Blinking red light on mobo

jamescd

Hi all,

My sister tried to turn on her almost 5 year old PC this morning but it wouldn't work. Ive opened it up and there's a flashing red light near where the 24 PIN socket is. Think it's called DRAM LED. Everything stays on like normal (the CPU fan, case fans, etc.), but there's just nothing showing up on the monitor.

She has the Asus M4A88T-M motherboard with onboard graphics. As I said it's been working fine for almost 5 years, could the RAM have died ? I've tried booting without both sticks of RAM but the blinking red light is still there. Tried disconnecting the hard drive too, but no luck. She's been using the onboard graphics so there's never been a graphics card installed.

Any ideas ?

Genghiz Cohen

jamescd wrote: »

Hi all,

My sister tried to turn on her almost 5 year old PC this morning but it wouldn't work. Ive opened it up and there's a flashing red light near where the 24 PIN socket is. Think it's called DRAM LED. Everything stays on like normal (the CPU fan, case fans, etc.), but there's just nothing showing up on the monitor.

She has the Asus M4A88T-M motherboard with onboard graphics. As I said it's been working fine for almost 5 years, could the RAM have died ? I've tried booting without both sticks of RAM but the blinking red light is still there. Tried disconnecting the hard drive too, but no luck. She's been using the onboard graphics so there's never been a graphics card installed.

Any ideas ?

It won't boot without at least 1 stick of RAM, try one then the other. A flashing DRAM light sounds like something is faulty there.

Be sure to check the RAM for scorch marks, on the pins and around the black square thingies.

jamescd

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

It won't boot without at least 1 stick of RAM, try one then the other. A flashing DRAM light sounds like something is faulty there.

Be sure to check the RAM for scorch marks, on the pins and around the black square thingies.

I've tried each stick separately on all 4 slots, no joy unfortunately.

I know it won't boot, but if the RAM was faulty, then won't the blinking red light stop when I remove both sticks ? What I mean is, won't the light disappear if you remove whatever it is that's faulty ?

Xenoronin

"If the check engine light is blinking in your car, shouldn't it disappear when you remove the engine?"
That's pretty much the analogy you are making there. If you remove the ram, the problem simply changes from "I'm having an issue with the RAM" to "Holy ****, where my RAM at yo?!". The RAM or the Motherboard are probably the issue here. Sounds like there isn't much to plug in and plug out but try reseating the power connections and anything else you can find except the CPU + Fan. If you get your hands on a compatible stick of ram (DDR2/3 PC2/3 XXXXX is probably written somewhere on it), you could try it.

First result on google is this
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/319424-30-dram-flashing
Which seems to claim it is possibly the motherboard that is the culprit.

Johnboy1951

All checks to be done with power lead pulled from the PC or wall socket ....

The seating of the RAM sticks would the first place I would look ..... checking that the connections are clean and free from any dust/grime. I believe there is one specific memory slot to be used when only one stick is inserted .... check the manual.

The second item would be to check the PSU connections to the motherboard. Again unplugging, checking and replugging the connections used.

The third item I would check would be to reset the BIOS following the instructions in the manual.

Last but not least, try disabling the onboard graphics if you can get to BIOS, or at the very least unplugging the monitor.


After that I would try a (temporary) replacement PSU.

Hopefully at some point the LED would stop flashing ...... in hope.

jamescd

I've disconnected everything, apart from the CPU + Heatsink and made sure case speakers were properly connected to the motherboard. Turned PC on, CPU fan spins but no beeps at all. No short beeps, long beeps, nothing. Isn't there supposed to be some sort of beep if the RAM is missing ?

Does that mean the motherboard is the problem ?

scamalert

from what i could read on the net-did you check the 4pin power connector is is plugged in fully-as sometimes it might get lose and cause such issue,also resetting your cmos battery-take it out for couple hours or day.

if that doesn't help-since you stripped most parts,any chance you could get your hands on any graphics card-just to rule out that on-board one isn't fried.
and maybe different PSU-just to make sure it isn't power supply that's dying.

also with ram try one stick at the time using last slot from cpu.