by "for Michigan" (formichigan)
Published 10/04/2017 at 19:59
by "for Michigan" (formichigan)
Published 10/04/2017 at 19:59
Tags: Help
; Computers
STARS: 1
This is my homebuilt PC that’s going on three years old. It doesn’t normally look like this, but I’ve torn it apart to try and fix an issue that popped up a couple weeks ago.
About two weeks ago, I went to boot up my computer to do some work. It powered up, but no signal at the monitors. The motherboard speaker didn’t so much beep as it did tick. And it just sat there, ticking endlessly. So I held the power button down until it shut off and attempted to power it on again.
This time it booted and I got a BIOS message informing me of the previous failure to boot. I opted to reset everything and boot and Windows 10 came up just fine. I did the work I had to do and shut the computer off.
The next day, I had more work to do, so I went to boot it up and got the same blank screen and rhythmic tick from the motherboard speaker. Power down, reboot, same thing. Tried a couple more times and gave up.
Just now getting around to tearing it down and putting everything back together in an attempt to diagnose the problem. I’ve found that with the RAM removed, I get a rapid-fire series of beeps. With the RAM installed I either get the blank screen and tick, or it boots and I can get into BIOS and Windows. Same results with either one or both sticks installed. Based on what research I’ve done, it seems to me my RAM is bad. I don’t have any extra DDR3 sitting around to test that theory though.
Currently only the CPU, RAM, and SSD are installed and I went through the CMOS reset process.
"Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)" (6speedhaven)
10/04/2017 at 20:06, STARS: 0
I had an issue with one of my RAM sticks when I built my PC in late May...
The built machine would turn on, but wouldn’t POST with two RAM sticks in it.
Took one out and it did its thing...finally installed the second one later and everything has been fine since.
So my take is, bad RAM. Hugely bad! How many RAM sticks are in your machine? Try one at a time, separately.
"Wacko" (wacko--)
10/04/2017 at 20:07, STARS: 0
What about the power supply?
Unplug all the shit you don’t need to boot, remove video card and try to boot with onboard card.
Ticking with no ram is normal, since it’s telling you it can’t boot without ram.
Try only one stick or ram at a time you don’t need extra ram to find out if one is bad.
But that ticking to me sounds like a power supply issue
"Wacko" (wacko--)
10/04/2017 at 20:10, STARS: 0
The more I think about it the more it sounds like the power supply. It gives many different voltages to the system. 12v 5v 3v DC current.
It might have a cap that is starting to pop, and one of the voltages is off or doesn’t give the wattage that voltage needs.
"for Michigan" (formichigan)
10/04/2017 at 20:12, STARS: 0
Currently only the CPU, RAM, and SSD are installed. With no RAM, I get rapid-fire beeping. With the RAM in, I get the ticking noise. I’ve tried both sticks of RAM (2x8gb) independently and I get the same behavior with both of them.
"for Michigan" (formichigan)
10/04/2017 at 20:13, STARS: 0
Two sticks of RAM (8gb each). I tried each stick of RAM independently and got the same results.
"Grindintosecond" (Grindintosecond)
10/04/2017 at 20:25, STARS: 0
Possible connection; the connections could be a potential issue. What’s connecting the SSD? Try a different PSU power source cable, then if the same try another ssd Sata connector, or whatever data cable they use now. Could be a bad power supply but they usually fail consistently instead of intermittently.
Not posting though, that’s the odd one to me and stops me from goint to the HDD....SSD sorry, so yes I agree with ram sticks for now and if there’s a shop that can test a PSU somewhere consider that, or, just buy a new kick ass Corsair PSU and love life until you discover its none of those pricey things, just a mobo.
"for Michigan" (formichigan)
10/04/2017 at 20:36, STARS: 0
My PSU is a Corsair. Still in within the 3-year warranty. Definitely should’ve gone modular though, there’s no space in this case for all those extra power cables I don’t use…
"crowmolly" (crowmolly)
10/04/2017 at 20:37, STARS: 0
Just for shits and giggles, replace the onboard battery.
"Sweet Trav" (thespunbearing)
10/04/2017 at 20:49, STARS: 0
Examine all the capacitors. Try a new power supply
"Grindintosecond" (Grindintosecond)
10/04/2017 at 21:09, STARS: 0
Hopefully it’s just ram then. Did you over clock? If so, to temp limits? Hope you didn’t cook it. I cooked a Northbridge years back in the socket A days and it got all kinds of glitchy.
"for Michigan" (formichigan)
10/04/2017 at 21:19, STARS: 0
Nah, I haven’t ever messed with overclocking.
"for Michigan" (formichigan)
10/04/2017 at 21:20, STARS: 0
Haven’t found any bad capacitors yet. I may have a power supply around somewhere, but idk if it’s even feasible as a test unit.
"Orange Exige" (OrangeExige)
10/04/2017 at 22:14, STARS: 1
You can test the memory with a bootable USB drive with something like this: http://www.memtest.org/
I’ve used it before to diagnose somebody else’s memory and it’ll be pretty obvious if something is wrong. Probably won’t get you an RMA under warranty but at least it can help you narrow things down more.
"duurtlang" (duurtlang)
10/05/2017 at 03:49, STARS: 1
If you get the same problem while using the RAM sticks independently it most likely isn’t the RAM. They worked fine for a few years (so no compatibility problems) and it’s very unlikely that they both broke at the same time. It’s either the power supply or the motherboard. See if you can source another power supply from somewhere, just for testing purposes.