Monitor shuts off?

Flamez

hello,
I shut my PC off to install some new ram, and when i turned it back on the computer boots up, but after a few seconds the monitors just blank out.

I shut it off and took out the ram, and its now back at the same things it had before at a working state, and it still shuts off after like 10 or 15 seconds. no matter where i am. if its booting windows it will do it, or even inside bios, so it is not my windows install.. Does anyone know what could be causing this or how to fix it? I am going to try a different graphics card now, i will post the results.

I tried a different graphics card, and the result is the same. Any ideas?

Flamez

Scratch the fixing part, thought it was fixed, as it went into windows, but then i turned it back off to put in my new ram, and its back doing the same thing. Any ideas? I am busy trying to cool it even more with a really big fan to see if it will help.

Harudath

So is the PC on but it's not displaying anything?

RichD

Is your PC deffinately booting up? do you get your windows startup music etc? If you have put in RAM that is not compatable with your MB or other RAM then it won't boot and the screen will just turn off as you have described. However I would expect it to work again once you took the new mem out.

If it gets that far can you get into safe mode?

Flamez

The computer definitely boots, I have gotten it all the way into windows, and been able to do a little bit of work. however then it just stops. The fans and lights stay on, but to my knowledge the whole system is locking up. If i hit the numlock key nothing happens. The light stays on for it which leads me to believe its frozen. Even without the new memory it still boots up, stays on a bit, then just dies after a few minutes. This happened to me before but i don't know what solved it. i just left the computer off a while and it kind of fixed itself. The last time someone said something might be loose. Should i try to take everything out, and put it back in carefully?

Harudath

I had a similar problem, not anywhere near the same cause :P

I got back from holiday, and everything worked fine, then after a while the monitor just shut off. Everything was working but I couldn't see anything- fixed it by frantically pushing the on/off button repeatedly for 10 minutes ¬_¬.

I'd check that the RAM is installed properly, and also to see if anything got nudged out of place while you were installing it.

RichD

Unless you have changed anything else as well, I think that the fact it has occured at a time of upgrade is purly coincidence. How clean do you keep your case inside? Over heating is a possibilty or it could be a PSU problem

I dont see it is the memory causing the problem as the old mem worked fine and suddenly now doesn't. You could try running memtest86 to make sure.

I googled memtest86 to try and find a link and I think this will do.

http://www.ocztechnology.com/displaypage.php?name=ocz_memtest

If your mem comes back clear I would say it is either heat or your PSU

Flamez

as for the heat issue, i put a 24" fan on the side of my case to see if it would cool it down a bit, and it still shut off. As for it being the PSU, wouldnt it shut off everything when it shut down? instead of leaving all the fans on, and just locking up? I'll try and run memtest, but chances are it'll shut off before i get the chance. When it boots up it accurately reads that i have 6 gigs of ram in the computer if that helps.

Harudath

It tells you that you have 6gigs of RAM... is that how much you actually have?

Your-Amish-Daddy

Flamez wrote:

When it boots up it accurately reads that i have 6 gigs of ram in the computer if that helps.

Well I'm thinking it's a little closer to home than your memory. That sounds alot like the processor is failing to keep up with signals. Were you working in a static free environment when you installed the memory?

RichD

Putting a large fan on the side of your PC will help to remove the hot air from the case. However buildups of dust and dirt in the heatsink fins will cause the CPU to overheat and may result in problems. Get your vacume hose with the brush attachment or a can of compressed air and clean all of the inside of the PC especially around any heat sinks.

The PSU is not likely to be shutting down but if you increase the load on you PSU above what it can supply or your PSU is faulty and not able to supply the power it is rated at this could cause the symptoms you describe. The only way to acurately test this is with a multimeter.

I would clean all of the inside of your PC to rule out heat issues, then run memtest to proove your memory then test your PSU.

Flamez

it beeps when it boots up with 3 short beeps, but they're not the same tone. It goes Boop beep beep. I cannot find what this means. Im trying to clean out the dust right now. Its an American Megatrend bios.

After turning it on again, it juts went Beep boop, then after that anothe restart went Beep boop beep, all of these are short beeps.

I have cleaned out the board and case thoroughly of all dust. So i am not sure what it is anymore. It is down to having nothing connected except a cd drive, a harddrive, and 2 sticks for ram for the cpu's.

As for memtest, i cant run it as the pc keeps shutting down. before i can get to do a test.

Your-Amish-Daddy

One long two short? Could be your video card's memory, or the memory on the board. Try with only one stick in at a time, or try a different video card.

RichD

Im with YAD . I dont think it will be system RAM though (unless it is the RAM socket on the MB), as you have tried different dims in your MB. I would try a bare bone setup to try and identify the faulty componenet.

Take everything out of your case and build your PC on a flat non conductive surface. Somthing life a wooden table. Just use your MB, CPU, 1 stick of RAM, GPU and one HD. If it boots you can then add the components back one by one until it fails. If doesn't boot the one of your core components is faulty. You will then have to try swapping out components one at a time until you find the faulty one.

Flamez

i tried a different graphics card, and it still did the same thing, that was one of the first things i tried. my board is a dual socket opteron board, will it run with just 1 processor in it? if so then i can rebuild it on a wooden desk and check 1 processor at a time.

As for the ram, i tried 1 stick in each dim of the 2 processors, with different variations and it still went off.

RichD

Wow. This is some serious kit you have. I have never used dual processors so to be honest I cant answer whether it will work with one or not. there is possibley something in the BIOS to change it from dual to single. You will need to look at the manual for your MB or someone else with more experience can prob help.

Flamez wrote:

As for the ram, i tried 1 stick in each dim of the 2 processors, with different variations and it still went off.

Not to sure what you mean by this. This is prob down to my lack of knowledge but am I right in assuming that you memory for each cpu works indipendently and that the two CPUs are not sharing RAM?

Either way I would still use the bare bone approach and take everything out that is not essential then start swapping components out, starting with your CPUs. if you had a third CPU then that would be the ideal.

Flamez

Yes, each of my processors has 4 dimm bays for the ram, independent of eachother. I am going to be taking it apart and rebuilding it in the next 2 days or so to see if i can isolate the problem. I will look into whether the processors can run without the other one in it. I will post if it is successful or not.

Thanks for all the help so far.