Memory Woes

[Guest]

Last week I ordered 2 gigs of memory to get my system up to 4 gigs. The memory arrived yesterday but when I put it in my computer my computer will turn on but non of the peripherals will turn on and the monitor stays in standby. I take the memory out, my computer boots up fine. I replace the old memory with the new memory my computer boots up fine. I put the new memory in the first two slots of my motherboard the computer won't boot up. I put the old memory in the first two slots of my motherboard the computer won't boot up.

So here's the weird thing.

I bought this computer from www.cyberpowerpc.com last december.

The computer came with both memory modules in the first two slots. One day I put a second 8800gt in my brother owns to see how well it will run crysis in sli. after that those two slots would not work anymore. I called cyberpower and they sent me a new motherboard because they said that one must be bad. Well, that didn't solve the problem as the same thing still happened. If the ram is good and the motherboard is good then what can be the problem? Oh and the second 8800gt is not in my computer anymore. Please help me with this dilemma!




System Specs===>

Vista Home Premium 64 bit
AMD Phenom 9500
GIGABYTE GA-M57SLI-S4
2 gigs ddr2 800 A-Data
2 gigs ddr2 800 OCZ
EVGA 8800gt
Sound Blaster X-FI Xtreme Gamer
500 gig 7200 RPM HD
DVD/CD RW
Arctic Freezer 64 Heatsink
650 Watt Power Supply
Raidmax Sagitta 2 Case

 

[jitpublisher]

Rule #1 about memory. Do not mix brands, speeds, or voltage.
Rule #2....always use rule #1.
Are both memory brands the same voltage and identical specs?
If they are, try upping the voltage a little.
If these are different, you will have to boot first with 1 set, and set the voltage to number of the higher volted set, set the timings to the speed of the slowest set to even give it a chance to work, then it is purely luck from there.

 

[Guest]

The ocz is 5-5-5-15 and the a-data is 5-5-5-18

But still, when I put one stick in one of the first two slots with no other ram shouldn't the computer boot? With one stick of either ram in one of the first two slots he computer will not boot. I'll try and change the timings and see if that works.

 

[jitpublisher]

Technically it should, but check the voltage they are supposed to run at, and what the BIOS says it is setting for them.

 

[Guest]

The A-data is 2.1 V
The OCZ is 1.9V

I put the OCZ in and bumped up the voltage by 1.5 and the gigabyte screen will come up where I can hit delete to go into the bios, f12 for boot menu and all that. The computer will however stay at that screen. The mouse and keyboard will not come on.

 

[Guest]

I increased it by .150V not 1.50V, sorry.

 

[jitpublisher]

Try setting to 2.1 or 2.2, try relaxing the timings to somthing like 6-6-6-18, and if it boots, slowly work each one backwards.

 

[Guest]

changed the voltage to .225V and still no go. i can't find anything that lets me change the timings in my bios. have any idea where that would be for a gigabyte?

 

[jitpublisher]

Hold on, let me check your manual. Usually, if you disable the auto detect setting, there will be a submenu that appears so you can set each timing manually.

 

[Guest]

i found it, i had to hit ctr f1 and it let me get to advanced settings. there are so many different things there i'm not sure how to get it to 6-6-6-18. there are a bunch of things that can be changed.

 

[jitpublisher]

Okay, see you got it. The manual is pretty useless at this point.
I don't have that board so you'll just have to play with it and figure it out.
Maybe someone who has this board can help here?

 

[bobbknight]

I'm still back at the part where you say the first 2 ram slots will not work with either set of ram sticks.
Also you say this happens with a board you sent back and the one you currently have.
So from what I see from the thread is that you still have a motherboard memory slot problem, all the timings and voltage changes in the world will not fix that.

This is what I would do.

I would take one stick of ram from the original set and put it in the first slot closest to the cpu and see if the system boots.
I would do this with each slot and each stick. Once that is done you should have a good idea as to what is wrong.

But right now I say you have a bad board.

 

[Guest]

I've tried this. The computer won't boot up if there is any ram in the first two slots. But its funny because the old board did the same exact thing. Could this be a problem with another component such as the CPU?

 

[jitpublisher]

It's gotta be the board, nothing else would have much bearing on which memory slots do/don't work. Maybe they sent you back the same board you sent in? Tried updating to the latest BIOS?

 

[Guest]

They definitely didn't send the same board back as they sent me a brand new one that I swapped myself with the old one then returned the old one to them in the new one's box. I'll try and flash the bios and see if that helps.

 

[Guest]

Flashed the bios, took out the battery on the motherboard and re-arranged the sticks some more. NO MEMORY will work in the first 2 sockets STILL. I have a 3 year warranty on my computer so I guess i'll be calling cyberpower tomorrow.