G.Skill Has Failed Me Again, Maybe.
My computer is rarely turned off, in fact it’s rarely even rebooted, but some time back I had shut it down as I was going away for a longer period than usual, saving power and all that. It was difficult to get up and running again, wouldn’t POST. I dismissed it, but unfortunately that happened again today.
I had shut down the computer to give it a good de-dusting outside, now that I finally have my air compressor back. To my horror, it again wouldn’t POST. This is the first time the computer has been shutdown since the last difficulty.
In September of 2007 the memory went bad, had to RMA for a new set. Because of the extended period without it I had purchased a small stick of cheapie memory to make do for the interim.
After unplugging everything critical, resetting the BIOS, reseating everything else, still no luck. I swapped memory stick positions, tried each one individually, still no luck. In a vain attempt at one last thing I even reseated the CPU. Finally after everything else had failed, and perhaps I should have done this sooner, I remembered that 512MB stick of DDR2 in the drawer. To my surprise the computer actually booted up!
It’s a bit of a bittersweet diagnostic victory, I need to check these memory sticks in another computer before I RMA them (yay for lifetime warranty), as it may be the board and not the memory. It seems unlikely, but it’s really been about forever since I’ve had to diagnose a computer problem.
I do have to give a hardy round of laughter to my “really expensive” memory now costing basically thirty dollars. It’s almost not even worth the trouble of the RMA, waiting, etc. $5 for return shipping is still better than $30 plus shipping though.
The plus side is that the system is running substantially cooler now that it has had the dust blown out of it!
