Problems starting up Please Help

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heathg88

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When I power on my computer, sometimes it does not start up correctly. All of the fans come on, including the CPU fan, but there is usually no display at all, it fails to even show the bios. This is not the case every time I power on however, I can usually get it to work by powering down via the power supply switch and trying again 4-5 times. Every time I restart my computer it never reboots correctly the first time.

My Specs are:
Biostar A770E3 Motherboard
Gigabyte Radeon HD 5450 graphics card
AMD Phenom II x4 3.7 Ghz processor
seagate barracuda 500 GB HDD
a cheap DVD drive
thermaltake v9 newegg exclusive case
corsair x600 powersupply
[h=1]PNY Optima 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM[/h]I did not install a system speaker so I cannot remove parts and listen for beeping. That said, it may not be possible for one of you to help me. If it is my video card, I will be getting a better one soon, but I do not have any onboard graphics so I cannot try starting up without a graphics card. I have tried moving the RAM to different slots.
 
Try running Memtest86+ Run at least 2 passes, any errors, one or both sticks are bad. It is also recommended to run one stick at a time while doing this.
 
[h=1]PNY Optima 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM[/h]I did not install a system speaker so I cannot remove parts and listen for beeping. That said, it may not be possible for one of you to help me. If it is my video card, I will be getting a better one soon, but I do not have any onboard graphics so I cannot try starting up without a graphics card. I have tried moving the RAM to different slots.

Try one stick of DDR3 4gb and move it to slot 4 on the motherboard or slot 2, next check your motherboard and make sure the auto overclock is not switched on.
Next time it boots check and see what version of bios its running, I have a feeling it maybe running a old one and might need a new update.
 
Not necessarily, Mike. An update of the BIOS will not often fix any problem if it worked fine prior. A BIOS update only add features and bug fixes.

Memtest should tell us if one stick and/or slot is bad.
 
Thanks for the speedy replies guys, I have just got back to my computer. So far I have booted twice with only one RAM stick in, both successful. I am currently running memtest on that one. I will post back shortly with the results. What is the significance of slots 2 and 4? I originally had my RAM in slots 1 and 2 but whenever I booted, I would get "DQS Training Error... reverted to slower DRAM Speed." Switching my RAM to slots 3 and 4 fixed that problem. If both of my memory sticks check fine, should I place them in slots 2 and 4? I plan to get 2 more identical RAM sticks for a total of 16GB soon; Is this going to be possible? Pass 1 is 46% complete at this point; I will post back when I have passed my other chip as well.

Oh and Mike, I did not find "Auto Overclock" anywhere in the BIOS or my MOBO's manual. I did see "Advanced Clock Feature" in the BIOS, but it was already disabled. I have the most current BIOS available for my board at this time, but I can flash it with the same version if that might help. I'm very new to building computers, but I think that the problem is that I only paid $45 for the motherboard on NewEgg!
 
Oh and Mike, I did not find "Auto Overclock" anywhere in the BIOS or my MOBO's manual. I did see "Advanced Clock Feature" in the BIOS, but it was already disabled. I have the most current BIOS available for my board at this time, but I can flash it with the same version if that might help. I'm very new to building computers, but I think that the problem is that I only paid $45 for the motherboard on NewEgg!


Cool, if it doesn't need a new flash don't bother with it.
The reason why I recommended you put 1 4gb in either slot 2 or 4 because on some boards it works at best if you are using more than 4gb like some of us do.
The third slot for some reason is always buggin for no reason. :|
Also have a look later at your mobo directly if you see a red switch that has letters "OC" switch it back down to on or off.
If you don't need to OC leave it off for now, run your pc through a os and see if one stick holds steady.
If it does try both and see what happens, the most tip I can give you until you have something else go wrong.
 
Okay, so after the first pass on memtest, I tried to reboot and it failed. The memory was passed with 0 errors on memtest, so it's not the memory, it still failed with only one RAM chip in which means that only using one will not fix the problem. I could not find the OC jumper on my MOBO but I have not changed it so I'm assuming it was off by default. Perhaps it's just the crap mobo... Is it possible that it will boot more often if I unplug my SATA DVD Drive and all USB devices? I don't think that it is a CPU problem because it still boots sometimes. I might just deal with it and hope that frequently flipping PSU switch doesn't cause too much damage.
 
Biostar is on the "cheap" end, but they are a reputable brand, though.

Try moving the memory to different RAM slots.
 
Okay, so after the first pass on memtest, I tried to reboot and it failed. The memory was passed with 0 errors on memtest, so it's not the memory,

You should always run at least 2 passes of memtest, I've seen dozens of bad sticks that would complete the first pass but fail the second pass.

and hope that frequently flipping PSU switch doesn't cause too much damage.

That sounds like it may be a problem with your power supply.
 
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