Need some help

[Rob9874]

I'm having some weird issues with my PC (which has forced me to start looking for a new one). It's a Dell Dimension 8200, P4 2.0GHz, XP, about 4 years old. I'll be using it, and the monitor will go black and into standby mode. No sound either. However, the power light on the tower is on, and I can hear the fans spinning. Other times it will just reboot on its own, and sometimes get hung up on the reboot screen.

I plan to open it later today and blow the dust out (I live in Arizona, and dust can accumulate pretty heavily), and reseat the RAM. If that doesn't help, I don't know what else to do. The hard drive is new (~1 year old). Sometimes when it shuts down, I'll get 1 second beeps from the tower. Doesn't that mean RAM error? And it's RDRAM too. Would rather buy a new PC than spend hundreds upgrading this one. Any thoughts?

(UPDATE: Think I found the problem, read updated post below.)

 

[joshharrington]

If it is RDRAM I would recommend an upgrade to a new PC. As far as I can tell it seems to be either a memory issue, or a motherboard/processor issue. I would clean everything up...make sure everything is seated right and see what happens.

 

[Rob9874]

OK, I've got a lead on the issue. It won't boot at all now, but I got a series of beeps from my PC. It was 5 beeps, then 1, then 2, then 3. So I Googled "PC Beep Codes 5-1-2-3", and lo and behold there was a code translator on a Dell support website. It means "memory read/write error". I blew the dust out of the case and reseated the RAM, and still nothing. I have 2 pairs of RDRAM, so I'm going to try removing each pair, and run it on a single pair, to try to identify the problem. I don't have the CRIMMs anymore, so I need to buy a pair so I can remove a pair of the RIMMs. Surely it's just one pair that's bad, and not both.

I know, I plan to upgrade real soon. Waiting for laptops to come with Core 2 Duos, then I'm buying. But I need my tower to boot, so I can backup my files.

(UPDATE: Going to buy 2x128 RAMBUS off the board, and see if that helps.)

 

[Rob9874]

I bought the 256MB RDRAM from a board member, and the RAM worked fine. The PC booted up, and read 512MB RAM. Then after 15 minutes of using it, it shut down again, with the 5-1-2-3 beep code. So I swapped out the RAM again, removing my other original pair, and the same thing. Only this time I got a message for the first time which read, "Memory write/read failure at 17F90000, read 00000000 expecting F916F916. Memory address line failure at 17F90000, read F916F916 expecting 06060606."

Any ideas? I don't think the RAM is bad, since I get the error with every configuration I tried. (Although, in all cases, I was using an original pair. Could BOTH pairs be bad?) I'm thinking the RAM slots in the motherboard are bad, and it's time to upgrade. I plan to soon anyway, but would like to have a working PC in the meanwhile. And want to get my data off the harddrives. I guess I can get that after I upgrade.

 

[Rob9874]

Nevermind, found the same problem on the Dell support forums:

"Since you have swapped out all of the RAM and insured that it is seated correctly, the cause of your problem seems to be a failed motherboard."

I bet that's me too.

 

[FightingChance]

Probably bad ram. Make a Memtest boot disk, and let it go for 5 full passes or so.

http://www.memtest.org/#downiso