RAM on fire, help.

Kryogen

Gawd
Joined
Feb 3, 2002
Messages
937
Hey, I'm asking something for my bro since his comp is experiencing problems.

He recently bought a new stick of ram (PC 2100 DDR) (512mb), to upgrade from his 256.

So he put in the new stick of ram, boot, and the comp crashed.

So he took off the new stick, and booted. It booted, but the old stick was apparently on fire ?!?

Um, any ideas? He doesn'T want to boot his comp anymore, and I understand that,

What could the problem be? I'm thinking mobo or psu.... why would the ram suddently fail, not really an option I think.

Your ideas??? thx
 
It's very hard to install RAM in backwards. You'll have to put some serious force on it, during which you'd hear cracking of RAM or mobo. First idea that comes to my head is that something went into the slot with the RAM, or wasn't seated properly? Not sure. Never seen comp parts catch on fire... Well, by themselves. :D

If the RAM did catch on fire, I wouldn't start up the comp again until I thoroughly inspected it, and taking out anything of value (ie-Video card, expensive sound card, good ram). Not sure exactly what to tell you though.

Hope it comes out all right.

~PW
 
i've seen ram installed backwards...

I didn't believe it myself until I saw it with my own eyes...
 
i've seen ram installed backwards, wanna know whats freaky? it was also DDR in a SDRAM slot
 
Somehow, I've actually done that. (Install keyed RAM backwards.)

Usually, during the install, at some point, I'm holding it backwards and correct myself. Apparently, this one time, I didn't catch it. In the end, I think it shorted out the motherboard.
 
Its impossible to install the ram backwards because of the tab spaceing on the ram wont allow it to be installed. Now you might think you had it installed backwards but it wasnt really installed ( seated correctly ). As far as ram catching on fire thats just silly... there is not enough volts going thru the ram to make it burst into flames, and trust me before even if it could get that hot which it cant your computer ram would malfunction and the computer would crash. Silly thread
 
melteye said:
I knew a computer applications teacher who once installed ram backwards with similar consequences...

I didn't believe it myself until I saw it with my own eyes...

wow, this was your teacher? u end up learnin much from this guy? lol i think i woulda dropped that klass after hearing that :D

i dont really understand how you could install ram backwards tho, there would be alot of crunching and you would have to be a complete idiot to do it. but it was being installed in a dell... hmmm... j/k :p
 
That's California's education system for ya :p

Yes I learned much from the teacher... I learned what not to do.
 
melteye said:
Yes I learned much from the teacher...

lmao next time i can vote im voting for better schools in cali, your english teachers arent very good either :p j/p
 
*EDITED FOR CLARITY*
Shane said:
As far as ram catching on fire thats just silly... there is not enough volts going thru the ram to make it burst into flames, and trust me before even if it could get that hot which it cant your computer ram would malfunction and the computer would crash. Silly thread

I have pictures proving otherwise. A short is a short, reguardless of the voltage. It's amps that count.
When I worked in a computer repair shop, a customer brought in an HP mini tower Celeron 433 system. One stick of RAM had caught on fire and had burned the stick next to it. After replacing the RAM, the system worked perfectly fine (minus the black marks on the memory tab). The memory was installed properly and the system was working fine until they smelled something burning and pulled the plug. The stick that burned was the origional HP stick, not the addtional RAM they installed.
 
The_Mage18 said:
I have pictures proving otherwise. A short is a short, reguardless of the voltage. It's amps that count.
When I worked in a computer repair shop, a customer brought in an HP mini tower Celeron 433 system. One stick of RAM had caught on fire and had burned the stick next to it. After replacing the RAM, the system worked perfectly fine (minus the black marks on the memory tab). The memory was installed properly and the system was working fine until they smelled something burning and pulled the plug. The stick that burned was the origional HP stick, not the addtional RAM they installed.

I call BS. It physically will not fit. Like a previous poster said, you may have thought you installed it backwards, but it will not seat. As far as it catching fire, it could. I had a stick of RAM short out and melt/burn my DIMM socket. Anyways, post a picture.
 
Shane said:
As far as ram catching on fire thats just silly... there is not enough volts going thru the ram to make it burst into flames, and trust me before even if it could get that hot which it cant your computer ram would malfunction and the computer would crash. Silly thread

I had my DDR controller on my DFI lanparty motherboard catch fire before, if the juice is strong enough, if the controller goes the ram can light up too.
 
Met-AL said:
I call BS. It physically will not fit. Like a previous poster said, you may have thought you installed it backwards, but it will not seat. As far as it catching fire, it could. I had a stick of RAM short out and melt/burn my DIMM socket. Anyways, post a picture.

I probably should edit that post to be more clear. I have pictures proving that the RAM can catch fire, not that it can be installed backwards. It is impossible to install it backwards without damaging the socket, the RAM or the tabs.
 
The_Mage18 said:
I probably should edit that post to be more clear. I have pictures proving that the RAM can catch fire, not that it can be installed backwards. It is impossible to install it backwards without damaging the socket, the RAM or the tabs.

post the pics.. i want to see.. if you can't i will post them for you..
 
Since I'm home and popular demand.
Excuse the blurryness, I ditched that camera

Here's the initial shot of the stick that actually burned. The PCB underneath that chip is nearly burned through and the chips on both sides are attached by melted silicon
http://www.nicoritschel.com/freehosting/userfiles/themage18/stick1.JPG

Top of the RAM sticks
http://www.nicoritschel.com/freehosting/userfiles/themage18/stick2.JPG

A nice shot of the first stick
http://www.nicoritschel.com/freehosting/userfiles/themage18/stick3.JPG

Second stick. The caps in the background aren't domes. YAY!!! :D
http://www.nicoritschel.com/freehosting/userfiles/themage18/stick4.JPG

Second stick again.
http://www.nicoritschel.com/freehosting/userfiles/themage18/stick5.JPG

Funny part about this whole thing is the replacement RAM worked perfectly in the first slow and that's the slot with the most damage. The customer didn't believe me either, so I'm glad I had the pictures to prove it.
 
/off topic
My first computer was a p133 with 16 megs of ram
after using it for about a million years I decided I would use the case.
after taking out the mobo the bottom of it had a very large black mark on the bottom the size
of my fist but still worked fine despite some serious burning

/off topic

anywho, I remember years ago in the highschool computer lab something similar to this happened and it was apparently a regular occurance. apparently alot of those systems survived to crunch numbers another day so just try some other ram after removing anything important from your system.
 
todlerix said:
i've seen ram installed backwards, wanna know whats freaky? it was also DDR in a SDRAM slot
That takes special skills..
 
Can I just say this is definately one of the more awesome thread titles I've seen in awhile?

oh, and yeah, fires are bad (note to self: don't plug power connector into digital out of CD-ROM!)

P.S. that was my first ever experience opening up a computer! :D :D
 
insanarchist said:
Can I just say this is definately one of the more awesome thread titles I've seen in awhile?

oh, and yeah, fires are bad (note to self: don't plug power connector into digital out of CD-ROM!)

P.S. that was my first ever experience opening up a computer! :D :D

haha :p
 
haha, I've set a hard drive alight by pluggin in the power connector backwards. I had shaved off the corners of a connector to run a fan at 5v, and forgot about it and several months later put it in the HDD, backwards, when I was installing more RAM. I had the case off when I started it and saw the flame and smelled the smoke.
 
Back
Top