PC crashing. :(

[skinny killer]

my PC's been acting up. the other night. the fan started spinning super fast and the whole PC shut down.

I couldn't get it to turn back on and it was showing a orange light over the power switch when it usually has a green light.

I thought maybe it was over heated so I unpluged it to feet of the heat sync but it was cool.

I pulled out one of my 4 sticks of ram and it came on. I then shut it off, unplugged it and replaced the ram and it's been running fine.

this has happend twice, only this is the first time my fan has gone heywire. I mean it was really going, you could hear it thru the whole house!!!!!!! LOL

I'm running a XPS 400 model.

it crashed again just a few minutes ago. I had a game of Bf2 running and the screen goes black even tho the PC is running and the pc does not respond. I shut it down and it won't come on untill I remove a ram stick or two. then I can turn it on. after it is booted up I can shut it down and replace the ram and it works fine.


a friend of mine told me it's becuase two of my ram sticks are 1GB DDr2 and the other two are of a lower speed, could this be true?

I'd be greatful for any ideas. I have 140 GB of Models, skins, maps, mods for like 9 different games that I don't wanna lose.

[Hellfighter]

Steve or scott may have answer for that.

i would think you get some type bois error when it try to bootup if that was the case.

i got some bad brand new ram stick mismatch for my MOB and return to get the right ones for it, that fix-it nice. TigerDirect sent me the wrong ones with the Barebone kit, crash when it going through bois bootup! i did get a error for that lol

but they replace them with the right one without any extra charge for it.

note: you said this happen when playing a video game and it crash? think it could be the PSU under power?
250watts below poor
350watts fair
450watts good
550watts very good
600watts great
650watts & up is super great

Ps when you say it crash do you mean it like some one unplug it? if so i really think its the PSU then or you get a blue screen of death shows error with-in a blue back ground

[skinny killer]

No I don't get any bios errors. once I remove the RAM it boots up like a champ.

another idea I had was the power supply. I'm running on a 350 watt power supply with a 1TB hard drive. now the sales guy who sold me the HDD told me that my power supply would barely handle it. I'm also running a video care that requires a 350 watt minimal along with a HD sound card. so I'm not sure if this power supply just cant handle all of this stuff or what's wrong with it.

I'm testing my friends theory right now. I'm only running on the two 1 GB DDR2 ram sticks so there's not a speed difference. so far it's running fine.

I've had these sticks for over a year and I've been running the pc with like 10 programs running at once sometimes and it's always run fast and smooth. the only new stuff I've added recently is the new sound card, the video card and the 1TB hard drive. I added those back in late 2008.

[Hellfighter]

will i wish you the best on this and maybe scott or steve may have a answer about the ram cards for it, or the new HHD 1T under power PSU

[MERMITE]

Rams cheap these days ...so why are you so tight? go out and buy as much as you can with what you got, get the fastest you can for your mother board, you'll wish you did.
Ram used to suffer with heat creep, but mixing ram is just crazy

[skinny killer]

thx mermite but I really don't have the money at the moment. right now I'm just running on the two newer 1GB DDR2 sticks that I bought about a year ago. so far it hasn't crashed.... I'll just leave the slower ones out until I can get some new ones.

if anyone else has any idea as to what could cause this please tell. I'll let you know what happens......Thanks.

[skinny killer]

ok the PC just crashed again while I was texting a map in my DFX Mod.

This time it didn't show the orange light and it cut itself back up. it's like it just did a reboot. So what in the heck is wrong with this thing????

[.Simon.]

No need to buy more ram if your not going to need it Mermite. Im running 2 x 1gb and thats all i need.

[skinny killer]

well like I said, I some times run up to 10 programs at once. moslty when I'm modding I have some small tools open, 3DS max, Photoshop, Microsoft word and exel that I use to take notes, and the Super object editor and my DFX Heroes mod when I'm importing models into the game and tweaking models.... etc

so 2 GB's is really not enough. it can handle it but the PC just doesn't run as smooth as it used to. with the 3GB it ran really smooth and never lagged up or locked up.

[MERMITE]

No need to buy more ram if your not going to need it Mermite. Im running 2 x 1gb and thats all i need....Simon

Then try mapping for a hobbie you may last as long as 5 minutes, DFX2 sucks RAM more than any app I've met, but then again I always run the MED to the max!(1200)

If you've played any of SK's commitments, you'd be aware of the current RAM usage

SK ensure both RAM sticks are in slots 1&2, as per, chuck the old sticks, as you poke about google motherboard ram requirements, perhaps 4-6 gb ram, consider running board at max ram, just for your mapping, later once you won the lottery consider a high end video card, 2 gb's ok for playing DFX2 or running a website

" BABY....YOU CAN NEVER GET ENOUGH RAM"

[skinny killer]

Yes both Ram sticks are in the first two slots. I also got rid of the slower old ones.

and I already have a good video card. it's a GeForce 9500 GT with 1GB DDR2 that cost me $300+. just bought it a few minths ago along with a $100 HD sound card. it will run COD 4 at full graphics settings with an average of 60 FPS on even the biggest map. the most FPS I got out of it was in the war pig single player map when it spiked to 100 FPS. so I think my video card runs things just fine.

[Sam]

well sk maybe its the wrong ram, or its something with one of the memory sticks, try removing 1 of the 1gb stick and see what happens, if it occurs then pop the other one in and pop the one thats in out.

[Steve]

see 11 - diagnostic lights



here is the key for the light pattern: http://support.dell.com/support/edoc....htm#wp1054184

do any light up?


if you can get it to start up...

most dells ive worked on have a diagnostic utility you can access during POST. you get a couple of options when you first turn on F2 for SETUP, and maybe F12 for BOOT OPTIONS.

select boot options and you will get a list like so



select BOOT TO UTILITY PARTITION

it will auto run some tests, if it passes those you will get more advanced tests. the dell diags are pretty good at finding hardware faulty. infact if it doesn't find any problems, Dell will refuse to replace any parts under warrantee.




sounds like you have nearly found out what is wrong, it's usually pretty easy to find out if you have faulty memory, or if any of the ram slots on the mobo are playing up, just by swapping things around and noting what you have tried in what slot.

fyi using ram with different speeds not a problem at all.

[Sam]

Originally Posted by Steve

see 11 - diagnostic lights



here is the key for the light pattern: http://support.dell.com/support/edoc....htm#wp1054184

do any light up?


if you can get it to start up...

most dells ive worked on have a diagnostic utility you can access during POST. you get a couple of options when you first turn on F2 for SETUP, and maybe F12 for BOOT OPTIONS.

select boot options and you will get a list like so



select BOOT TO UTILITY PARTITION

it will auto run some tests, if it passes those you will get more advanced tests. the dell diags are pretty good at finding hardware faulty. infact if it doesn't find any problems, Dell will refuse to replace any parts under warrantee.




sounds liek you have nearly found out what is wrong, it's usually pretty easy to dind out if you have faulty memory, or if any of the ram slots on the mobo are playing up, just by swapping things around and noting what you have tried in what slot.

fyi using ram with different speeds not a problem at all.

wow steve youve got the details down.

[Steve]

one of our biggest customers use a lot of dell machines, it's easier to ask the PC what the problem is rather than guessing

replaced lots of dell ram sticks recently for some reason, but those machines have been blue screening and rebooting rather than failing to boot.

ive seen a lot of dells with the non-booting-OMGloud-fan issue, but they have never booted up at all nomatter what is or not connected to the board. in those cases swapping the motherboard out was the fix. someone tole me another possible less drastic fix bit i cant quite remember atm.

dont worry too much about your data, sounds like the hdd is fine, but you would be crazy not to have a backup, or at least considering backing up seeing as you are having some big problems.

[skinny killer]

yes I back up my most important files like my mod and all the models I spent weaks on in the makeing to a 8GB flash dirve. but still it would be nice to back all of it up.

I had a 250GB hard drive I was using to store back-up files but my Dad (of all people) fried it trying to hook it up to an old optiplex Dell PC. LOL!!

[skinny killer]

Just reading that manual........

If the power light is steady amber, a device might be malfunctioning or incorrectly installed.


Remove and then reinstall the memory modules.


Remove and then reinstall any cards.


Remove and then reinstall the graphics card, if applicable.


Ensure that all power cables are securely connected to the system board.

LOL that was the first things I did. I swear I've never read this stuff before. I must be a natural PC Tech J/K

anyway. so if uninstalled and reinstalling my memory chips is what fixes it then does that mean I need to get some new memory sticks?

[Steve]

you said it crashed when you were using all the sticks and when using only the 2 new sticks?

run the diags

[skinny killer]

ok, I'll let you know what the diags say.

I'm just wondering if the two 1GB sticks are damaged in some way. the optiplex PC's we had was having the same prob and we were using these ram sticks in them and we are switching them in and out of the PC's. so I'm just wondering if they got damaged when we kept swithing them around and testing with them. so IDK.

[skinny killer]

ok Im on a laptop at the moment. I cut my PC off every night and this mornming I tried to turn it on and now it won't come on at all.

it's still showing the orange light. I've remove the ram. that did work this time. I've uninstalled and reinstalled the video card and sound card. that did squat.

first time I tried to boot it up I heard a sort of buzzing noise.


what's wrong with my PC Doc????