RAM, Hardrive, Both ?

kinggeorge1987

Hey guys,

Having some major problems here and I figured what better place to ask then good 'ol TE.

This all started at about 3 in the morning feeding my baby, knocked over some soda.. Completely unware it dashed all over my Dell. The next morning I got up and turned my monitor on to a blank screen. So I restarted and heard those beautiful little beeps, normally letting me know there is some sort of RAM problem. So I reseated everything and tried again with no different results.

So I borrowed a PC I had build for my parents, and switched the hard drives out(because I suspected the hardrive before the ram because of the sticky traces of soda ). Well to my suprise her computer booted my hard drive up just fine. So the next step of course, RAM.

So I decided to put the hard drive back into the Dell and use my mothers RAM (1GB DDR2 x2) and put them into the Dell. Well no beeps, but no boot either. Just sat and idled. So I took the RAM back out, along with the hard drive. Put my hard drive, and the 2GB stick of ram I had in the Dell during the accident into my mothers computer. And it booted up just fine, minus a hickup at the beginning where it rebooted before getting to the Desktop, then ofcourse it loaded all the way up and seemed fine.

Shortly after this happened the pc started to reboot on it's own, from the desktop at first, not from the boot screen. It would load up, sit for maybe 5 minutes, and then reboot. Keep in mind this is my hard drive, and my ram.(that was just in my soda victim Dell). So this process goes on several times and it never quits. Well eventually I go through all the sticks of ram, included the 2 1GB sticks that I tested in my Dell. And all of them yield the same result. Reboot reboot reboot.

SO! I borrowed another computer I had built for my father-in-law. Very simple setup, only has a 2GB DDR2 and a 80 gig hard drive. Well I took his 2GB stick out, and put my 2GB stick in, and it beeped and wouldn't boot. So I was like oh yea it's the ram, so I tried my hard drive. BLUE SCREEN. Saying the drive needed to be replaced. Eh, hope I got all my facts straight here; so here is my question.

Why in this, the year of our Lord 2010(hehe) would my hard drive and ram work temporarily in my mothers system, and not work at all in my father-in-laws system, and who would likely be the culperate ? The RAM? Hard drive? Both ? Do you believe(like myself) that the motherboard from the Dell fried all the sticks of ram and the hard drive when I was trying ot get the other pc to boot , and that is why none of them will work?

Very confused, hopefully I didn't confuse too many out there.

earweed

Your motherboard and RAM may both be corrupted from the sound of it.

kinggeorge1987

The motherboard on the Dell right ? So you agree with me saying the soda messed up the board, which shorted out the ram. Which in turn caused the sticks of ram I tested in that board to fry ?

Plantwiz

kinggeorge1987 wrote: »

....Why in this, the year of our Lord 2010(hehe) would my hard drive and ram work temporarily in my mothers system, and not work at all in my father-in-laws system, and who would likely be the culperate ? The RAM? Hard drive? Both ? Do you believe(like myself) that the motherboard from the Dell fried all the sticks of ram and the hard drive when I was trying ot get the other pc to boot , and that is why none of them will work?

Very confused, hopefully I didn't confuse too many out there.

NO, I don't believe 'Dell' is the culprit, I would say that poor user habits (by having food/drink near a PC) was the initial problem.

That aside,

Why would you start messing around with swapping the drive around? And then go to RAM?

At this point, you seem to be able to access your HDD. So BACKUP YOUR DATA before you go any further.

Soda on electronics is typically bad news. Do you have any sort of warranty on the Dell machine that covers 'accidental damages'? Investigate this further and seek replacements through this channel.

Were you certain the RAM you were installing (and possibly contaminating the other PCs with) was compatible with those two others Mobo?

It's great you want to fix your system, but it doesn't sound like it is a good choice to continue doing it yourself at this point. Get some help, ask questions from the repair tech who will now need to fix the machines and take good notes.

IT tech repair is similar to medical docs in that we strive to do no harm (or at least not make the patient worse). Sometimes, it means breaking it worse to learn, but take out test boxes, not vital working boxes.

1 - save your data
2 - save your parent's data (or have the tech do both)
3 - Inspect the systems internally and externally before powering them on again and possibly making more problems.

Michael.J.Palmer

If you switched out RAM on your systems (can't imagine they'd not be interchangable since all DDR2 should work for any DDR2 mobo) and you've still got the same issue then it boils down to one of two things, either corrupt OS on HDD (or bad HDD, just classifying both in same category) or a bad mobo. If you're booting and seeing the mobo manufacture page and then hearing the beeps and it stops booting (like let's say you see Windows start to boot but then it reboots) then it's probably a bad HDD or corrupt OS (can't imagine a soda would cause a corrupt OS though, but it depends on where it seeped in I guess).

If you don't see anything like that and only get the beeps then you probably ruined your mobo and will need to either replace it or just get an all new system (depends on the trouble you want to take on yourself). Those are your more likely scenarios in this case, just be weary of making messes like this again in the future, any liquid if it gets to the mobo can potentially be detrimental and ruin it on contact. Most repair shops diagnose desktops for free so check your area for either a local or chain store and see if you can get a free diagnostic, but I'm pretty sure you're down to those two problems.

kinggeorge1987

Plantwiz wrote: »

NO, I don't believe 'Dell' is the culprit, I would say that poor user habits (by having food/drink near a PC) was the initial problem.

That aside,

Why would you start messing around with swapping the drive around? And then go to RAM?

At this point, you seem to be able to access your HDD. So BACKUP YOUR DATA before you go any further.

Soda on electronics is typically bad news. Do you have any sort of warranty on the Dell machine that covers 'accidental damages'? Investigate this further and seek replacements through this channel.

Were you certain the RAM you were installing (and possibly contaminating the other PCs with) was compatible with those two others Mobo?

1. I was aware of my computer habits, and I dont blame the Dell lol. I dont appreciate your insinuation of me 'not knowing any better'. Do you have children ? And if you do, is removing a glass of soda you sat down in the moment of your 5 week old daughter crying your first prority ? 'poor user habits' ? Good parenting. Thank you.

2. The Startup Repair utility returned a bad hard disk, but I had read on several forums months ago about this same problem happening to alot of people, but it was due to the ram. So I checked the HD first. This 'vital' system, the one my mother plays card games on , was in no jeapordy seeing I have a spare MOBO that I received by mistake from Geeks, and sent back ram I didn't need to cover the cost. Anway..

3. I take back ups on a regular basis, this was not a matter of OH NO I'LL LOSE MY PICTURES!. It was a matter of turning assignments in on time, and to gain an understanding of why it happened, and how to fix it. I didn't expect these 'snippy' remarks, especially from a moderator. No disrespect intended .

4. Contaminating is such a silly word for PC parts, dont ya think ? This isn't drinking water, and worse case scenario is it wouldn't boot, and I would remove the ram. It's not like the ram was drenched in soda. And I have my trust ol' ESD protection so not too dangerous of activity to change a few parts around considering im not quite an expert yet ..

And yes, im sure the ram was compatible. It's DDR2, and I didn't beat it in with a hammer or anything.

Lastly, no. This is an older model Dell that my girlfriend had way before we got together(4+ years and I've managed to keep the thing barely running. I'll probably fork out the money for a new system tommorow.

earweed

From the sounds of it (being old and now new problems) a new system may be in order. Hopefully all works out well for you.

kinggeorge1987

Yup, thanks.