Personal computing discussed

Moderators: renee, JustAnEngineer

 
etilena
Gerbil Jedi
Topic Author
Posts: 1674
Joined: Wed Jun 12, 2002 7:43 am
Location: .ozziefied.

Help me troubleshoot

Tue Sep 06, 2011 5:05 am

Just got a new system together but having some issues. The specs are core i5 2500k, Asus P8Z68-V LE and 4 x 4GB of GSkill 1600 DDR3.

I put everything together and the system won't post. There is a red LED which indicated a memory problem. Fiddled around a bit with one stick of memory and swapping the sticks around. So ends up I can get 8GB to run (any of the two sticks) but only on slot 3 and 4. It won't post on either slot 1 or 2. The channels are slot 1 & 3 or 2 & 4, so now I have 8GB running but single channel.

I suspect it's the motherboard, but would like to hear any suggestions of any other way to troubleshoot this before I bring it back to the store for an exchange. Thanks!
*yawn*
 
Hallucin8
Gerbil
Posts: 58
Joined: Mon Jun 28, 2010 9:12 am

Re: Help me troubleshoot

Tue Sep 06, 2011 6:54 am

Is the RAM listed on the Asus site as approved and tested? Does the RAM work in another motherboard?
 
etilena
Gerbil Jedi
Topic Author
Posts: 1674
Joined: Wed Jun 12, 2002 7:43 am
Location: .ozziefied.

Re: Help me troubleshoot

Tue Sep 06, 2011 6:57 am

Hallucin8 wrote:
Is the RAM listed on the Asus site as approved and tested? Does the RAM work in another motherboard?


Yes for the first question, even says ok to populate all four slots. Unfortunately I don't have another motherboard to test it on.
*yawn*
 
just brew it!
Administrator
Posts: 54500
Joined: Tue Aug 20, 2002 10:51 pm
Location: Somewhere, having a beer

Re: Help me troubleshoot

Tue Sep 06, 2011 10:16 am

Yeah, sounds like one of the memory channels on the mobo is bad. Could also be the CPU, but I consider that rather unlikely.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
etilena
Gerbil Jedi
Topic Author
Posts: 1674
Joined: Wed Jun 12, 2002 7:43 am
Location: .ozziefied.

Re: Help me troubleshoot

Tue Sep 06, 2011 8:12 pm

Ok found the problem. Dismantled the motherboard, brought it back to shop. They took a look at it, and found a bent pin, so wouldn't take the board back. Brought it home, and google is your friend in situations like this. Grabbed a mechanical pencil, bent the pin back, and what do you know, the 16GB of RAM works without a hitch. I'm surprised it posted to begin with after that fiasco.

Now I need to reinstall Windows, just booting off the installation for my AMD system, and I'm amazed that Windows 7 even boots in. :D
*yawn*
 
just brew it!
Administrator
Posts: 54500
Joined: Tue Aug 20, 2002 10:51 pm
Location: Somewhere, having a beer

Re: Help me troubleshoot

Wed Sep 07, 2011 9:03 am

Any guess whether the pin came that way, or if it happened during system assembly?

I remember the big stink people raised back in 2004 when Intel switched to LGA CPUs. But the predicted mountains of dead motherboards never materialized. Seems to me a bent pin is a bent pin; it sucks regardless of whether the pin is on the CPU or motherboard. (And these days, more likely than not you've paid more for the CPU anyway...)
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
etilena
Gerbil Jedi
Topic Author
Posts: 1674
Joined: Wed Jun 12, 2002 7:43 am
Location: .ozziefied.

Re: Help me troubleshoot

Thu Sep 08, 2011 9:09 am

just brew it! wrote:
Any guess whether the pin came that way, or if it happened during system assembly?

I remember the big stink people raised back in 2004 when Intel switched to LGA CPUs. But the predicted mountains of dead motherboards never materialized. Seems to me a bent pin is a bent pin; it sucks regardless of whether the pin is on the CPU or motherboard. (And these days, more likely than not you've paid more for the CPU anyway...)


Not very sure, I wasn't really looking when I did the assembly. It took the guy at the shop a good 30 seconds to spot the bent pin, it's not something you'd notice straight away unless you were looking for it.

At least that was sorted. Had another 24 hours of drama as I tried to install Windows 7. Installation would complete and when it tried to configure files, it would crash. It did that subsequent times when the Windows logo appeared. I was going nuts disabling the internal USB 3.0 and other parts, copying the ISO over to the USB stick multiple times etc. Read online that it could have been the PSU and nearly wanted to go out to get one. The last item I checked was the graphics card. It's good that the Z68 chipset allows you to utilise both an external graphics card or the integrated graphics of the core i5. Took my Radeon 4850 out and it booted to Windows fine.

I put the card back in and it crashed again. At least now that the configuration was completed, I could boot into safe mode, grab the latest ATI drivers, and Windows is working fine now. I'm kind of stumped, as I installed Windows 7 fine on my AMD system (which was another headache back then where a 20 minute install took a few hours because of the crappy AHCI problem with the 780G motherboards) with the same exact video card and PSU.

Sometimes it's quite daunting to assemble your own PC when so many things could go wrong and troubleshooting is like finding a needle in a haystack. :-? At least the performance improvement is very noticeable, so the pain was short lived. :)
*yawn*

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest
GZIP: On