Be Excellent To Each Other

I was just using my Pc fine and dandy when it froze on me. The mouse cursor wouldn't move and nothing would respond forcing me to turn it off at the power switch. Now, when I turn it back on it just displays the Intel logo on screen and does nothing else.. No beeps but the fans start up and the light comes on the case.

Anyone got any ideas of what it could be? I can't even get it to boot into safe mode or anything! Worrying..

Can you even get into the BIOS settings?

Nope.. It just displayed the intel logo and would go no further.

I think it might be serious.

Take the battery off the motherboard and try to boot up, if it won't even do that, then yes, it's serious.

I've tried that and it's still the same. The hard drive and fans are all spinning up but it still doesn't want to boot. There's not even any beeps.

Does this mean the motherboard could be knackered?

Should there be lights on it, because there isn't?

Get a Mac lolzors!

There is normally a power light on the motherboard.

which one is it?

Malc

Sounds like a dead motherboard TBH, you've cleared the BIOS so it should make an attempt to POST with whatever its defaults are, if it's not even attempting to do that, then you may have a corpse on your hands.

Not all motherboards have LEDs on them, so I wouldn't take that as a definitive answer.

It's sometimes worth Googling the make and model, certain motherboards can get a reputation for certain behaviours.

I've tried googling it to see if there is any lights that I should be looking for but it seems inconclusive. I don't think it's a popular model..

Its a Microstar MS-7502.

It now beeps once when trying to do anything but after that, it sticks with the Intel screen.

**UPDATE**

I've removed a stick of RAM and now it's working. Looks like it could be the RAM that's knackered but can that happen? I was using the PC as normal, just looking on the internet and it all froze up. Nothing worked, not even the mouse pointer.

Can RAM just break like that?

I'm scared to turn it off now in case it won't come back on.

Are you sure you can't get into the BIOS? Try holding the pressing the button as soon as you power on.

Also check that all RAM and HD are conected ok.

Yes, RAM can just go like that, if there is a short somewhere, anywhere, the whole computer can freeze and refuse to boot (even in a serial or usb port, so imagine how critical it would be in the RAM)

Keep in mind, it might be the slot on the Mobo instead of the RAM, so might be worth a bit of experiment to see what the actual problem is.

Malc

I did think that myself. My MOBO has two green slots and two orange slots. Do you know what the difference between these would be? The RAM was currently seated in the orange slots.

Have you tried flashing the BIOS?

Your MB supports dual channel memory, so if you put a stick each one of the orange stots then the performance would be better than if you put one stick in the green and orange slot.

You could try moving both sticks to the green slots and see if you PC boots, the problem could be on the board with the slots.

I've just tried what I thought was the broken RAM in the first slot and the PC worked. Then I put the other RAM in and it didn't. I'm guessing there's a lot of trial and error coming to see what works and what doesn't.

@asfish So I won't harm anything if I move BOTH RAM chips to the green slots?

Not in the least.

Thanks Craster!

Well... I can think of better ways to spend a Sunday.

I've moved both RAM chips to the green slots and the PC wouldn't get past a "verifying DMI pool data" screen.. Now I've moved them back to the original green slots and the PC is working? I think I might have to keep an eye on it over the next few days.

Something isn't right....

Boot the machine up with just one stick of RAM in it at a time and run memtest against each stick individually, that'll tell you which of them is fucked.

Excellent idea.. I'll give that a go later.

Next time ask DavPaz he will have a sensible solution.

Yep. That's the way.