Is My EPP RAM Causing Boot Failure?

[Black]

Hi all,

 

Quick overview, my system was playing up last week, failed to boot, ended up cleaning it out and doing a clear CMOS, didn't work, took 3 out of 4 sticks of RAM, sound card, DVD drivs, HDD, and checked connections of remaing components, system boots...ish.

 

LCD poster shows "TEST MEM" (On my motherboard it has a screen which shows what its failing on during boot up). Screen shows logo, press DEL for setup, TAB for BIOS POST message, DEL shows "Entering setup....." and does nothing else, TAB sends me to another screen where it should run through all of my hardware and then continue on to loading windows, it gets stuck after loading the RAM. The two options it now gives me are, DEL for setup (Same as before, doesn't work), and F8 for Boot Menu, this shows "Entering Boot Menu....." and does nothing else.

Pics below...*Pic 2 shows 2gig RAM cos I put another stick back in later on*

 

http://i878.photobucket.com/albums/ab342/Black___Tower/CIMG0737.jpg

http://i878.photobucket.com/albums/ab342/Black___Tower/CIMG0738.jpg

 

I'm guessing clearing the CMOS has caused some kind of RAM detection issue, I've read on several websites that my RAM being EPP is quite likely causing this problem and that non-EPP RAM is required to get past this stage.

 

Any suggestions on how to fix this issue?

 

Thanks,

 

*****PC SPEC*****

Motherboard: ASUS Striker Extreme, nForce 680i, SLI, socket 775

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.40Ghz, 8Mb Cache, 1066Mhz FSB

Memory: 4.0 Gb Corsair DDR2 1066Mhz Dominator (4 x 1Gb)

Graphics Card: NVidia GeForce 8800GTX PCI-E 768Mb

Sound Card: Creative X-FI Xtreme 7.1 Music

HDD: 500Gb S-ATA2 3.0Gb/s

Optical Drives: TWO 20x DVD +/- RW DL S-ATA Lightscribe

Other: Firewire Card, PCI TV Tuner Card

OS: Vista 64-Bit

[Plastic Nev]

Hi and welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help.

There are a couple of things you can try, you mention you put in an extra stick of RAM, this must mean you have the original plus at least one more, so take one out and see if it will boot then, if not, replace it and remove the other, or if more than two, try each one, one at a time.

next is a memory test, you may have to download it to a working computer, burn it to disk to then try an install to the not working one.

Download it from here-

Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool

Hope that is of help,

Nev.

[Black]

Hi Nev, thanks for getting in touch so quickly,

 

1) I've already tried all combinations with my four 1Gb RAM sticks, one of the sticks does not work (don't know if it's broken or not, whenever I try to boot with just that one, or in addition with others, my system fails to get past "CPU INIT" stage, so no signal on screen or keyboard response), so I am able to have 3Gb installed and have the system still get to the stage as shown in my first post. I know alot of people say don't have 3 sticks in, try to only use 1 stick, which I have been doing when carrying out attempts to fix my pc.

 

2) Not sure how im suposed to carry out your second method, as far as i'm aware (tell me if i'm wrong), my DVD drives don't even get loaded during boot up, only a floppy drive (which i dont have) or USB connection can be used, from what my manual sais. And although my system responds to keyboard commands, it doesn't seem to be able to carry out any tasks that I tell it to do.

If I can get that tool onto my system...how would I run it in the state it's in?

 

I don't know if you or anyone knows much about EPP RAM, but i've heard that it can stop the system from booting correctly when something has happened to the BIOS (like stupidly clearing it), would you advise trying a non-EPP RAM stick at all?

 

Thanks again,

 

Black

[Plastic Nev]

Hi again, if you download the "Memtest86" file onto a working computer and burn it to disk first, then make sure the CD/DVD drive is set as first boot device in the BIOS of the faulty machine, the test will run from the disk.

Have a look here for instructions how to do the test from our own JB.

http://extremetechsupport.com/forum/memory-issues/7172-memtest86-run.html

[Black]

slight problem...I cannot access the BIOS, those two pictures are the only things I can get it to show, press DEL shows the words "Entering setup....." and does nothing else, pressing F8 shows "Loading boot menu....." and does nothing else, I have tried putting the CD in and it seems like nothing is happening each time I boot

 

what exactly am I suposed to see happen if it was to successfuly load it?

[Plastic Nev]

Oh, dear. If you cannot even get into the BIOS to alter anything, it is beginning to look like some hardware failure, either on the motherboard, (Most likely) or the hard drive.

 

However you said you cleared the BIOS earlier, what exactly did you do to carry that out?

What you could try is to remove the cover, find the battery for CMOS, remove it for a few minutes. That will set the BIOS back to its default.

If that doesn't help, I will hope someone else can come up with something else.

Sorry I can't be of more help as I am now out of idea's.

Nev.

[Black]

Already tried the battery thing (Even left it out over night to be sure).

How I reset the CMOS (Or attempted to anyway) was by moving the reset jumper from pins 1-2 to 2-3 (that enables the clear CMOS button), then pressing in the button, did whatever people suggested on other forums, leave it for 3 hours, overnight, remove power cable, battery...combination of the lot, tried everything.

 

No need to be sorry, you tried your best to help, gues my problem is a bit more serious than I first thought, but i'm gonna try a different type of RAM and see what happens. One thing I would like to know, is the voltage a huge issue when putting RAM in, I know the speed has to be compatible with the motherboard/cpu, my RAM apparently is to be run at 2.2V, but would it be a problem if I put RAM that was supposed to run at 1.8V or 2.0V etc?

 

Thanks again,

 

Black

[Plastic Nev]

Hi, again, yes the RAM has to be fully compatible, that includes the voltage too, at least to start off with, tweaking it later can be done, but you have to be sure you start with the right voltage. I wish you the best of luck as it just may be all those you have now are either not quite compatible, or as in the very rare case all now dead ones.

Nev.