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Hayles
28th December 2005, 19:15
Anyone got an ideas on this problem please (from my son). Need help asap or he's going to hog my computer all night! :


My computer was running fine with 2 sticks of 256mb DDr RAM, but I wanted an extra 512 to help smooth things out when playing resource guzzling games.
I bought a 512mb stick from the same range as the 256s, put the 512 in the single slot(3) and put the 2x256 in the double slot (1+2).
Everything went smoothly, booted up, as i got to the desktop i had an error saying a program wouldnt load because the station is closing down.
Now I get a long beep followed by 3 short beeps when i turn the computer on, the HDD makes the normal sounds but nothing comes up on the screen. Any ideas what i should try?

edit: I've now tried every combination of 3, 2 and even single sticks! (including the original before installing the new stick) I've also reset the CMOS. No idea what's wrong here now, no visible damage to any connectors and ive cleaned out the socket with a compressed air can.

KM-Tiger
28th December 2005, 19:25
Now I get a long beep followed by 3 short beeps when i turn the computer on, the HDD makes the normal sounds but nothing comes up on the screen.

Does this help?

http://acronymsonline.com/lists/beep_chart.asp

Put "long beep followed by 3 short beeps" into Google and you seem to get answers that point to the video card rather than memory.

In fitting the memory have you disturbed the video card?

Hayles
28th December 2005, 19:30
Thanks very much, he's trying it now...

Hayles
28th December 2005, 19:51
Thank you very much for your help - it sorted the problem (and son no.2 is now impressed with us 'oldies'!!)

Thanks again

Hayles

KM-Tiger
28th December 2005, 20:02
Glad you got it sorted, though it was really Google that did the work!

Just yesterday I put a new motherboard/processor into one of my company's old PC's. The motherboard was reduced in Maplin's sale and I hate throwing things away. But congratulating myself on saving a few quid proved to be premature when it would not boot at all.

"dead motherboard" into Google saved the day though!

Hayles
28th December 2005, 20:07
He'd been asking for help on lots of 'techy' sites but with no luck. Don't think he'd thought of Googling it. As I say, he's impressed now!

Enigma121
28th December 2005, 21:19
Just read this thread now. Ran into the problem a few years ago, loosing lots of hair in the process.

This was when there was no Google to help us all out. You had to find motherboard manuals.

Glad you got it sorted.

William Wilson
29th December 2005, 08:42
I had a problem when setting up my dual xeon workstation with three video's cards and masses of kit. When I hit the techie problems I headed straight for the poweredge forums, did some searching and it was all in the posted threads.