No signal on monitor - RAM problem?

[Sul]

Hi,

Recently my computer's been crashing - I've noticed this when I've been playing videos on my computer or something like flight simulator X.

When it crashes - it doesn't completely freeze initially. It slows down a lot - so for example if I press the key combination, CTRL+ALT+DEL, it will take it's time to come up, but it will come up, and then it'll take time to click "end program" etc. Once the program is terminated, the computer seems to be fine again. This doesn't always happen either and often when I restart my computer things seem to be working fine again. Leads me to think - is this a RAM issue, is it crashing because if the program or video or whatever I'm doing takes up a certain failing part of the RAM, it crashes?

Whilst I was investigating the problem, I updated my gfx drivers to the latest from nvidia, and I then proceeded to the BIOS. I noted that I had overclocked my memory, so I reset it to "auto" which was the previous default setting. However, upon restarting, I now get "no signal" on my monitor. Everything seems to be working fine in the case - lights on, fans working, etc. I took out each RAM stick, one at a time, to see if the computer would boot, and that didn't work. Then I took them both out to see if the mobo would recognise anything, and it did, so it seems the mobo is fine?

Any ideas?

Here's my spec:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
Asus P5K Deluxe WiFi Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
BFG GeForce 8800 GTX OC 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-5300C3 667MHz Dual Channel Kit (BL2KIT12864AA663)
Seasonic M12 Modular 600W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Soundcard

Thanks

 

[Delvis]

then I took them both out to see if the mobo would recognise anything, and it did

So what did the motherboard do? Give you long continuous error beeps? one after the other?

If you've tried every ram stick, in every slot, one at a time, and you get no signal...It could possibly be the ram.

One thing you could do is re-seat the graphics card as well.

Another thing I would suggest to do is to re-set the cmos...Either by using the CMOS jumper/button or by removing the battery itself and leaving it for a few minutes, then repeat the process above with the ram.

**Edit**

When you set your ram back to auto...Did you make sure the ram voltage was set to 2.2v? Cause going by the Overclocks site, it requires 2.2v...That could be one issue.

 

[Sul]

The motherboard gave a pattern of beeps when I removed the RAM completely - I looked it up in the manual and it does correspond to the memory not being detected.

I've tried the RAM in every slot to no avail.. and went through all of the things you suggested - still no signal. I didn't check the voltage - I didn't change it from what it was set to before. I just set the timing to auto and the bus speed to auto.

 

[Delvis]

Going by what you said, it looks as if your RAM is either faulty, or somehow the voltage has changed when you selected auto...

I take it you don't have any spare sticks of ram do you? just to try...or from another system, so you can atleast get it to boot up into the bios.

It may be worth looking for a bios recover for your motherboard as well, could have been the bios you put on initially that is causing some issues perhaps?

 

[Sul]

Hmm I thought that the bios would be reset if I took the battery out and set the jumpers (done with ref to mobo manual)?

Going to try my RAM in someone else's computer and see if that works.

Thanks

 

[Delvis]

Yeah it will reset the bios

But you could physically have a bad / corrupted bios file etc, its not likely...But we've had systems at work that have stopped working after a bios update, then sometimes a bios recovery will solve the problem.

Bios recovery's are sometimes different bios's all together.

 

[Sul]

Tested it in another computer and tested someone else's RAM in mine.. looks like RAM is the issue.. time to RMA!