gand Posted January 2, 2008 Posted January 2, 2008 2 years later a strange problem occurs with my machine. After a normal shutdown it won't start as usual. The start seems kinda OK by the sound and looks of LEDs, but it won't start up. After a few shutdowns I can see two different modes of the LEDs: 1) The power LED is active (as normal), with no HDD-LED activity. 2) The HDD LED is active constantly with no power LED. I'm thinking something could be wrong with the RAM and I remove the 2nd stick, startup is normal. Swapping the memory gives the same result, so it seems nothing is wrong with the memory. I've also tried the "yellow" DDR-slots with the same result. Most likely it will be hard to RMA the board 2 years later, so it seems I might have to live with 1 GB less of memory. But if someone have any ideas of what might be wrong or possible solutions I will be very thankful. Cheers / Gand Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
radodrill Posted January 2, 2008 Posted January 2, 2008 Could be a dying PSU Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lucky1 Posted January 2, 2008 Posted January 2, 2008 Maybe you missed the 78 page thread about how Crucial released large quantities of defective Ballisitix DDR PC4000 RAM into the retail channel, but refused to acknowledge high failure rates? http://www.diy-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6719 Look for my posts in the thread, I originally built this system with Ballistix and experienced nothing by headaches from after the first month trying to troubleshoot system instability at stock speeds. Eventually, after seven months and several RMA I finally tossed the Ballistix and replaced with OCZ RAM. The problems disappeared. A couple of my later replies: http://www.diy-street.com/forum/showpost.p...&postcount=1188 http://www.diy-street.com/forum/showpost.p...&postcount=1218 http://www.diy-street.com/forum/showpost.p...&postcount=1219 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
radodrill Posted January 2, 2008 Posted January 2, 2008 @ Lucky1: If there's a RAM issue, it's generally due to one stick causing problems and those problems still persist with just the defective stick installed. Also, Power supplies do degrade over time so it can't be 100% ruled out unless swapped out with a known good PSU and the problem still persists. Further, ~99% of issues where everything works one day and doesn't boot the next are power related. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lucky1 Posted January 2, 2008 Posted January 2, 2008 @ Lucky1:If there's a RAM issue, it's generally due to one stick causing problems and those problems still persist with just the defective stick installed. Also, Power supplies do degrade over time so it can't be 100% ruled out unless swapped out with a known good PSU and the problem still persists. Further, ~99% of issues where everything works one day and doesn't boot the next are power related. I'm aware of aging capacitors, but I don't think you read the 78 page thread either. There was a widespread engineering defect with Ballistix where the RAM would degrade and become unstable over time. It may or may not be a contributing factor with this user's experience, but it is a REAL problem that has been documented. Also, despite stability problems, Memtest would not show any signs of failure until the sticks were on their deathbed. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrackJiver Posted January 2, 2008 Posted January 2, 2008 Crucial do have lifetime warenty on their ballistix range so you can RMA them to see if that solves your problem. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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