Booting problem with RAM 2

[OfficeAnimal]

My machine is Intel QuadCore i5-3470 CPU @ 3.20GHz, 16 GB RAM, MS Windows 7 Home Premium v. 6.1 64-bit SP1.
It has a SAMSUNG U28D590D VDU driven by an NVIDIA QUADRO K620 Video Card and RealTek High Definition Audio on Motherboard MSI B75MA-P45

Since I moved house a week ago I have had trouble booting my machine. It comes up with a beep and the first info from BIOS, then repeats the process. The quikfix seems to be to pop the RAM sticks then reseat them. It works, but it gets a bit wearing when you have to do it every time.

For example, I had to do the RAM Snap this morning and the machine ran fine until a routine reboot (application deletion) in the afternoon. Then had to RAM Snap again.

Does anyone have a longer-term fix.

Thanks

"Truth will sooner come out from error than from confusion."
Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

 

[rclarke250]

First reseat every cable and device, don't just push on them, remove and reseat them. Next go into the bios and look at what it wants to set the ram to, if it is auto, look at the speed, and settings, and compare it to what the ram chips are supposed to be by the spd chip on the module. cpu-z can tell you if you don't know. Check what voltage they are set to, see if removing a device allows it to boot without reseating the ram when the issue appears. Can you even enter bios when it does the loop?

 

[OfficeAnimal]

Cable re-seating didn't make any difference. I cannot access BIOS while in loop, must RAM Snap then call for BIOS.
I don't really know what I am looking at when the BIOS thing is up but it does not tell me anything is wrong and I cannot see anything out of place.

I have removed each of the two RAM sticks in turn and running on one makes no difference - still must RAM Snap on boot.

I have discovered that it is sufficient to pop and re-seat one stick. No need to do both.

"Truth will sooner come out from error than from confusion."
Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

 

[rclarke250]

The weird part is the single beep, which is the post ok signal. At what part does it reboot? what shows on screen? Is it before the drives are shown? The memory dimms are in slots 2 and 4 right? and the locking arms are clicked tight on the dimms? I can think of no reason reseating a dimm would allow a computer to boot, and then not boot the next time. Unless there is a power issue with the board, reseating a dimm causes a cap to discharge or something.

 

[goombawaho]

Or power supply - possibly. Not as likely, but possible.

The fail-safe test is to pull the board out of the case, put it on a piece of wood or tile floor and pull everything non-essential off and try to boot it that way. No hard drives, no optical drives - just power supply, memory, motherboard and video card if there is no built-in.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[OfficeAnimal]

rclarke250
This cycle displays on screen during the loop after a single short beep -

followed by

back to black screen.

I put the machine to sleep last night instead of powering down. It is working normally since I woke it up. I'm getting too scared to power it down because I'll wear out the connector tabs on the RAM sticks if I keep going at this rate

goombawaho
That sounds pretty drastic, especially for a luddite like me

"Truth will sooner come out from error than from confusion."
Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

 

[goombawaho]

A few things to try (in order) - power down and then re-test after each change.
1. BIOS update if available
2. Put HALF the memory in and try a boot. If no difference, swap out the other 50% of the RAM and try again
3. Unplug everything not needed - the three items listed (GoFlex, Cruzer, Huawei) + the optical drive + the hard drive
4. Test memory overnight with a bootable memtest86+ CD (Link)
5. Test a different power supply or use a power supply tester on your power supply

Sorry if my suggestion is too involved, but it would prove that nothing on the case was shorting out the motherboard. That's sort of my last test before I slam the motherboard with a hammer and say "goodbye motherscratcher".


"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[2ffat]

#5 was going to be my suggestion.


James P. Cottingham
I'm number 1,229!
I'm number 1,229!

 

[goombawaho]

It could be any of the five I mentioned and MORE.
Bad motherboard is like number 7 or 8

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[OfficeAnimal]

I had tried the individual RAM sticks trick without any change.

The Cruzer is one of my Thumb drives. I disconnected the WiFi (Huawei) and the External HDD (GoFlex). Perfect boot.
Reconnected the WiFi - perfect boot.
Reconnected External HDD - no-boot loop!

Disconnected External HDD and rebooted okay. We seem to be making some progress! Reconnected External HDD and ran CHKDSK on it:

-------------
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is FreeAgent GoFlex Drive.

WARNING! F parameter not specified.
Running CHKDSK in read-only mode.

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
0 percent complete. (0 of 1202432 file records processed)
0 percent complete. (6145 of 1202432 file records processed)
...

9 percent complete. (1193473 of 1202432 file records processed)
9 percent complete. (1199105 of 1202432 file records processed)
1202432 file records processed.

File verification completed.
0 large file records processed.

0 bad file records processed.

0 EA records processed.

0 reparse records processed.

CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
11 percent complete. (19159 of 1224392 index entries processed)
12 percent complete. (38317 of 1224392 index entries processed)
...
94 percent complete. (1154706 of 1202432 file SDs/SIDs processed)
1202432 file SDs/SIDs processed.

Security descriptor verification completed.
10981 data files processed.

CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
99 percent complete. (0 of 1290768 USN bytes processed)
100 percent complete. (1286144 of 1290768 USN bytes processed)
1290768 USN bytes processed.

Usn Journal verification completed.
Windows has checked the file system and found no problems.

3815437 MB total disk space.
1411236276 KB in 151445 files.
54016 KB in 10982 indexes.
36 KB in bad sectors.
4996548 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
2432344 MB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
976751999 total allocation units on disk.
622680280 allocation units available on disk.
--------------------


All seems okay! Where do I look now?

"Truth will sooner come out from error than from confusion."
Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

 

[rclarke250]

I would check the order of hdd in the boot order, make sure usb drives are below the internal sata drives, or just disable booting from usb. See if that makes a difference. Also, you are way downlevel on the bios, you are at 1.1, the latest is 1.9 Long shot, but maybe the bios flash will do some good.

 

[OfficeAnimal]

Some form of order has appeared out of the chaos!

I had checked the boot order, but to be certain I shoved all the USB (including the External HDD) options to the end of the queue. This BIOS does not seem to have a means to disable those options.

By a process of attrition it finally became clear that my machine will boot and run okay if the External (Seagate 4TB) HDD is not attached. Said External has failed the Seagate SeaTools tests although the DOS check was clear. It would seem that I need a new External HDD. I can still read/write to the External HDD if I plug it in after the boot, so I should be able to retrieve my backup data okay.

This leaves the interesting question,"Why would a dickey sector in an external hard drive prevent the machine from booting, but be corrected by a RAM Snap? It doesn't seem to make any sense, and it doesn't follow any pattern of digital logic I have noticed.

Still, my machine is behaving itself - which was the object of the exercise. Once again, I would like to thank all those people who came along for the ride. I am sorry it was somewhat tempestuous . Someone once said that in solving problems one should eliminate alternatives one by one. What is left, however unlikely, must be the cause. I guess that applied here.

For the record, MemTest gave the RAM a clean bill of health.



"Truth will sooner come out from error than from confusion."
Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

 

[rclarke250]

Glad to see a light at the end of the tunnel.

 

[goombawaho]

This leaves the interesting question,"Why would a dickey sector in an external hard drive prevent the machine from booting, but be corrected by a RAM Snap? It doesn't seem to make any sense, and it doesn't follow any pattern of digital logic I have noticed.

Great question - no answer

rclarke250 is 100% correct - the USB devices should be at the bottom of the boot list or entirely disabled if not needed. I routinely remove all boot devices other than optical (set as #1) and main HDD (set as #2). That comment was for future viewers of this thread.

I was going to tell you to check that external drive with SeaTools due to the CHKDSK report of "36 KB in bad sectors". That's always a big red flag if it's not zero.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[edfair]

Generally an issue in the MBR where the search for bootable devices goes into neverland.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[goombawaho]

Ok, but how does re-seating the RAM change the search on the external hard drive for an MBR????
Does NOT make sense - not a logical explanation.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.