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Installed ram backwards...

A

AMiller

n00b
Joined
Dec 20, 2003
Messages
53
So ya....I cannot believe I did something this stupid but like the topic says, I installed a 512mb stick of OCZ ram in backwards (went into the DIMM slot rather easy actually) but now of course im having problems. This ram stick is dead as far as I can tell, theres a black contact point on one side the stick and when I put it in a different system nothing happens. System starts but I get no beep and nothing appears on the monitor.

However I cannot tell if my mobo has been delt the death blow or not. The motherboard boots, atleast occasionally. If it does not boot flipping the switch on the back of the PSU and back on usually lets it boot back up. When I boot and actually see the BIOS screen I normally see overclocking failed but every now and then it will start up like normal, but then once it comes to load windows xp it has problems, I get to the screen saying that XP did not load sucessfully on the previous boot and asks if I want to boot normally or goto safe mode etc. I choose boot normally and then the screen will go blank and nothing happens. I've tried two different HD's, and both work perfectly on another machine. So its my mobo having problems, anyone have any ideas on how to fix this or is the mobo gone? :(
The motherboard is a Asus P4P800 Delux w/ an Intel P4 2.8Ghz. All other parts that where in the system when the "incident" happend appear to work fine, the power supply even seems to work like normal but smelled of burnt PCB when I first smelled it after the "incident". It still does smell but not nearly as bad, so I guess its going away. When using the PSU in another machine the machine works fine and the voltages hold at what it did before the "incident".

Would appreciate any suggestions on what to try next, if anything, thanks.
 
Motherboard's fried. When you installed the RAM backwords it shorted data and power pins sending a surge back through to your Northbridge. Best case scenario only the RAM slot was damaged but since the board is not booting or even POSTing reliably, it's shot.

The burnt PCB smell was from the RAM most likely, the fans in the PSU sucked it up. Get a new board and all should be good.
 
There's a good chance that the mobo is still good, but that RAM slot is shot. Try resetting your CMOS and try some other RAM in one of the other slots.
 
I forgot to mention what I have tried, sorry. I have reset the CMOS as well as taken the battery out for 30 seconds (same thing right?). I have also tried another stick of ram, one stick of 512mb works fine, but when I put another 512mb stick in things get unreliable and messy. The strange part is that the third dimm slot is the one that had the power surge, so I dont see why the first two dimm slots wouldnt work?
 
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