RAM problem

TheDoc

I bought myself a new gig stick of ram and it wont work. heres the problem and specs.

I have 2 512mb ddr 400 ram. And bought a new stick of 1gig ddr 400 ram.

On my motherboard i have 4 ram slots, two blue two orange. So i have two occupied with the 512 sticks, and when i put the 1 gig in i get this slow beeping sound the and the pc wont run, its running power etc but wont actually run.

I'm running a pretty nice rig heres some specs

Motherboard Gigabyte KA-K8N- sli 939
Ram is 3200 400 mhz

From what i have heard something bout i need to upgrade the bios or some ****.

My mobo supports up to 4 gigs dont know why im having trouble, its not the ram as my dad bought ram too and it wont work either, nor on his pc.

Anti

Will the pc boot with just the new 1GB stick installed?

TheDoc

yeah, seems the problem is it wont read over 1 gig

8T8

A few pointers;

* Memory must be installed in pairs on CPU's that make use of a dual channel memory (like an Athlon 64) otherwise it will drop down to single channel mode and impede performance.

* The motherboard can support single sided or dual sided DIMM's depending on the configuration this is referring to the actual RAM chips on each side of the memory module. Sometimes a motherboard will not support certain configurations depending on the layout of the chips., the manual will outline which is supported.

* RAM compatibility & timings, the timings can differ in the SPD which is what holds the timings for the modules & on occasion this can cause them to not work when you mix brands. However a bios update can fix that last one some times.

* Although your motherboard supports 4GB of RAM you would really need a 64-bit operating system to make use of it as there are problems going past 2GB of RAM on 32-bit OS's.

Here is the website with the bios updates for the K8N-SLI. The latest bios is F9 to install the bios I strongly recommend using Gigabytes own Windows based flash tool @bios.

Download the utility and install it, when you run it you will have the choice to connect to the internet and search for the latest bios and flash it or flash a local file that you have already downloaded, either method will do.

Once it finishes it will prompt to reboot the computer so do. Go into the bios and make sure everything is as it should be then power off the machine and install the single 1GB module, power on and see if it works if it doesn't nothing you can do but return it.

Your better off getting another 2x512MB anyway to bring you to 2GB, get some Crucial RAM which is much more co-operative.

TheDoc

ok im seriously freaked out now. Did that ran bios it updated for me, then changed the ram and had the same problem, so thought right ill try new ram on its own, then boom.

There is no power running through my system, when i unclicked the ram hooks that keep my ram in place then the pc started running with a bleep, now its totally gone and i can get no power into the machine.

thoughts?

TheDoc

tried everything unplugged everything tried every different ram, cannot get her to ****ing boot up, bollox

Anti

unplug it from the wall. And take out the small round cmos battery for a few min. Then put it back in and plug back into the wall, and hopefully you can boot up again.

TheDoc

whats the cmos battery?

TheDoc

ok thats done gna wait a few minutes and see if it works, please god i hope it works im freaking out sideways here

Anti

Wikipedia is your friend......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMOS_battery

Now stop arsing around and do it

8T8

Yeah pull the battery or look in the manual for the clear CMOS jumper. You must unplug the mains power from the PC as well.

Once thats done pull the 1GB module and put back in the 2x512MB then power on the system. The not booting after bios flash is actually sort of normal your usually supposed to clear the CMOS after a bios flash but in most cases you get away without having to do it.

TheDoc

nuting, left it out 5 mins, nothing.

While i was trying everything i accidently flicked the volt switch at the back of the pc, to change volt intake i guess, and the psu did make a sound, does this make any difference?

could it be my psu is fried and i need a replacement?

TheDoc

nuting, left it out 5 mins, nothing.

While i was trying everything i accidently flicked the volt switch at the back of the pc, to change volt intake i guess, and the psu did make a sound, does this make any difference?

could it be my psu is fried and i need a replacement?

as i slowly put the psu cable into the back port, i can hear crackly noises

Anti

Say bye bye to your pc. You have changed it from 220v to 110v. This will more then likely have killed everything in your pc. Hopefully you had a good psu, and that stopped a surge. But chances are you damaged the mobo, ram, cpu, graphics card, sound card.

One way to check is to take out your psu. and put in a new one. see if it boots then.

TheDoc

uber ****

hopeful

[DM]-TheDOC- wrote:

uber ****

I think we all feel your pain. A few fingers crossed on your behalf here.

8T8

Yeah you might have killed the PSU but the board should not have died just from a bios flash* in all likely hood you might have nudged something loose internally like a cable or something is sitting slightly out of it's slot which is why the system isn't powering normally.

If you have access to another PC with a PSU simply plug that in temporarily into your own PC to see if it will work at least, double check all the cables, the graphics card or any other expansion cards are all seated/connected correctly.


*Unless somehow it was the wrong bios but Gigabytes own tool downloads the right bios for you and should not flash an incompatible bios so I fail to see how.

TheDoc

ok update. Seems i did cause a massive surge through flciking that switch. But the psu kinda took the blunt and blew out. So basically just my psu is fooked.bought a new one so im grand, still havnt checked if the ram is working.

put my other pcs psu in and it worked so im ok.

thanks a mill for all the help greatly appreciated thanks.

o and ive put a bunch of tape over that lil volt switch to avoid further mishaps.

pgleeson

Once the bunch of tape doesn't catch fire and burn your place to the ground.

Glad to hear that it ends up being just the one device replacement, for a while there I was thinking that I'd have nightmares after reading this post cause I'm just finishing a build myself.

TheDoc

well got myself my new psu its working grand, nice blue neons on it too

also got a few bits and bobs, mods like neon lights cathlode bars etc.

But since ive updated the bios everytime i turn on the pc, i get this box popping up asking me to insert the disc with the SRCDATA on it, or something like that.

Also everytime i turn on it pops up the lil box on the bottom right saying found new hardware and its going through all my hardware on the pc, and at the end saying some hardware might not run properly blah blah, but everything is fine.

PC is great just wna get rid of that box popping up.

Anyone shed any light?

Anti

you probably need to install a driver for something. Go to start > control panel >system > device manager And have a look for some yellow exclimation marks next to the hardware. If you see any you will need to install a driver for it.

TheDoc

yeah none there odd problem

haha and the bloody ram still aint working aaaa

8T8

The bios update must have been a fairly significant one if it re-initializes the found new hardware wizard.

As Anti pointed re-installing the drivers for the hardware should sort the problem.

These are the drivers for the nForce 4 SLI chipset.
* Don't install the storage driver (at least not yet)
* When it asks to install the NV Firewall/NAM say no (leave the ethernet driver ticked this is what's prompts that but you want the ethernet driver).
* The audio driver is optional maybe you already installed it or are using the Realtek one which is much newer anyway.

Now see if the SRCDATA goes away as from Google results this seems to work for some.

TheDoc

just want finalise something before i go ahead and make a purchase.

I've got two sticks of 512mb ram in my pc and i want get up to two gigs.

I currently have two sticks of

Module Name Infineon AED660UD00-500C88X
Serial Number 95AD1E12h (304000405)
Manufacture Date Week 16 / 2006
Module Size 512 MB (2 ranks, 4 banks)
Module Type Unbuffered
Memory Type DDR SDRAM
Memory Speed PC3200 (200 MHz)
Module Width 64 bit
Module Voltage SSTL 2.5
Error Detection Method None
Refresh Rate Reduced (7.8 us), Self-Refresh

Memory Timings
@ 200 MHz 3.0-3-3-8 (CL-RCD-RP-RAS) / 11-13-2 (RC-RFC-RRD)
@ 166 MHz 2.5-3-3-7 (CL-RCD-RP-RAS) / 10-11-2 (RC-RFC-RRD)
@ 133 MHz 2.0-2-2-6 (CL-RCD-RP-RAS) / 8-9-2 (RC-RFC-RRD)


Memory Module Manufacturer
Company Name Infineon Technologies AG
Product Information http://www.infineon.com/cgi-bin/ifx/portal/ep/home.do?tabId=1

Now when im going to buy another two sticks, what should i purchase? Its 200mhz which seems slow. Wud i be best in keeping the 1 gig stick at 400mhz and buying another one?

what would people advise? I dont wanna spend mad money but it does seem 200mhz a bit slow.