A very bad weekend... processor smoked?

[MIAaron]

So it's saturday afternoon and I decide to get off my butt and try the new thermal paste on my processor/heatsink. Everything goes fine, at least I think so....

So now it is sat evening, and I was doing some cleanup on my machine. I discovered a nasty little group of 5 DSO exploits that would show back up after boot up. They all ended with "1004!=W=3" minus the quotes. After the second removal of them, I went to restart. Restart took foooooorever :amazed: , but finally went. Next thing ya know, the bios keeps rebooting over and over so I turned the computer off. Now the bios won't even boot.

So things are ugly now. My mobo(msi k8n) has a group of 4 lights on this little usb connector plate that are for diagnosing problems. It hangs/gets stuck on "Testing base and extended memory".

I've cleared the CMOS, nothing changes. It only beeps once when I try to boot, which MSI says is a DRAM error. I have no clue what a DRAM error is.... Maybe my RAM smoked? I have dual 512 corsair 3200 XMS low latency.

Does anyone have a clue what is occuring? The only reason I think it could be a processor failure is because I messed with the processor earlier that day, but my temps were mid 30's??? I thought maybe I put on too much thermal paste or something, I don't know. Help!!!!

 

[Wickedly_cool]

take everything off the mb and wait like 5 min... cards, ram, ide's, even the cmos battery.... there might even be a jumper to clear the cmos... probably have to short that jumper press the start button and then turn it off and un-short it... do that a couple of times and see if it works... if not tell me what happens

 

[MIAaron]

Thanks, I'll try it tonight. Should I try and boot up the bios with the onboard stuff? I only mention this cuz I've noticed my video card posts before my bios screen appears.

I've cleared the cmos once, but it didn't do much except get the bios beeps back.

I guess I should be a little more clear on the noises. The bios beeps once, then a few seconds later there is a noise like gears grinding. It is not either of the HD's, and actually sounds like it is coming from the ram. That's where it stops.

 

[MIAaron]

Okay, one of my sticks of RAM was causing the hardware problems. I can now get the bios to load.

Now it's just software, so it shouldn't be to bad. Right after the windows xp load screen goes away, a blue screen appears for about a fraction of a second and then the comp reboots. It happens in all safe modes, previous settings, and regular boot.

I just want to get to dos. How do you create a CD startup disc? I'll attack the registry for a little bit, and if it isn't easy I'll just format. No biggie, I keep all my crap on another HD for this very reason.

It sucks I lost one 512 stick of corsair low latency ram though. I don't know if I should just buy another individual low latency stick, or a gig of reg since it is the same price.

 

[MIAaron]

update:

I messed with UBCD this weekend. I think the ram is messed up, but not sure. I've emailed corsair but so responce yet. When I test the ram with UBCD, one stick will reboot when it hits 80%, and the other will start registering full errors at 80%. 80% I believe was the random 0000000001 test, or something like that. I'll bring home a stick of ram from the office and see what it tests like. I KNOW it's good. If the test fails, and I KNOW it's good ram, would that tell me it's the mobo that's f'd? I wouldn't be to disappointed if it was the mobo. The Neo4's just came out, and is the cheapest component to replace.

When I run the processor check, it just loops an error checking app. Keeps saying 0 errors, but then it just keeps going and going and going. Went for more than an hour before I stopped it.

The only other thing is that I can NOT get anything on UBCD to work other than the mobo tests and antivir. All other options don't fly on the main menu. All of the function keys just make the screen blink really quick, except f1. I even tried running the exe's through dos, and still nothing.

This has me completely confused right now. I can get the bios to load, but it seems like everything I try after that just won't work correctly.

 

[Alex81388]

Hm, my first suggestion would be to load the 'Fail Safe Defaults' in your bios, and run on them for a little bit. Do some disk cleanup and defrag.

Also try a different Ram bank. You could have shot the banks you had sticks in.

 

[Nubius]

Simply put I believe you need to RMA the RAM. If it's getting errors and restarting it sounds like thats the problem at hand

 

[Alex81388]

Also, this place where you get your Ram form work... Is it possable to test your sticks in that computer?

If not - or if that test fails, do what Nubius said above.

 

[MIAaron]

Thx for the advice guys. This has been a testing experience.

Well, the ram I am 100% sure is good does the same as one of the other sticks. Once it hits 80% pass it registers full errors. So I doubt it is the ram right now. I'll try the different ram slots.

And yes, I can test my home ram here at work. Guess I'll try that tomorrow.

Edit:
I've tried the fail safe settings in the bios. Acts the same as when I clear the cmos. I also can't get any of the UBCD disc features to work on the HD's. I also can't access either of my HD's from dos. The bios lists them though. So does the seagate tools cd.