ASUS board lol! :o

Ok so if your able to boot again (and again, and again) successfully to BIOS then your onto solid turf (is this set#1 or set#2 memory btw?), now it sounds like you maybe have b0rked your windows installation which is rare but can happen sometimes.

Assuming you don't have a backup, and assuming the hard disk is actually working well (like not failing etc) your in a bit of a pickle me old son! :D

In your boots and based on the assumption everything is well apart from a b0rked windows then I would probably try a Windows installion using a spare disk to see what gives, I would disconnect the original drive so if the problem was elsewhere I could quickly swap back drives and pick up where I left off.

Hope this helps a bit, from what you have described I am somewhat confused :confused: but my brain is a little worse for wear after some early xmas boozing, I will re-read the thread again and see if I have missed some obvious clues! ;)
 
I have a spare drive so could re-install windows and see if it all goes well.
But it only looks like it will remain stable on 2 sticks of ram, leaving me with 2 doing nothing!
I could
A - buy new ram, say 2x2GB sticks for about £40
C - buy new mobo, P45, and do a new install on this for about £60

OR
go back and try playing with all my voltages again to get the 4 sticks working in what I have. I just dont understand how its all worked fine and then over night all stops! With no real thing failing.
 
Hey again Phunky Phish,

It's not entirely clear what the way forward is but personally I would want Windows Up and running ASAP so I could get the feel if everything was alright and give the hardware a proper test from within an OS.

It wouldn't take long to lob a WinXP installation onto a spare disk for troubleshooting purposes, if that works without issue and boots/reboots fine and is fully Prime/IBT stable then its looking like either the other Windows installation is b0rked or maybe even the drive itself is at fault.

It may well be something to do with your motherboard or chipset voltages and yes it does seem strange how this happened out the blue? still you need to piece the bits together one step at a time and hopefully you will find your answer through process of elimination

I know your a bit frazzled from the trouble-shooting but hang in there and pace yourself, a cup of tea or coffee and a mince pie while muttering "hah computer hardware you think you can defeat me!" often helps! :)

If your really exhausted then you may even have to switch it off until mentally rested again.
 
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