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Author Topic: Non Booting PC. RAM Stick Issues?! Read on...  (Read 1064 times)

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Offline XDelusionTopic starter

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Non Booting PC. RAM Stick Issues?! Read on...
« on: February 13, 2015, 10:17:47 PM »
Alright, so I have a customer's Acer tower sitting here before me. It was working at her house and all it needed was wiped of all virus' and adware, and to get the audio working once more.

 The first thing I did was open the side panel and blow it out with my air compressor as there were a lot of dust bunnies.

 Secondly, I plugged it in, turned it on, it gave me the ACER logo, beeped, then shut off. Actually it turns on, acts like it shut off, then turns on, providing the ACER screen for a moment and then... nothing.

 So I took out one of the 2 ram sticks. Same thing. I then pulled out the other and put the other one back in....

Now it boots up fine without acting like it is shutting down, only to reboot again, but...

I don't get a display.

 If I put the other RAM stick back in, it will display, but again act strange and then shut off.

WTF.

 Any clues?
Earth has a lot of things other folks might want... like the whole planet. And maybe these folks would like a few changes made, like more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and room for their way of life. - William S. Burroughs
 

Offline XDelusionTopic starter

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Re: Non Booting PC. RAM Stick Issues?! Read on...
« Reply #1 on: February 13, 2015, 10:23:00 PM »
Ughhhh. OK. I left it unplugged for a few minutes, plugged it in with both RAM sticks, and it let me into BIOS, I set it to defaults, saved, and... it shut back down and acts like it did before. Grrrrrrrr......


EDIT: OK, get this, I love my old 80's clicky keyboard, so I used it with an ATX adapter on this sytem...

...take that out of the equation, and it works, at least so far, even with both stick of RAM.

Again, WTF?

Nevermind, it was booting into Windows but it's off again.

EDIT: Um... so I tried again after having removed the RAM that won't display on it's own and leaving the other. I told it to reset VRAM in BIOS, and told it not to warn me when the Chasis is open.
 Now it boots fine, but says it can't find the TPM device, and haults saying that the Chasis is open, even though it is not and though I told it not to warn me.

EDIT; Reset bios, still have 2nd ram stick out. I set Open Chasis warning to clear (as per the web) and now... I'm trying to get it to stop shutting off after the Bios screen. Success fo far, it begins to boot Windows, but always shuts itself off in the end.

Again, there were no hardware problems when I began, it worked fine at the customer's house, virus and adware infection aside.
« Last Edit: February 13, 2015, 10:59:01 PM by XDelusion »
Earth has a lot of things other folks might want... like the whole planet. And maybe these folks would like a few changes made, like more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and room for their way of life. - William S. Burroughs
 

Offline XDelusionTopic starter

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Re: Non Booting PC. RAM Stick Issues?! Read on...
« Reply #2 on: February 13, 2015, 11:15:33 PM »
All right, so I got it to allow me to stay booted with the Windows System Repair option.

It allowed for me to do a system restore, but upon reboot, it began to boot Windows then just shut down.

EDIT: Booted the Ultimate Boot CD off USB, and have been up and running doing what ever... with the one stick of RAM.  So I am testing the RAM and then am going to back up files from the hard drive and try to format then re-install.

This has been strange. I've never touched an ACER Tower before and like the laptops, so far I think they suck!
« Last Edit: February 14, 2015, 01:14:57 AM by XDelusion »
Earth has a lot of things other folks might want... like the whole planet. And maybe these folks would like a few changes made, like more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and room for their way of life. - William S. Burroughs
 

Offline paul1981

Re: Non Booting PC. RAM Stick Issues?! Read on...
« Reply #3 on: February 14, 2015, 01:46:17 PM »
Sounds like a dodgy/corrupted Windows install to me. I'd install Windows onto a spare hard drive to rule out the tower being faulty.
 

Offline XDelusionTopic starter

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Re: Non Booting PC. RAM Stick Issues?! Read on...
« Reply #4 on: February 14, 2015, 03:38:35 PM »
Quote from: paul1981;784017
Sounds like a dodgy/corrupted Windows install to me. I'd install Windows onto a spare hard drive to rule out the tower being faulty.


Turns out the hard drive has bad sectors. Was able to boot into Linux from USB fine.
Backed up files, did system restore off Restore partition and got back into windows.

Ran CHKDSK /r

While it scanned I took a shower, came out PC was off, back to how it was acting. Would boot to BIOS then shut down.

I removed hard drive, same thing. Picked it up an inch off the ground, dropped it, booted up, got into BIOS. Shut down a few power and warning related features, booted fine without Hard Drive. Put in 2nd stick of RAM, still boots. Put in Hard Drive, boots to BIOS then shuts down. Took out Hard Drive, boots to BIOS, then reboots on account of no boot drive...

 I'm getting there, though I think the ACER mobo is dying, or just does not know what to do when hard ware is removed and BIOS has not been updated.
Earth has a lot of things other folks might want... like the whole planet. And maybe these folks would like a few changes made, like more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and room for their way of life. - William S. Burroughs
 

Offline XDelusionTopic starter

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Re: Non Booting PC. RAM Stick Issues?! Read on...
« Reply #5 on: February 14, 2015, 07:01:06 PM »
Bingo... faulty hard drive aside...

These are located between the RAM slots and hard drive ports.

There are more on the other end of the mother board (not in photo).
« Last Edit: February 14, 2015, 07:45:24 PM by XDelusion »
Earth has a lot of things other folks might want... like the whole planet. And maybe these folks would like a few changes made, like more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and room for their way of life. - William S. Burroughs