start-up issue?

[oldson]

Hi
just recently i have noticed a problem during windows (7) updates.
i find that when my pc is doing the required reboot, it fails to start.
fans and whatever are spinning but no post beep and nothing happens.
usually i have to press the reset button for it to jump back into life.

anyway, tonight i updated my kaspersky internet security from "pure 2.0" to "pure 3.0".
install went ok, until the required reboot.
the thing shut itself down but failed to restart.
there was no "post beep" from the motherboard, nothing.
after several attempts to restart by powering down and up, still nothing.

i took the covers off the case just to make sure nothing had come unplugged.

i then gave up and borrowed my wife's laptop to search online for a solution, fully expecting to read that my motherboard was goosed.

after googling the problem i decided to try removing the ram sticks to see (hear) if there was any post beeps.
i could only remove one (of two) ram stick as the other was covered by my cpu cooler.
i then powered up the computer and it worked ok.
i then shut it down and re-fitted the ram stick, it now boots up ok again!

although it is working fine at the moment, something must have caused the failure. any ideas/advice?

thanks
Simon

 

[mantadog]

If it works perfectly every time from now on you probably stumbled onto the right solution. It is just possible that RAM stick was not seated properly, hence the issues.

Were you getting the issue ONLY on restarts or did it happen when you shutdown then manually powered on the system again also?

The RAM issue is very common, always worth taking it out and back in again, so it wouldn't surprise me if you've got it sorted for good. If I were you I would just keep asking it to restart for a good 5-10 times in a row (if you can be bothered) and see if the problem reappears, if it does try removing that RAM module again and see if it still happens. If it still happens nothing says it isn't the other RAM slot (or stick) that's playing up, but hard to test because of the cooler.

However, if its working fine and you don't want to push your luck, just carry on normally and see if it reoccurs.

 

[oldson]

up until tonight the problem was only on restarts rather than initial boot up.

have done various restarts since my initial post, without problem .
will see how it goes.
thanks for the reply

 

[ubuysa]

You might want to download Memtest from http://memtest.org, it can do a pretty thorough test of your RAM. Extract the ISO file from the downloaded archive file and burn the ISO to a CD. Now boot the CD and Memtest will start running. You need as many iterations of the various tests as you can get to be sure your RAM is ok, so leave it running at least overnight, longer is better.

It may well be, as mantadog says, that simply unplugging and plugging that stick back in has solved the problem. Sometimes they can work loose and flaky RAM causes all sorts of weird issues.

Fingers crossed.