iGuest 3 Report post Posted January 19, 2013 Can a bad ram cause the fans in the computer and all other components on the motherboard from working Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
k_nitin_r 8 Report post Posted January 20, 2013 Yes, bad RAM can most definitely keep a computer system from starting up. What you can do is if you have extra RAM, you can try replacing the RAM in the computer system and starting it up. Sometimes, it may be the connection from the RAM to the motherboard rather than a problem with the RAM, so you can try removing and re-seating the RAM into its slot. You would imagine that with those locks that hold the RAM into place, it shouldn't move no matter how hard you shake it, but the reality remains that sometimes RAM does manage to get out of its slot for some weird reason. Maybe the gremlins are at work, or it could be sabotage by some international secret spy agencies. Nobody really knows.Anyway, I hope you have been able to get your computer working. If you did, sign up on Xisto and we would love to be able to have you here, sharing your experiences with your computer. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
manuleka 0 Report post Posted February 9, 2013 Can a bad ram cause the fans in the computer and all other components on the motherboard from working fault can be serious enough to halt the machine from booting, although i haven't experience this myself...i just replaced couple of modules on my machine, i suspected it to be faulty due to blue screening quite often when i play the game... at first i thought it was the CPU or the Graphics Card but luckily it was the modules just did a quick memtest Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rpgsearcherz 5 Report post Posted February 11, 2013 fault can be serious enough to halt the machine from booting, although i haven't experience this myself...i just replaced couple of modules on my machine, i suspected it to be faulty due to blue screening quite often when i play the game... at first i thought it was the CPU or the Graphics Card but luckily it was the modulesjust did a quick memtest I always thought the computer would go ahead and try to boot regardless, until I built my last PC. Got all the parts together, booted it up, it wouldn't even try to start. Pulled out things one part at a time, trying to start up the PC, and figured out it was one of my 4 RAM sticks. Booted up with the other 3 and everything was flawless. And then to be sure that stick was bad, I put it in the PC by itself and again, the PC wouldn't even try to start.I'm going to guess that it's very situational, though, and maybe it depends on how bad the stick is (or what's wrong with it). Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Iniyila 2 Report post Posted February 13, 2013 In most cases i've seen a bad ram causes a faulty post beep, just look into the manual of your motherboard to see what post beeps are related to what conditions. when computer boots, in the first steps it checks your memory banks so if it finds any faulty ram it will probably notice you by a warning on screen as well as a different post beep rather than your normal post beep.Now you are saying that your fans are not working too which is a little weird for me, because if it was your ram, your computer will stop at the boot screen but will powerup the fans and i think cpu fan should work also. as you press the power button on your PC you should hear the post beep, before hearing the post beep your fans will start to work, so i think any RAM related problem should not stop your fans (cpu and case fan) from running and of course there should be a post beep. so if you don't have a post beep and your fans are not working i think it is probably your PSU which is infected. it is really simple to check your PSU which you should do always in the first step when your computer doesn't work properly, just google "how to check psu" and you will find many tutorials showing you which wires should be connected to each other to powerup your PSU , if it failed then you should repair/replace it but if it didn't failed then read rest of this post.If it was not your PSU and you are still in trouble without having any post beep, you should check your motherboard which is the hardest part in all of tests, but before doing that you can do another thing. first disconnect everything from your motherboard, then only install back necessary ones, for example your computer should boot and work without any optical drive or if you have onboard graphic then remove the graphic card and even for seeing the boot screen you don't need a hard drive so you can even disconnect it and just boot using motherboard, cpu and ram and graphic (if not onboard) to see the boot screen. now if your PC failed to boot again at least you have now only 4 parts that maybe fulty.When you are at this part there is no other way rather than testing all parts one by one, give the cpu lowest check priority and give the motherboard the highest, now you should find another motherboard to test with your other parts, just borrow one from a friend and test it, i will say it is 90% from your mother board but if it was not then you have to test other parts like ram, graphic and cpu too.I say it again but i maybe wrong, i think if it was your RAM you should hear a post beep telling you something is wrong, if you don't hear a post beep i think it is from your PSU but nothing can be said certainly before a full test. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
k_nitin_r 8 Report post Posted February 17, 2013 Different motherboard manufacturers build their board slightly differently. There are reference implementations for them to treat as guidelines as they build motherboards to match the processors that they are being built for, but beyond that, they get to build the motherboards as they see fit. There is also the BIOS that is developed by a bunch of different manufacturers so you cannot really determine if the behavior of two different systems would be the same. Also, even when two motherboards being compared have a BIOS from the same vendor, the BIOS can still be customized to some extent. For instance, at least some models of Sony Vaio laptops have the same BIOS vendor as some HP and Lenovo models, yet the Sony Vaio models have virtualization disabled - it is just one of the many differences that you can notice between manufacturers cranking out so many different kinds of motherboards.It is quite possible for bad RAM to prevent a computer from starting up. I had a quick go at a desktop computer that I was fixing, and it was the RAM that prevented the computer system from starting up to the extend that the fan wouldn't start, there was absolutely nothing on the screen, and there wasn't even a POST beep. Lacking any sign of activity, I stripped down the computer to its basics and it would only start up after I removed one of the two memory modules that were inserted on that motherboard.Strange stuff happens with hard disk drives too. I have a USB drive that prevented the computer from getting past the BIOS screen and it only began after the hard disk drive had a two or maybe three feet drop from a table. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rpgsearcherz 5 Report post Posted February 19, 2013 Different motherboard manufacturers build their board slightly differently. There are reference implementations for them to treat as guidelines as they build motherboards to match the processors that they are being built for, but beyond that, they get to build the motherboards as they see fit. This makes sense. Another PC I have had a bad RAM stick and the PC would run fine, as long as it didn't use more than X RAM (ex. it had 2GB so if it stayed below about 1.3G it was fine, any over that and it'd BSOD or just restart). In my current one it won't even try to start, post or anything. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
