First, a tangent: I am registered on these boards as "coil", but it appears my account has been disabled and I don't know who to contact and couldn't figure out how to contact them. If someone important sees this, please drop me an email and help me get my actual account sorted! Thanks. _________ OK! Here's the problem. My girlfriend had two sticks of RAM in her machine, a 512 and a 256 of DDR333. She just replaced the 256 with an additional 512 - same speed, etc, it matches. But when she turned it on, she smelled burning and saw smoke out the back of the computer. Obviously, she quickly shut it off. She brought it over to me to take a look. Here's what I've deduced: 1) The computer will not boot, even with the new RAM removed. Power goes on, the fans spin up, but there's no booting, no hard drive beep, no display, nothing. 2) As far as I can tell, she somehow managed to put the new stick of RAM in *backwards*, even though the slot on the chip is asymmetrical. I can tell this because 3) There are three small burn marks on the new stick of RAM, specifically on three of the metal "teeth" (I don't know what else to call them) plating the part of the chip that actually connects to the motherboard. There are three matching melt marks on the plastic RAM slot on the motherboard (and as I said, these corroborate that she put the chip in backwards). ______ So... it seems that something between the mobo and new RAM melted. The questions I want to get answered are: 1) Why? Was it bad RAM? Was it because she put it in backwards? 2) What's still busted? My guess is the mobo - am I right? Assuming I am, is that all that needs to be replaced? Thanks all!
You know they should do a Darwin award for PC owners..... this could be a defininte winner. How in the name of all that is green and sticky did she manage toput the DIMM in backwards? With a hammer????
well, if shes hot its ok, i would then proceed to give her my pc to pla her heres a good one, i had a friend trying to install my 9800pro i sold him, too him 2 hours, he had to remove the ram, and then put it back in, add 1 hou
She swears that it went in just as easily as any piece of RAM should (and as I'm sure you all know, RAM is inordinately difficult to get in). The little pin in the slot isn't broken, nothing's physically damaged on the RAM, both of the end clips snapped into place, and the chip was the same height off the mobo as the adjacent chip (same make/model chip). She's not computer-illiterate by a long shot; honestly, if she says it went in, I'm just gonna scratch my head and believe her. Bizarre. Anyway, looks like we're going mobo shopping tomorrow. ^^;
Got my account working again... futzed around with the password/email settings and we're all better. Woo!
It's not physically possible to put in ram the wrong way? Correct? Maybe only one of the corners went in and she THOUGHT it was in?
Yep ... sounds like the stick of ram must have shorted out something. Since the mobo powers up, LED and fans etc, I wouldnt think that your mobo has been damaged by the RAM (worth check anyways) but since there is no beeps its more than likely to be a dead CPU.
At my roommate's suggestion, I removed everything from the motherboard except the power cables (RAM, CPU, cards, IDEs) and gave it a try -- no beeps, no nothing. So it's definitely shot. Hopefully the CPU is ok, but there's no way to check without getting a new mobo (is there?).
If there are no POST beep codes and no picture she either fried the mainboard or the CMOS or the BIOS is screwed. First try to reset the CMOS by shorting the reset CMOS pins (see mainboard manual) with a jumper. If that doesn't work hotflash the BIOS in a compatible machine or buy a programmed replacement chip. Unfortunately I am thinking that the mainboard is dead because of the smoke and the probable short circuit, but hotflashing the BIOS and clearing the CMOS is worth a try.
It is physically possible, I've seen it done three or four times by bored linemonkeys. Usually the DIMM flies out of the socket when you release the clips, it's one of those "Hey everybody, look what I've found!" moments Sadly, every time I saw it reversing the DIMM fixed the problem completely and the computer was fine afterwards, unless you can get someone else's motherboard to test your CPU and RAM in I can't think of any way to eliminate them...
From experience, if there's no cpu installed a motherboard will do exactly as you describe. However, from earlier posts, it would seem it's either the cpu or the motherboard.
We went out and bought a new motherboard today... installed it, set everything in, and started it up -- nothing. ): Monitor stayed in power-saver mode, no beeps from the mobo, nada. When I removed the CPU/RAM/vidcard, I got no beeps again. I'm not sure what that means, since theoretically this particular mobo (MSI KT4V) should be totally compatible and in full working order. My guess is that the CPU itself is toast, but I'd love to get a second opinion. The RAM appears fine, as does the video card (Radeon 9800 256MB). Powering up gave all the whirs and clicks you'd expect from the power supply and drives (two HDDs, one CD-R, one floppy), so those at least are working fine. What do you think?
Swap parts with yours. the 9800 pro can be swapped easily, as well as the ram and the cpu if its compatible. PSU might be shot now? try shorting it by itself with the green wire to black wire technique.
The saga continues! I put her RAM, CPU, and video card (one at a time) into my machine... all three times, it booted up no problem! o.o I'm gonna give hers another go with the new mobo... hopefully I just suck at assembling computers. ^^ EDIT: absolute bare-bones, PSU + mobo + case speaker + case power button. No POST beeps, nothing. I guess we're taking it back to the store.
