Well, I got it to post....

K

kchinger

New Member
I RMA'd my motherboard after my new system wouldn't post. Now it posts, and I can get to the BIOS and all, but then I get exception errors just as it starts to boot from the CD. Sometimes it won't give the error, but will just restart. Sometimes it will give the error. Sometimes I get the "all is well" beep, sometimes I get a long beep, followed by a short, which my manual says is a memory or motherboard problem. Since I sometimes get the "all is well" beep, I'm leaning towards bad memory. The errors that I'm getting also seem to point to memory problems from what I can understand from my readings online.

I'm going to go grab some cheap memory tomorrow from Best Buy to test with, I'll end up returning it. If it works with that, I'm gonna RMA my memory and try to talk them into letting me pay for both while they cross-ship, like they did with my motherboard. I'm also going to try and get different RAM since the Crucial 4-4-4-12 has a rebate now and is 5 dollars cheaper than my 5-5-5-18 A-Data.

If anyone thinks this isn't the memory, or has any other ideas on how to test/diagnose, I'd be interested to hear them.

I'll update tomorrow after I try the new stick.

By the way, I already tried taking out one channel, and then the other. No luck.
 
Ok. Here's the scoop. This is REALLY interesting. I went and bought some crappy (expensive) memory from Best Buy. It posted and started to load windows, so I shut it down and closed the case up and stuff. It then started acting like my other memory. So... I was pretty pissed off at this point. I called Gigabyte tech support. This guy was AMAZING. He immediately told me he didn't think it was the board or the memory. He had me put my memory in the first slot, just one stick of my A-Data.

We then cleared the CMOS and booted back up. He had me go into the BIOS and kick the voltage on the RAM up .2 volts (to about 2 volts), even though I kept telling him it was 1.8 volt RAM. Low and behold, it posted without beeping for a memory error. So then it got to the boot screen, and I got the same exception error again. He told me this was a HDD boot error and not a RAM error. So he had me unplug my HDD so it wouldn't even try to boot there. Now it would just hang at the CD boot. He thought my DVD drive was bad, so I went and got an old CD drive I had and plugged that in.

Sure enough, it started to load windows. I'm pretty confident that the DOA motherboard had some sort of grounding problem that hurt my old DVD drive. That drive worked perfectly when I took it out of my old computer to move it over, and now suddenly it's broken. Anyway, I don't really care anymore, it's working now. I'm installing Windows as we speak. The only problem, I already ordered 2x1 GB sticks of Crucial 4-4-4-12 DDR2 800 RAM. So, I figured since RAM is so cheap right now, I wouldn't bother to try and send it back. I can't use the full 4 gigs since I'm currently running a 32 bit system, but I'm going to upgrade to Vista 64 as soon as I get back to school in the fall and can get it for free through MSDN Alliance (I can't do it while on co-op...). I also have a SATA DVD drive on the way from Newegg. It should all ship on Monday. I'm not in a big hurry now, since it's all working fine... although I can't install COD4 until my DVD drive gets here.

One question that I had, is it possible to copy the files from my other HDD that has COD4 installed on it, to this new computer and have it install correctly at all? Or do I just have to wait for the DVD drive to get here?

CLIFFNOTES: MOBO and RAM fine. DVD drive shot. RAM needed more voltage. Extra RAM on the way, as well as DVD drive. Gigabyte tech support ROCKS!!!

The end...
 
Yeesh, I don't how I missed this one earlier - my bad. That's great news though! Glad it turned out for the best:D
 
One question that I had, is it possible to copy the files from my other HDD that has COD4 installed on it, to this new computer and have it install correctly at all? Or do I just have to wait for the DVD drive to get here?
Click to expand...

No. Not unless you have Norton Ghost. Yes, you'll have to wait, unfortunately.
 
I decided to RMA the A-Data as incompatible since it would be hard to OC two RAMS with different timings and different voltage requirements at the same time. So I went ahead and bought another pair of the Crucial 4-4-4-12 DDR2 800 sticks to match my other 2x1 GB that's on the way. Even though I can't use it all now, I'm gonna upgrade soon. Plus 3.5 is nicer than 2, and DDR2 is dirt cheap and will only get more expensive from here on out as DDR3 becomes mainstream.
 
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