Computer's dying. Is it my RAM or my Mobo?

[FengHouzi]

Do what I did when my sons did the same thing. Put your "good" RAM in and start the computer. Int he search bar of windows 7 search for memory and click the memory test. It will reboot he computer. It will say you hada hardware failure.

Turn off computer.

Remove one stick of RAM.

Repeat process. If it fails again, shutdown, reinsert the RAM and take the next stick out. Repeat the process until you find the bad stick and/or slot.

Once you find the culprit, swap the "bad" stick with a good one and test it again.

I did this and determined my sons motherboard has a bad RAM slot.

[Chipperbane]

I'll give it a shot. I only have the two DDR2 ram cards, though. The other RAM I have is DDR, so I don't know if it'll be acceptable.

I'll be back here in like, 20 minutes after fiddling around with my ram.

[chazus]

The other RAM I have is DDR, so I don't know if it'll be acceptable..

It is not. Do not try to use it.

[spinner981]

I don't know if you have had this problem resolved or not, but my laptop had been shutting down a bit too. Turns out it was overheating, and my laptop's fan was all dusty. I didn't have an access panel, so I just blew into it from the side and got a bunch of dust in my eyes. But now my laptop runs much better, with higher framerate in WoW and it doesn't smell like cookies anymore!

[Chipperbane]

I think this is definitive.

BAD one and GOOD one are both GOOD ones.

In either slot, either one by itself works. (When I had originally removed the first one and saw a marked improvement, I immediately assumed it was the problem, and was happy. Again, hardware isn't my forte.)

It's only when they're both in the slots that the computer refuses to boot at all - like, it turns on? The tower only, though. The mouse, keyboard, monitor... it's sending no signals or data anywhere.

I posit that the PSU can't supply power to both of them anymore. And it's been steadily failing over the past month, to the point where it can no longer sustain one RAM card the majority of the time.

Does this sound like a correct assumption?

PS. The memory diagnostics said nothing was wrong with the GOOD one I had in when I performed the test.

[Sesshou]

The PSU should be the primary problem, but that doesn't mean one stick of RAM isn't failing. It seems unlikely to me that considering you were able to get into windows with both a month ago and then have it just shut off that suddenly the difference of one stick of RAM is causing the PSU to not have enough power to POST. I would definitely run memtest for a day after you swap the PSU with both sticks of RAM in.

[Chipperbane]

Well, the problem started in July. Essentially, this is the order of events:

July 2nd, computer shuts down for the first time.

This doesn't happen for another two weeks, before it begins to happen once or twice every couple days.

Come August 2nd, a friend tells me to fiddle with the RAM. I do so, and take it out. The computer shows marked improvement for a week - no shut downs no matter how strenuous my activity. To stress test it, I turn on L.A. Noire at max settings.

Middle of August, it begins to sporadically shut down - I attribute this to a lack of RAM. This continues for most of September, sporadically shutting down. I can handle it.

Only this past week have the number of shutdowns returned to the same level as late July.

[Theendgamelv3]

Do not buy this. Period. The Corsair CX430 has an extremely high failure rate.

- - - Updated - - -


Theres not technically anything as 'too strong' save for over-paying... And your current PSU qualifies as a 180w, not the 400w it advertises, so really anything has 'more power'

Where did you read that it has a high failure rate? I googled Corsair CX430 failure rate and found nothing to even suggest that it has a high failure rate.

[chazus]

Where did you read that it has a high failure rate? I googled Corsair CX430 failure rate and found nothing to even suggest that it has a high failure rate.

It was bad enough (after going through 4 DOA's in a row) that I had to make a thread about it, only to find out that lots of people have had consecutive DOA's.