help with ram

[boneys26]

hi guys look at my sig thats my system spec.

Now for the past god knows how long my system has been fine always clean the inside of the tower, dust filters on the fans, defrag the hard drives once a week and so on but the other day the pc started booting really slow and sometimes when the system starts the pc makes beeping sounds like, beep beep beep, break, beep beep beep break..... and it will keep doing this untill I reset it.

I went to my local pc shop to ask there advice (didn't say anything about beeping as this is new) they told me it could be norton sysem works 2005 thats causing the problem and to uninstall it (but its nortons performace test thats telling me theres a problem with my ram) so i formated the os hard drive to start fresh with windows just incase its windows with the problem (i hate bug hunting) the boot up is now fine but the beeps are still there now and then (put norton back on to i think they're just trying to get more money out of me) Is there a free program that tests the ram? I'm not sure if it is the ram as i have no problems playing games no crashes etc, can anyone help thanks in advance peeps

 

[auldian]

Memtest86 is good. It is run at boot up from a floppy disk. If I remember correctly it takes several hours to run the tests.
The beeps sound like post errors. Your motherboard manual should have a list of the beep sequences and their meanings.
It sounds like you are being cautious with it but, because it never hurts to remind folks, be diligent about making backups of your "can't lose" files.
Good luck. Let us know what you find.
[edit: speling is knot my kup of tee]

 

[Zanmato]

I found this through Google, http://acronymsonline.com/lists/beep_chart.asp

Generally 3 beeps is a dodgy RAM chips somewhere (Main memory read / write test error), also 3 short beeps (Bad memory) means the same thing. I have also had this myself on an older system where you had to install RAM chips in pairs. Some time back I know. I would take all the RAM out and if it boots up you know it's a RAM fault. Then put one RAM chip back in at a time until it beeps at you again then trash the faultly chip then run MemTest on the remaining good RAM. You might not be able to use MemTest with the bad chip in as the system may not reach the stage to boot the drives. May be worth checking your power supply is enough as a lack of power or spikes can more often damage the RAM before anything else.

 

[boneys26]

I've only got 2 one 512mb and a new 1GB I have a feeling it will be the new one as the old one was fine but i'll have to test first thanks guys I'll be running the test tonight when I'm not using the pc

 

[boneys26]

Ok ran the test it found no problems with my RAM. so I'm open to any ideas my mainboard is a msi KT6V and it came with a D bracket with 4 led's to help with detecting problems while booting and if there is a problem then the lights freeze to let me see whats causing the problems so i just got to wait for the boot error to hit me again

 

[Velvet-Glove]

You could try removing the RAM sticks and putting them back, maybe the physical connection is just a bit dodgy. Try a different slot for your newer RAM if you have one. You could also clean the gold connectors, especially on the older stick, by using electrical contact cleaner or, at a pinch, by rubbing the surfaces gently with an ordinary pencil eraser. These measures might just help if it's a physical problem.

Try and find out what those beeps mean - look in the mobo manual or hunt around on the Internet for info on the bios maker (Ami, Award or whatever) and their beep codes.

 

[boneys26]

Try and find out what those beeps mean - look in the mobo manual or hunt around on the Internet for info on the bios maker (Ami, Award or whatever) and their beep codes.

Funny you should say that I had a look to see what the beeps mean and its ram or the video card (I can't remember for sure how the beeps came) it was 3 beeps for sure but i can't remember if it was 1 long beep then 3 short beeps. But i got this D bracket plugged into the mainboard now so That will tell me for sure what the problem is. only thing is since i put it on nothings gone wrong always the way

 

[Velvet-Glove]

Ah, don't you just love computers!

My comment about cleaning and re-seating the RAM would also apply to the graphics card if it's possible that that is the problem. A simple jiggling of components like this can work wonders sometimes.

Another trick is to wave a fierce looking screwdriver at the computer and loudly threaten it with long words like disembowelment - you have to let them know who's boss.

I hope you get to the bottom of it, anyway.

 

[boneys26]

Another trick is to wave a fierce looking screwdriver at the computer and loudly threaten it with long words like disembowelment - you have to let them know who's boss.

LMAO,, I used a hammer on my last pc after 3 weeks of crashes/formats etc..needed a new pc then any way......