Ram problems on Pentium 4 (p4i65gv)

I found a Pentium IV PC next to a skip yesterday and took it home.

It has the following spec:

Asrock P4i65GV Motherboard
Pentium IV 2.66Ghz CPU
1GB RAM DDR400
HD with Windows XP installed
Floppy drive
Onboard Video/USB/SATA/AUDIO etc..

Anyway, it did not want to boot, would just switch on and beep but give no display. I tried another known working video card but same problem.

I tested the PSU voltages and they were all good (+12/+5/-12/+3.3) and stable.

Disconnected to basic but still no go.

Anyway, after messing about i found that if i removed the RAM it had in it (x2 512MB DDR400) and inserted a spare 256MB DDR ram i had lying around it booted up and worked perfectly but VERY slow (loads of spyware/anti virus etc...).

I have loads of DDR ram at home spare, ranging from 128MB to 512MB sticks but when i tried them none of them work except for this one particular 256MB ram stick.

The symptoms i get with the others are either:

You hear the single beep as normal but no display at all and does not appear to boot.

Or

No beep, no display, no boot.

I tried a few combinations of ram sticks and slots but no go.

I looked at the manual on the Asrock website but could not find much info about what may be wrong.

Its pretty useless with 256MB

Any ideas ?

Flash to a newer bios if there's one available.

what was the spec of the ram that worked?

Dual Channel DDR memory technology
- 2 x DDR DIMM slots
- Supports DDR 400/333/266 non-ECC, un-buffered memory
- Max. capacity of system memory: 2GB

and as already said, flash the bios

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/P4i65GV/?cat=Download

did you clear the cmos?
some one could have chenged the ram timings

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Justin

what was the spec of the ram that worked?

Dual Channel DDR memory technology
- 2 x DDR DIMM slots
- Supports DDR 400/333/266 non-ECC, un-buffered memory
- Max. capacity of system memory: 2GB

and as already said, flash the bios

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/P4i65GV/?cat=Download

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Not sure, i'll take a look when i get home but i think it is DDR400.

Yes flashing the BIOS is a good idea, i will do that when i get home too.

---------- Post added at 16:03 ---------- Previous post was at 16:02 ----------

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ShambleS1980

did you clear the cmos?
some one could have chenged the ram timings

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Yes i did, i switched it off, unplugged the power, waited about 10-15 seconds and touched a metal screw to short the CLR CMOS jumper for 2 seconds.

not sure buy you may ned to power on whilst bridging the cmos jumpers for it to clear properly.. "not 100% on that"

at a guess your ram dosn`t know how to work at the right speed, guess what even ram chips have a kind of bios on them now

Bios is on the latest update... Just checked it says P2.30

The ram that works is 256MB/133Mhz (DDR266)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dougal

Bios is on the latest update... Just checked it says P2.30

The ram that works is 256MB/133Mhz (DDR266)

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is any of your other ram marked as the same?

Wild guess: I had a pc with similar nothbridge and similar problem.

The mobo capacitors were a bit bulged. Replaced them all and the board is still going strong. Currently it is Amithlon/XP printer server.