Hi ,

I was being stupid and added 2 Sticks of RAM to a system that I didn't really measure the amps/watts/etc..

As I turned it on for the first time it dimmed and shut down. I bought a new PSU with 750W but I am unable to install Kubuntu or XP on any drives that were connected to the device at the time of the failure.

My question is, could this be the system memory? the onboard controller, the HD's, all of the above? I'm hesitant to spend much time trying to save it all, since most of the hardware is old. I'm just sad I spent a few bucks for nothing AND need to buy a new PC now.

AMD64 x2 3800+
ABIT Fatal1ty AN8 SLI mobo with nvidia chipset
4 GB Corsair RAM
9800GT Akimbo's in SLI
2 HD's , 1 IDE 1 Sata
1 extra SATA controller plugged into PCI-E 1x slot with the ASUS 24x DVD-R

Should I just try disconnecting everything and getting a new HD?
I tried a SATA Drive that I had lying around and it failed as well.. however it is quite old and I have never confirmed it worked or not.

One thing of note, the Kubuntu Live CD does not work, i just get a black screen. was really looking forward to trying OpenCL

Edit: Running MemTest as I type. I can get Kubuntu to ALMOST install but it seems to freeze at the part where it's loading up python-XXXXX libraries..

Are you able to get into the bios and check to see if hardware is being seen?

I actually tried a different distro (openSuSE 11.3) which installed fully.

However it randomly freezes within 20 minutes of use. usually when in YAST.

I see all my hardware being recognized. However the audio is no longer working.. this may be a driver issue in OpenSuSE or it could be the board itself is bad..

Wondering if it's worth buying a new drive and doing a clean install with only that drive.. is there a diagnostic I can run to check on the HD's??

$ badblocks /dev/hda1 > bad-blocks

$ fsck -t ext3 -l bad-blocks /dev/hda1

EDIT: since I don't really know if this is the new RAID Card I added or not.. I am removing it.. it's a very cheap MASSCOOL product. Could be the culprit, and now that a distro is loaded I don't need optical drives as badly.

Well sounds like you atleast know that you can get the system up and running, and not replace everything.

Another thing only 4 posts in almost 3 years you must be doing something right.
While you're at it checkout Debian.

hah, that's pretty funny I was looking at when you joined thinking WOW that's amazing amount compared to me.

Well.. removing the RAID add on card has not changed the behavior of freezes.. and now it's messed up the YAST system with respect to my NVIDIA drivers.. This is making me want to just try a new HD .. and if that's not it chuck this Mobo CPU away.

Is Debian that great? I've never used it. I need an environment for CUDA/OpenCL execution.

I had a lot of problems in the beginning.
It's taught me a lot.
I don't know if it's the new installer or that I changed the way I install, but I haven't had 1 problem with squeeze, even when it became stable.

In fact I liked it so much I installed on my older machines and they think they're new. Haha!

I would be very surprised if extra ram caused a noticable dimming in the power supply, however feeble it was. If you're not going, that indicates to me that a line had too much current pulling - i.e. a short circuit.

Likely things to happen are
1. The + line, which is a trace winding through the board, would break in the middle.
2. The ram would solve the problem by 'fusing' (blowing away) whatever bit was short circuit.
3. Lines would be sitting tied to high voltage as the northbridge tried to drive them low. The northbridge wouldn't like that.

2 & 3 would be caught quickly be memtest86. 1 is a little trickier, as the data lines feed back onto positive, and mask the broken power supply line often. but as soon as addresses and data were mainly low, it would show.

Do a memtest with memtest86. Don't put that ram in anything else. The random freezes could be silicon breaking down, or unfathomable Northbridge errors. Or I could just be plain wrong, and you could have escaped all of this disaster.

1 members found this post helpful.

Hi,

have you vissually checked the mobo for bad (leaked, swollen) capacitors?

I´ve seen that cause this kind of simptoms

HTH

Frakk

Thank you all.
I ran MemTest which detected no errors.

I had inspected the board visually and did not see anything.

I'm going to run some HD diagnostics.. it's still freezing. One thing I wonder is if it could be the graphics card.. one of them blows air quite well (I feel it coming out of the 2nd PCI slot. The other does not blow at all... yet I *think* the fan is turning.. very strange.

will try removing that SLI bridge and offending 9800GT Video card.

EDIT: I switched cards... and regardless of card the fan in the 2nd PCI-E slot blows nicely but the top or 1st slot just doesn't feel strong at all. I am thinking something went wrong in the PCI-E area which is now not feeding power to the cards properly. Fan's spin and everything but it just doesn't act right.

I'm going to try one last thing and plug in this extra 4 Pin connector at the bottom labeled ATX4P1. they state to use it if more power is needed.. worth a shot?

the new 4pin Molex connection did not change any behavior... I'm thinking something in the board is just.. off. I am going to have to either search craigslist for a MOBO/CPU combo that takes DDR1, buy a whole new MOBO/CPU/Memory setup, or use some spare DDR2 with a similarly enabled CPU/MOBO combo.

Getting OpenCL / CUDA to work has been a real nightmare wow.

Glad to hear that. If it's passing memtest, chances are things are OK.
The last thing you fixed before the fault was adding memory, correct?

That's the _first_ thing to undo looking for a problem. Boot it with your old memory. Pcie stuff is not straightforward, on low voltage but high current, etc. Only 5V/12V thing is the fan, in many instances. Dirty or misplaced connections are death, but they will warm up over time.

Correct,

I had the old PSU, an enermax 435 Watt which was quite old, 1 of the two 9800GT's was installed... and as I added the 2 new sticks and flipped the switch it didn't like that. I'll try one last time with just my two original sticks and see if things stabilize. I'm wondering if the HD's are the culprit but don't have a spare.

I think this might be a sign to just go with a new CPU/Mobo/Memory combo.. and then pair that with some SSD's

Thanks again all for the assistance. I love Linux and am trying very hard to learn how to use it with the GPU's

Sorry to bring this back but you said the following
"Only 5V/12V thing is the fan, in many instances. Dirty or misplaced connections are death, but they will warm up over time."

Could this mean some dirt or dust could cause the short? I've yet to try removing the memory.. I'll give that one last try. I still cannot figure out if the drives are busted.. will be connecting them via a USB 2.0 -> Sata adapter and giving them a once over.

dirty looking connections cause heat and lose voltage. It's a chemical thing in the metal.

Dirt also causes static.