Forum Home
Press F1
Thread ID: 129691	2013-03-06 12:16:00	No boot after installing new ram	fuzzee (13826)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
1331620	2013-03-06 12:16:00	I bought a 2nd hand pc off TradeMe for the kids for gaming. It has been working perfectly. It had 1 2gb of ram and I thought I would upgrade that to 2 2gb of dual channel ram. The motherboard is Asus P5QL PRO. The manual say Corsair XMS2 6400 CL5 will work fine. I got some Corsair XMS2 6400 off TradeMe but didnt notice the timings are 4-4-4-12. The manual says "due to chipset limitation DDR2 800 with CL4 will be downgrade to run at DDR2 667 by default setting. If you want to operate at lower latency adjust the memory timing manually." So I installed the new ram using my static wrist strap. I thought I would boot into the bios and change the ram settings and everything would be fantastic. Uh oh. Wont boot to the bios. So I reinstalled the original single ram stick. PC still wont boot. Now Im getting "dad what have you done to the computer " looks from teenage son. We have a 2nd PC which also uses DDR2 and I thought I might try the ram in that. After thinking about that I decided I might just end up with 2 dud PC. So what can I do to get this PC up and running on the original single ram stick? Are my thoughts about adjusting the ram timings in the bios correct or does that mean I have to have CL5 ram and adjust the timings on that to CL4? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Im a novice user on here and this has taken me over an hour to get this done and its now 1:15am. I may be slow to respond to any of your suggestions so TIA.	fuzzee (13826)
1331621	2013-03-06 18:08:00	Try removing the CMOS battery for a min then put it back in. See if it turns on. What version of windows was on it?	Speedy Gonzales (78)
1331622	2013-03-06 18:52:00	I'd leave the BIOS settings alone. The defaults should work OK. I'd try to install the two sticks into the DIMM's again. Very important: this board has dual channel memory architecture. Usually two DIMM slots are colored yellow, and the other two are colored back. When you see this on any motherboard it is a clue that you populate the colors together. try first with alternate DIMM slots: 1 & 3, and 2 & 4	kingdragonfly (309)
1331623	2013-03-12 09:12:00	I reinstalled the original memory then removed the CMOS battery and shifted the CLEAR CMOS jpr. After about 5 mins I tried rebooting but it didnt work. So i removed the CMOS battery and reset the CLEAR CMOS jpr again and left that for about an hour. After restoring everything to the original state the system booted fine. Ive done some reading about the ram and come to the conclusion that the new ram is not compatible with the motherboard. So now Im on the lookout for ram with compatible timings. Thanks for the advice.	fuzzee (13826)
1331624	2013-03-12 18:08:00	The ram you got off TradeMe should still work in that PC. Try removing all ram then put the TradeMe ram into the yellow ram slot closest to the CPU. Try booting with just the TradeMe ram in. If that fires up then shut down and place your original ram into the second yellow ram slot and fire the PC back up. Hopefully it will have recognised both DIMM's now. Sometimes they just need a bit of jiggery pokery.	Tukapa (62)
1331625	2013-03-12 19:35:00	Also I wouldn't try running dual channel with mis matched ram. In preference always use a matched pair but failing that stick to the same brand and timings. Dual channel kits were introduced because there were a lot of problems getting it to work reliably without a matched pair.	dugimodo (138)
1331626	2013-03-12 19:37:00	Another comment. DDR2 RAM is still available new at reasonable prices. I wouldnt get it from trademe myself. www.pp.co.nz have a good selection for example.	dugimodo (138)
1331627	2013-03-12 20:06:00	Another comment. DDR2 RAM is still available new at reasonable prices. I wouldnt get it from trademe myself. www.pp.co.nz have a good selection for example. That place PP doesn't have much at all in the way of DDR2 Dual channel kits. That being said, some RAM simply doesn't work even though it says it Should. Seen it happen many times put in some so called compatible RAM and the PC wont boot. Buying from trademe is always a bit of a gamble as well - you never know if its actually got a fault or not. An example is I had a couple of 1GB DDR2 sticks of RAM here that were in an old Computer, they tested OK in a Memory test, yet it doesn't matter what motherboard they are attached to within 15 minutes of booting the PC's lock solid, change the memory and they are fine again. - Rubbish bin Material now.	wainuitech (129)
1331628	2013-03-12 22:12:00	Just to clarify the ram situation the ram that I bought off trademe is a matched pair Corsair CM2X2048-6400C4DHX. 4-4-4-12 2.1V It was from I assume a reputable trader with over 10,000 sales. The pc originally had 1 stick of ram. The new ram was installed correctly in the motherboard as dual channel in the yellow slots. I will try inserting 1 stick of new ram and see how that goes.	fuzzee (13826)
1331629	2013-03-12 23:07:00	This reminds me of an incedent that occurred to me 2 years ago. I replaced a ram card in a Dell pc and could not get it to boot afterwards even when I replaced the original card. I tested both cards in another PC and both worked so I had to conclude that the socket had become faulty. Close examination showed that one of the contacts had been crushed to the bottom of the socket by the insertion of the new ram, making the socket unserviceable. This motherboard required that slot 1 be populated before slot 2 so as it was slot 1 that was now useless I was forced to replace the MB. I,ve was a professional computer engineer all my working life which started in 1956, snafus still happen from time to time. I,m not suggesting that this is your problem because your MB has 4 sockets and you can use any one of them for a single card, but I would advise a close look at them anyway in case there is a short on a signal line that is common to all of them.	jinja_thom (4306)
1 2