Fudge! Mobo won't post

[Marshillboy]

Well, I was sitting on my PC maybe half an hour ago when suddenly my computer rebooted out of the blue. I thought it was a little weird, but I let it get to the windows login, and I typed in my login info and it booted up in windows for maybe half a second, then froze. This not having been the first time windows has frozen on me, I rebooted to have the same thing happen. However, the third time I hit the reboot button, I realized that all of a sudden my I wan't getting any video, and the motherboard didn't respond to a single press of the shutdown button (leading me to suspect that the system was locked up).

I just opened up my case, checked all connections and dusted it out, with no success. I just now put in my motherboard speaker to see if it gives post beeps, and it didn't, but I suspect I may have installed it on the wrong pins (facepalm). I'll be consulting my motherboard manual to make sure that it's installed correctly and try again. My system specs are as follows:

Gigabyte GA-M61P-S3
AMD Athlon 64 x2 5600+
Seagate 250gb HD
2x1gb Crucial Ballistix RAM
Arctic Cooling 64 CPU heatsink/fan
Visiontek HD4850 512mb GPU
Windows XP Pro SP2

Thanks,
Marshillboy

EDIT: Acutally, I swapped my motherboard speaker to the CORRECT spot, and it was giving me continuous long beeps. Reading in my manual, I found that this indicates a "DRAM error". What does this mean?

 

[rohan23]

Change your RAM around. If it's in dual channel, put them into the other slots. Or, just try one stick.

 

[Austinn1]

It means your ram isnt seated correctly. If I had to guess when you were checking all the tires you somehow unseated the ram. Push it back in, and boot up.

As for the restarting I am thinking its a virus. Get a virus scanner. Scan and remove infected files. Report back one you have done that.

 

[Ocelot]

Well, I was sitting on my PC maybe half an hour ago when suddenly my computer rebooted out of the blue. I thought it was a little weird, but I let it get to the windows login, and I typed in my login info and it booted up in windows for maybe half a second, then froze. This not having been the first time windows has frozen on me, I rebooted to have the same thing happen. However, the third time I hit the reboot button, I realized that all of a sudden my I wan't getting any video, and the motherboard didn't respond to a single press of the shutdown button (leading me to suspect that the system was locked up).

I just opened up my case, checked all connections and dusted it out, with no success. I just now put in my motherboard speaker to see if it gives post beeps, and it didn't, but I suspect I may have installed it on the wrong pins (facepalm). I'll be consulting my motherboard manual to make sure that it's installed correctly and try again. My system specs are as follows:

Gigabyte GA-M61P-S3
AMD Athlon 64 x2 5600+
Seagate 250gb HD
2x1gb Crucial Ballistix RAM
Arctic Cooling 64 CPU heatsink/fan
Visiontek HD4850 512mb GPU
Windows XP Pro SP2

Thanks,
Marshillboy

EDIT: Acutally, I swapped my motherboard speaker to the CORRECT spot, and it was giving me continuous long beeps. Reading in my manual, I found that this indicates a "DRAM error". What does this mean?

Don't sit on your PC...I kid

 

[Captain Pooka]

Yeah, your ram. Sometimes this happens when your ram is simply just loose.

One thing you probably shouldn't do is, "Sit on my PC maybe an hour or an hour and a half ago."

Weight isn't good for it!

Kidding....

 

[eyeCpc]

Faulty memory or wrong timings set! The one thing you can try now since it won't start up would be clearing the cmos as well as trying each dimm by itself to see if the system will start.

You may be seeing a board problem since the system had been running all along until something simply gave out. Clearing the cmos will simply restore the factory defaults provided the cpu or board isn't the problem.

 

[Marshillboy]

Well, I was just reading up on my ram:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146565

Every other review says something about works for ~8 months then dies. With this in mind, I took out my modules and tested them each individually, both are absolute toast. Last time I'm ever buying Crucial memory. More like Crucial-to-the-failure-of-your-rig memory. Really puts the "balls" back in ball-istix.

Anyways, looks like I'm going to have to go ninja my friend's ram from his backup rig until my newegg shipment arrives.

Speaking of which, would you suggest 2x2gb or 4x1gb sticks for an XP Pro 32 bit installation?

 

[Austinn1]

Are you absolutely positive the are toast? Id try them in a different rig. It could be the mobo too.

 

[Marshillboy]

Are you absolutely positive the are toast? Id try them in a different rig. It could be the mobo too.

Almost positive, the motherboard does give POST beeps indicating ram failure at boot. I'll confirm my suspicion later when I borrow some ram from a friend.

 

[Austinn1]

Ah. Just curious. Id bet its the ram too. But good luck!!