What exactly is wrong here?

E

elleana

2[H]4U
Joined
Apr 15, 2006
Messages
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Just put together a new build, some old/recycled parts and some new. Briefly I have the following:

Gigabyte G41 mobo
E8400 with AC Freezer Pro
2x2GB OCZ PC6400
Seagate 7200.10 1GB HDD
OCZ 500 ModXStream PSU
ATI 4670

Anyhow, after I put it all together, the machine refuses to boot. It powers up, I can see the boot screen, but it doesn't go anywhere. It shows me I have 4GB of RAM, then freezes up, and restarts soon after. I could start swapping parts out until something different shows up, but I thought perhaps I could ask on here first. Anyone can give me a push in the right direction as to which component is faulty?
 
You can try returning the mobo to the default optimal settings or reset the cmos. You can also try using one stick of ram at a time to see if your ram is causing the problem.
 
Motherboard is new, but I can't even get to the bios screen - restarts before I can press delete.

Will try swapping around the RAM to see if that's the problem.
 
Yeah I'd say reset the CMOS 1st thing. And, make sure have the latest BIOS.

As far as the parts swapping, try 1 stick of RAM at a time first and see if you have a bad stick acting up. Also try different RAM slots...your memory could be good but you may have a bad slot. The only other easy ones are taking the ATI card out and booting it with the onboard video, and trying a different PSU. If none of the above works, you have narrowed it down to either a bad CPU or motherboard.
 
Be sure to set the rated memory voltage.
If the memory cannot handle the default CMOS voltage, it wont work.
 
Unfortunate.
to expand on what I said earlier...
I had a machine that would let me get into the CMOS 1 time in 100.
Once in and I set the memory voltage correctly, it worked fine, but any problems that reset the CMOS made the machine non functional again.
As I overclock a lot, it was inevitable that it would happen again, so in the end I bought some different ram that works ok at default CMOS memory voltages/speeds.

You can get the machine to run with higher memory voltages by booting with memory that does work, up the voltage and see if your ram now works.
Not that it would matter cos you would really want to use different memory anyway, but at least you might find out why it doesnt work :)
 
Thanks for the helpful replies people - have figured it halfway out. Seems my RAM is a problem. After swapping things around, I have figured out that both sticks can boot when individually installed in either slot, but once both sticks are in then we have a problem. From what Nenu says it sounds like it might be a RAM voltage problem - I am absolutely clueless at that - what voltage should I set?

My motherboard model is G41M-ES2L, and my RAM model is OVZ2N800SR4GK, 5-4-4 @2.1v
 
lol, you spelled it out, 2.1V max.
You will find that the default BIOS setup probably uses 1.8V, so try a bit higher until it works.
You can get into the BIOS setup with 1 stick of ram, so you can get away without replacing the ram if that is the only issue.
 
Since your ram runs at 2.1v you will want to change the ram bios volt to +0.3v since default is 1.8v
 
Yup, it says 1.8V in the bios. Booted up with 1 stick, went into bios to change it and found that 2.1v came with a warning. Set it anyway, but still no joy. Going to toy some more with the voltages and see if anything will work. Otherwise will go out tomorrow and pick up 1.8V ram. Hope that works.
 
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