New build wont boot

[bmck]

The following system was bought as a bundle from ocuk for my brother over a month ago - built it up and passed it on to him. Had a few niggles during the build and overcame them by reseating the RAM. The problem has reappeard now to the extent that the machine will not boot.

Intel Core 2 DUO LGA775 E6600 2.40GHz Retail
Asus P5B Deluxe
2GB GeIL PC2-6400C4 DDR2 Dual Channel Kit
Maxtor Diamondmax 21 320GB STM3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache
Galaxy GeForce 7300 GT Superclocked SILENT 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/DVI (PCI-Express)
Hiper HPU-4M580 Type R 580W ATX2.2 PSU - Black

Problem - on startup the machine will not boot - no BIOS beeps - nothing except a black screen. The monitor light life glows green briefly the back to amber. When I built it up and had this problem, I uninstalled everything then added them back one by one to see were the problem lay. I'm pretty sure it was the RAM. The computer ran fine for the next few days. I had advised my brother to do the same, reseat the RAM. This worked on one occasion but susequently the machine will not boot. Reseating the graphics card hasn't helped either.

The drivers BIOS etc were as received with the kit. I may have updated the graphis driver - cannot remeber to be honest.

Does anyone have any ideas. My gut feelings are RAM, graphics then mobo in that order - I'm just basing that on past experience. I'd ask my brother to run memmtest - but of course he has to be able to boot the machine first and doesn't have access to another machine with DDR2. What do you think?

Thanks

Brian

 

[t31os]

Try just one stick of RAM in each slot, then try the other, see if it helps.....

Then try without any RAM, you should at least get beeps without any memory present.

 

[bmck]

I've actually tried that. I tried no RAM initially - simply to see that there was life in the mobo - and make it beep. Added one stick then the other - all ok. It'll work for a while but then fail to boot - presenting me with a rather chilling black screen.

 

[Egon]

Sorry if its a silly question, just trying to ascertain a few things first, but does anything get power? Does the PSU start up?

 

[TheDean]

Make sure ALL power conectors are attached to the mobo

 

[bmck]

Thanks for the the replys guys. To answer the last two questions:

The power leads are definatly connected to the mobo - and further all the system fans are operative, CPU, case and PSU.

I'm not convinced that it's not the ram - but unfortunately we dont have access to any more to change out. Similarly the graphis card - although we've several old AGP and PCI graphics cards we don'y have a spare PCI express card to try.

I Should note that I've installed the two stick of RAM in like coloured slots ie one in DIMM-A1 and the other in DIMM-B1. This is what you do with dual channel RAM isn't it? I mean you don't put them both on A1 & A2 or B1 & B2 do you? I didn't find the mobo manual very clear on that (for that you can read "idiot proof")

So what to do now....?

 

[Philio]

Yes that is the correct way to install the RAM.

If you have no spares you can try you can usually get a nearby computer shop to test it for you for free/cheap.

 

[bmck]

Thanks again for the input guys. It now seems that one stick of ram is defective and the second good. So it's on to ocuk now to see about an RMA.

 

[t31os]

If both sticks came as a kit you'll most likely be asked to send both back rather then one, just a heads up for you...

 

[bmck]

Ah - right ok - thanks!