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PC question, bad RAM ? - 12/11/2010 1:44:29 PM

Termyn8or

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Got this PC had power problems. It would reboot itself at random, then I ran the restore disk and it worked but it did it again. I disabled each and every power management feature I could find, including screen savers and it was fine. Until the power went out the other day. Then it wouldn't POST at all.

This persisted, I got absolutely no display and it was slow beeping. A bit hard to hear but it was there. I had already pulled the one PCI card which I never use, a TV HDTV tuner card and it was the same. Then I went to the next step, I removed the RAM, all of it. It beeped the same. I again unplugged it and put stick 2 into slot 1, and now it works. If one stick is bad and was causing the problem, I basically had a 50/50 chance of hitting it.

Is there a way to tell for sure ? Actually I can probably get by on a half gig of RAM, but is this another gremlin or is RAM the problem ? Does this happen often ?

It's an emachine, model T6524. It runs XP MCE. I think it has a Gateway mobo in it. Does this make sense ?

T

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RE: PC question, bad RAM ? - 12/11/2010 1:50:07 PM

flcouple2009

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Yes it makes perfect sense.

Funny, I just had ram give up the ghost in our laptop last night.

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RE: PC question, bad RAM ? - 12/11/2010 1:55:37 PM

Termyn8or

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If I don't get that other laptop running I might have some RAM for sale, two gigs, one per stick.

I just wish I could know for sure on this.

T

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RE: PC question, bad RAM ? - 12/11/2010 1:56:08 PM

Outlier2

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Here is what will answer your question.

http://www.memtest.org/

Free, open source, and it is even included on some
linux install discs so you can test memory before you install.

You can just set it and let it run. Google to learn more
it is very well known.

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RE: PC question, bad RAM ? - 12/11/2010 2:30:55 PM

hertz

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I have come across this problem a couple of times. On one occasion, the RAM was quite new - it's just that one stick decided to give up the ghost. I guess what with the circuitry in chips being so unbelievably small, it shouldn't come as a surprise that sometimes this happens.

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RE: PC question, bad RAM ? - 12/11/2010 3:05:41 PM

blackpearl81

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Termyn8or

Got this PC had power problems. It would reboot itself at random, then I ran the restore disk and it worked but it did it again. I disabled each and every power management feature I could find, including screen savers and it was fine. Until the power went out the other day. Then it wouldn't POST at all.

This persisted, I got absolutely no display and it was slow beeping. A bit hard to hear but it was there. I had already pulled the one PCI card which I never use, a TV HDTV tuner card and it was the same. Then I went to the next step, I removed the RAM, all of it. It beeped the same. I again unplugged it and put stick 2 into slot 1, and now it works. If one stick is bad and was causing the problem, I basically had a 50/50 chance of hitting it.

Is there a way to tell for sure ? Actually I can probably get by on a half gig of RAM, but is this another gremlin or is RAM the problem ? Does this happen often ?

It's an emachine, model T6524. It runs XP MCE. I think it has a Gateway mobo in it. Does this make sense ?

T

There's a bonafide way to tell, but, it's VERY time consuming.

Look on the net for MemTest86. It's a CD-ISO (If I remember right). Once you burn it, boot from the CD you created, and then let it run.

It does several checks to verify the memory is good - it basically writes data to memory in every possible combination. If there's any issue with the memory, MemTest86 will pull it up.

If I'm testing memory, I usually launch the memory test before I go to bed

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RE: PC question, bad RAM ? - 12/11/2010 4:04:10 PM

MasterG2kTR

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It could be one bad stick of memory or it could be a bad memory slot on the motherboard I've had it both ways in the past. Try elimination. Use one slot (or one bank) and then the next, try different combinations of memory sticks too. You may find it that way.

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RE: PC question, bad RAM ? - 12/12/2010 11:00:35 AM

MercTech

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I had the same symptom a few years ago and finally traced it back to a bad breaker causing power surges.

Do you use a UPS on your computer system?

Do the lights flicker just before your computer resets?

Just thinking of my experience with non computer related problems that caused the same symptoms. Power problems can mimic ram and bios problems.

Stefan

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RE: PC question, bad RAM ? - 12/12/2010 1:14:29 PM

Termyn8or

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Using FR

No apparent power problems. The wiring in the house is only about 15 years old.

I'll have to get that memtest, but for now I'm just burning it in. After a bunch of reboots etc., I can be fairly sure it was the RAM. It would still be nice to confirm it. I wonder how much a half gig stick of DDR400 is these days. If the rest of the thing is alright I might punch it up to two gigs or so.

I guess it was because of the RAM change down to ½ what it was - it nagged me to go into setup. I loaded optimized defaults. Of course I look through everything before exiting. For some reason it defaults to init PCI video first, though it's got onboard. I changed that because why should it look for PCI video that's not there ?

Later I'll get the thing back on the net and see how it performs. Maybe I don't need to do anything.

Tell you this, I thought emachines were bottom of the barrell, and I didn't choose this thing, my Father did. Good buy for him, it lasted the rest of his life. But I was sort of impressed, standard form factor, standard PS. Four RAM slots and SATA I didn't even know it had. When I installed the HDTV tuner card I didn't know what the SATA plug looked like lol. I've built a few PCs but I'm not on top of everything. I started to get confused by all the slots and sockets.

Thanks all. I'll keep you "posted".

T

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