I was adding some memory (DDR) to a Compaq 6000T computer to send to a
friend. This computer is a Celeron 2 GHZ that can accept up to 2 Gig of
RAM. The minimum speed is PC2100 and the MB has two slots for memory.
It had been running with 512 MB (2x256) and can accept either high
density or low density RAM in any combination up to 2 GB.

Now the interesting part: I purchased two sticks of low density PC3200
DDR so that I could put the maximum memory in the computer before
sending it out. Upon receiving the RAM I removed the existing RAM and
installed both sticks of PC3200 RAM WITHOUT having removed the A/C power
cord. Next I ran a memory test on the new memory to make sure no errors
occurred. It passed without error and recognized the full 2 GB.
Thinking everything was fine, I unplugged the computer from the A/C and
worked on something else.

Upon returning to the computer I plugged in the power cord to the A/C
and immediately the computer tried to start without having pushed the
power start button on the computer front. It did NOT successfully
start, but went into an oscillation of the power supply starting and
stopping every half second or so. (Pushing the power button during this
event had no effect at all.) During this oscillation the power on LED
would flash and the power supply fan would start and stop. I unplugged
the power cord after a few seconds of this and waited a couple of
seconds before plugging it in again. Upon plugging in the cord again,
the same thing happened again. It went into a cycle of turning on and
off the power.

Wondering what could possibly have gone wrong, I returned the old RAM
to the slots in place of the new RAM and plugged in the power cord. It
behaved normally, whereas the pushing the power button started the
computer. Thinking the larger size RAM might be drawing more current
and making the power supply suspect, I installed a 300W PS in place of
the 250W that had been in the computer. This had no effect, so I
returned the 250W one to the computer. The 250W power supply had an LED
on the back of the PS indicating (I suppose) that the standby power was up.

What I discovered was that if I waited to plug in the power cord again
until after the LED went out, the oscillation I described above would
NOT occur, even if both sticks were 1 GB PC3200 ones! It was as if the
standby voltage was not coming up fast enough when the PS had totally
discharged, but if you returned the A/C when the LED had just gone out
all was fine regardless of the RAM.

Since I did not want to give someone a computer that could go into a
power oscillation like I describe above, I wired in a reset button as
this computer did not come with one. After establishing that the reset
button did work properly, I wanted to see if pushing the reset button
could stop the oscillation if pushed. It did not! So it seemed if the
2 GB of PC3200 RAM was installed, and power was to be restored after
something like a power failure, the oscillation would occur. I could
not live with this possibility.

Since I wanted to install as much memory as possible in the computer, I
experimented to see if something less than the 2 GB of RAM would have
the same problem. It seems that as long as both sticks were not the 1
GB sticks, everything worked fine. I ended up installing one 1 GB stick
of PC3200 and one 512 MB (high density) stick of PC2700. From that
point on, it never failed as described above. So my question is this:
Why did the computer fail to behave properly ONLY when power was
completely removed and ONLY when two 1 GB sticks of PC3200 were
installed???? Since it is no longer a problem, I am curious to
understand what might have been happening. Any theories???

Ken wrote:
I was adding some memory (DDR) to a Compaq 6000T computer to send to a
friend. This computer is a Celeron 2 GHZ that can accept up to 2 Gig of
RAM. The minimum speed is PC2100 and the MB has two slots for memory.
It had been running with 512 MB (2x256) and can accept either high
density or low density RAM in any combination up to 2 GB.

Now the interesting part: I purchased two sticks of low density PC3200
DDR so that I could put the maximum memory in the computer before
sending it out. Upon receiving the RAM I removed the existing RAM and
installed both sticks of PC3200 RAM WITHOUT having removed the A/C power
cord. Next I ran a memory test on the new memory to make sure no errors
occurred. It passed without error and recognized the full 2 GB.
Thinking everything was fine, I unplugged the computer from the A/C and
worked on something else.

Upon returning to the computer I plugged in the power cord to the A/C
and immediately the computer tried to start without having pushed the
power start button on the computer front. It did NOT successfully
start, but went into an oscillation of the power supply starting and
stopping every half second or so. (Pushing the power button during this
event had no effect at all.) During this oscillation the power on LED
would flash and the power supply fan would start and stop. I unplugged
the power cord after a few seconds of this and waited a couple of
seconds before plugging it in again. Upon plugging in the cord again,
the same thing happened again. It went into a cycle of turning on and
off the power.

Wondering what could possibly have gone wrong, I returned the old RAM
to the slots in place of the new RAM and plugged in the power cord. It
behaved normally, whereas the pushing the power button started the
computer. Thinking the larger size RAM might be drawing more current
and making the power supply suspect, I installed a 300W PS in place of
the 250W that had been in the computer. This had no effect, so I
returned the 250W one to the computer. The 250W power supply had an LED
on the back of the PS indicating (I suppose) that the standby power was up.

What I discovered was that if I waited to plug in the power cord again
until after the LED went out, the oscillation I described above would
NOT occur, even if both sticks were 1 GB PC3200 ones! It was as if the
standby voltage was not coming up fast enough when the PS had totally
discharged, but if you returned the A/C when the LED had just gone out
all was fine regardless of the RAM.

Since I did not want to give someone a computer that could go into a
power oscillation like I describe above, I wired in a reset button as
this computer did not come with one. After establishing that the reset
button did work properly, I wanted to see if pushing the reset button
could stop the oscillation if pushed. It did not! So it seemed if the
2 GB of PC3200 RAM was installed, and power was to be restored after
something like a power failure, the oscillation would occur. I could
not live with this possibility.

Since I wanted to install as much memory as possible in the computer, I
experimented to see if something less than the 2 GB of RAM would have
the same problem. It seems that as long as both sticks were not the 1
GB sticks, everything worked fine. I ended up installing one 1 GB stick
of PC3200 and one 512 MB (high density) stick of PC2700. From that
point on, it never failed as described above. So my question is this:
Why did the computer fail to behave properly ONLY when power was
completely removed and ONLY when two 1 GB sticks of PC3200 were
installed???? Since it is no longer a problem, I am curious to
understand what might have been happening. Any theories???


I would suspect wrong bios settings.
remove the battery for 15 minutes,or find the bios reset strap,
and let the bios initializee itself to factory settings.
Dont forget to put the reset strap back in its old position.

Sjouke Burry wrote:
Ken wrote:
I was adding some memory (DDR) to a Compaq 6000T computer to send
to a friend. This computer is a Celeron 2 GHZ that can accept up to 2
Gig of RAM. The minimum speed is PC2100 and the MB has two slots for
memory. It had been running with 512 MB (2x256) and can accept either
high density or low density RAM in any combination up to 2 GB.

Now the interesting part: I purchased two sticks of low density
PC3200 DDR so that I could put the maximum memory in the computer
before sending it out. Upon receiving the RAM I removed the existing
RAM and installed both sticks of PC3200 RAM WITHOUT having removed the
A/C power cord. Next I ran a memory test on the new memory to make
sure no errors occurred. It passed without error and recognized the
full 2 GB. Thinking everything was fine, I unplugged the computer from
the A/C and worked on something else.

Upon returning to the computer I plugged in the power cord to the
A/C and immediately the computer tried to start without having pushed
the power start button on the computer front. It did NOT successfully
start, but went into an oscillation of the power supply starting and
stopping every half second or so. (Pushing the power button during
this event had no effect at all.) During this oscillation the power
on LED would flash and the power supply fan would start and stop. I
unplugged the power cord after a few seconds of this and waited a
couple of seconds before plugging it in again. Upon plugging in the
cord again, the same thing happened again. It went into a cycle of
turning on and off the power.

Wondering what could possibly have gone wrong, I returned the old
RAM to the slots in place of the new RAM and plugged in the power
cord. It behaved normally, whereas the pushing the power button
started the computer. Thinking the larger size RAM might be drawing
more current and making the power supply suspect, I installed a 300W
PS in place of the 250W that had been in the computer. This had no
effect, so I returned the 250W one to the computer. The 250W power
supply had an LED on the back of the PS indicating (I suppose) that
the standby power was up.

What I discovered was that if I waited to plug in the power cord
again until after the LED went out, the oscillation I described above
would NOT occur, even if both sticks were 1 GB PC3200 ones! It was as
if the standby voltage was not coming up fast enough when the PS had
totally discharged, but if you returned the A/C when the LED had just
gone out all was fine regardless of the RAM.

Since I did not want to give someone a computer that could go into
a power oscillation like I describe above, I wired in a reset button
as this computer did not come with one. After establishing that the
reset button did work properly, I wanted to see if pushing the reset
button could stop the oscillation if pushed. It did not! So it
seemed if the 2 GB of PC3200 RAM was installed, and power was to be
restored after something like a power failure, the oscillation would
occur. I could not live with this possibility.

Since I wanted to install as much memory as possible in the
computer, I experimented to see if something less than the 2 GB of RAM
would have the same problem. It seems that as long as both sticks
were not the 1 GB sticks, everything worked fine. I ended up
installing one 1 GB stick of PC3200 and one 512 MB (high density)
stick of PC2700. From that point on, it never failed as described
above. So my question is this: Why did the computer fail to behave
properly ONLY when power was completely removed and ONLY when two 1 GB
sticks of PC3200 were installed???? Since it is no longer a problem,
I am curious to understand what might have been happening. Any
theories???


I would suspect wrong bios settings.
remove the battery for 15 minutes,or find the bios reset strap,
and let the bios initializee itself to factory settings.
Dont forget to put the reset strap back in its old position.

I appreciate your suggestion, but the computer power never really was
applied in the failure I described. Hence the bios settings could not
have come into play since there was no power to read them. Also,
without having changed any of them, they worked for a boot when the
power cord had not been removed with any combination of RAM.

Now I could be missing something. If so, I am open to what I am
overlooking. My theory has to do with the standby voltage not coming up
soon enough to reset the logic properly, but I do not understand why the
size of the RAM has anything to do with it.

Ken wrote:
Sjouke Burry wrote:
Ken wrote:
I was adding some memory (DDR) to a Compaq 6000T computer to send
to a friend. This computer is a Celeron 2 GHZ that can accept up to 2
Gig of RAM. The minimum speed is PC2100 and the MB has two slots for
memory. It had been running with 512 MB (2x256) and can accept either
high density or low density RAM in any combination up to 2 GB.

Now the interesting part: I purchased two sticks of low density
PC3200 DDR so that I could put the maximum memory in the computer
before sending it out. Upon receiving the RAM I removed the existing
RAM and installed both sticks of PC3200 RAM WITHOUT having removed the
A/C power cord. Next I ran a memory test on the new memory to make
sure no errors occurred. It passed without error and recognized the
full 2 GB. Thinking everything was fine, I unplugged the computer from
the A/C and worked on something else.

Upon returning to the computer I plugged in the power cord to the
A/C and immediately the computer tried to start without having pushed
the power start button on the computer front. It did NOT successfully
start, but went into an oscillation of the power supply starting and
stopping every half second or so. (Pushing the power button during
this event had no effect at all.) During this oscillation the power
on LED would flash and the power supply fan would start and stop. I
unplugged the power cord after a few seconds of this and waited a
couple of seconds before plugging it in again. Upon plugging in the
cord again, the same thing happened again. It went into a cycle of
turning on and off the power.

Wondering what could possibly have gone wrong, I returned the old
RAM to the slots in place of the new RAM and plugged in the power
cord. It behaved normally, whereas the pushing the power button
started the computer. Thinking the larger size RAM might be drawing
more current and making the power supply suspect, I installed a 300W
PS in place of the 250W that had been in the computer. This had no
effect, so I returned the 250W one to the computer. The 250W power
supply had an LED on the back of the PS indicating (I suppose) that
the standby power was up.

What I discovered was that if I waited to plug in the power cord
again until after the LED went out, the oscillation I described above
would NOT occur, even if both sticks were 1 GB PC3200 ones! It was as
if the standby voltage was not coming up fast enough when the PS had
totally discharged, but if you returned the A/C when the LED had just
gone out all was fine regardless of the RAM.

Since I did not want to give someone a computer that could go into
a power oscillation like I describe above, I wired in a reset button
as this computer did not come with one. After establishing that the
reset button did work properly, I wanted to see if pushing the reset
button could stop the oscillation if pushed. It did not! So it
seemed if the 2 GB of PC3200 RAM was installed, and power was to be
restored after something like a power failure, the oscillation would
occur. I could not live with this possibility.

Since I wanted to install as much memory as possible in the
computer, I experimented to see if something less than the 2 GB of RAM
would have the same problem. It seems that as long as both sticks
were not the 1 GB sticks, everything worked fine. I ended up
installing one 1 GB stick of PC3200 and one 512 MB (high density)
stick of PC2700. From that point on, it never failed as described
above. So my question is this: Why did the computer fail to behave
properly ONLY when power was completely removed and ONLY when two 1 GB
sticks of PC3200 were installed???? Since it is no longer a problem,
I am curious to understand what might have been happening. Any
theories???


I would suspect wrong bios settings.
remove the battery for 15 minutes,or find the bios reset strap,
and let the bios initializee itself to factory settings.
Dont forget to put the reset strap back in its old position.

I appreciate your suggestion, but the computer power never really was
applied in the failure I described. Hence the bios settings could not
have come into play since there was no power to read them. Also,
without having changed any of them, they worked for a boot when the
power cord had not been removed with any combination of RAM.

Now I could be missing something. If so, I am open to what I am
overlooking. My theory has to do with the standby voltage not coming up
soon enough to reset the logic properly, but I do not understand why the
size of the RAM has anything to do with it.

There are a number of things the bios has to "read" from a memory stick
in order to properly use it.
Therefore the re-initializing.

On Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:41:36 -0500, Ken wrote:

Sjouke Burry wrote:
Ken wrote:
I was adding some memory (DDR) to a Compaq 6000T computer to send
to a friend. This computer is a Celeron 2 GHZ that can accept up to 2
Gig of RAM. The minimum speed is PC2100 and the MB has two slots for
memory. It had been running with 512 MB (2x256) and can accept either
high density or low density RAM in any combination up to 2 GB.

Now the interesting part: I purchased two sticks of low density
PC3200 DDR so that I could put the maximum memory in the computer
before sending it out. Upon receiving the RAM I removed the existing
RAM and installed both sticks of PC3200 RAM WITHOUT having removed the
A/C power cord. Next I ran a memory test on the new memory to make
sure no errors occurred. It passed without error and recognized the
full 2 GB. Thinking everything was fine, I unplugged the computer from
the A/C and worked on something else.

Upon returning to the computer I plugged in the power cord to the
A/C and immediately the computer tried to start without having pushed
the power start button on the computer front. It did NOT successfully
start, but went into an oscillation of the power supply starting and
stopping every half second or so. (Pushing the power button during
this event had no effect at all.) During this oscillation the power
on LED would flash and the power supply fan would start and stop. I
unplugged the power cord after a few seconds of this and waited a
couple of seconds before plugging it in again. Upon plugging in the
cord again, the same thing happened again. It went into a cycle of
turning on and off the power.

Wondering what could possibly have gone wrong, I returned the old
RAM to the slots in place of the new RAM and plugged in the power
cord. It behaved normally, whereas the pushing the power button
started the computer. Thinking the larger size RAM might be drawing
more current and making the power supply suspect, I installed a 300W
PS in place of the 250W that had been in the computer. This had no
effect, so I returned the 250W one to the computer. The 250W power
supply had an LED on the back of the PS indicating (I suppose) that
the standby power was up.

What I discovered was that if I waited to plug in the power cord
again until after the LED went out, the oscillation I described above
would NOT occur, even if both sticks were 1 GB PC3200 ones! It was as
if the standby voltage was not coming up fast enough when the PS had
totally discharged, but if you returned the A/C when the LED had just
gone out all was fine regardless of the RAM.

Since I did not want to give someone a computer that could go into
a power oscillation like I describe above, I wired in a reset button
as this computer did not come with one. After establishing that the
reset button did work properly, I wanted to see if pushing the reset
button could stop the oscillation if pushed. It did not! So it
seemed if the 2 GB of PC3200 RAM was installed, and power was to be
restored after something like a power failure, the oscillation would
occur. I could not live with this possibility.

Since I wanted to install as much memory as possible in the
computer, I experimented to see if something less than the 2 GB of RAM
would have the same problem. It seems that as long as both sticks
were not the 1 GB sticks, everything worked fine. I ended up
installing one 1 GB stick of PC3200 and one 512 MB (high density)
stick of PC2700. From that point on, it never failed as described
above. So my question is this: Why did the computer fail to behave
properly ONLY when power was completely removed and ONLY when two 1 GB
sticks of PC3200 were installed???? Since it is no longer a problem,
I am curious to understand what might have been happening. Any
theories???


I would suspect wrong bios settings.
remove the battery for 15 minutes,or find the bios reset strap,
and let the bios initializee itself to factory settings.
Dont forget to put the reset strap back in its old position.

I appreciate your suggestion, but the computer power never really was
applied in the failure I described. Hence the bios settings could not
have come into play since there was no power to read them. Also,
without having changed any of them, they worked for a boot when the
power cord had not been removed with any combination of RAM.

Now I could be missing something.

I think you are, the bios is mis-configured perhaps, and resettng it
to factory would perhaps correct the problem.

If so, I am open to what I am
overlooking. My theory has to do with the standby voltage not coming up
soon enough to reset the logic properly, but I do not understand why the
size of the RAM has anything to do with it.

Maybe it doesn't?

"Ken" wrote in message
...
I was adding some memory (DDR) to a Compaq 6000T computer to send to a
friend. This computer is a Celeron 2 GHZ that can accept up to 2 Gig of
RAM. The minimum speed is PC2100 and the MB has two slots for memory.
It had been running with 512 MB (2x256) and can accept either high
density or low density RAM in any combination up to 2 GB.

Now the interesting part: I purchased two sticks of low density PC3200
DDR so that I could put the maximum memory in the computer before
sending it out. Upon receiving the RAM I removed the existing RAM and
installed both sticks of PC3200 RAM WITHOUT having removed the A/C power
cord. Next I ran a memory test on the new memory to make sure no errors
occurred. It passed without error and recognized the full 2 GB.
Thinking everything was fine, I unplugged the computer from the A/C and
worked on something else.

Upon returning to the computer I plugged in the power cord to the A/C
and immediately the computer tried to start without having pushed the
power start button on the computer front. It did NOT successfully
start, but went into an oscillation of the power supply starting and
stopping every half second or so. (Pushing the power button during this
event had no effect at all.) During this oscillation the power on LED
would flash and the power supply fan would start and stop. I unplugged
the power cord after a few seconds of this and waited a couple of
seconds before plugging it in again. Upon plugging in the cord again,
the same thing happened again. It went into a cycle of turning on and
off the power.

Wondering what could possibly have gone wrong, I returned the old RAM
to the slots in place of the new RAM and plugged in the power cord. It
behaved normally, whereas the pushing the power button started the
computer. Thinking the larger size RAM might be drawing more current
and making the power supply suspect, I installed a 300W PS in place of
the 250W that had been in the computer. This had no effect, so I
returned the 250W one to the computer. The 250W power supply had an LED
on the back of the PS indicating (I suppose) that the standby power was
up.

What I discovered was that if I waited to plug in the power cord again
until after the LED went out, the oscillation I described above would
NOT occur, even if both sticks were 1 GB PC3200 ones! It was as if the
standby voltage was not coming up fast enough when the PS had totally
discharged, but if you returned the A/C when the LED had just gone out
all was fine regardless of the RAM.

Since I did not want to give someone a computer that could go into a
power oscillation like I describe above, I wired in a reset button as
this computer did not come with one. After establishing that the reset
button did work properly, I wanted to see if pushing the reset button
could stop the oscillation if pushed. It did not! So it seemed if the
2 GB of PC3200 RAM was installed, and power was to be restored after
something like a power failure, the oscillation would occur. I could
not live with this possibility.

Since I wanted to install as much memory as possible in the computer, I
experimented to see if something less than the 2 GB of RAM would have
the same problem. It seems that as long as both sticks were not the 1
GB sticks, everything worked fine. I ended up installing one 1 GB stick
of PC3200 and one 512 MB (high density) stick of PC2700. From that
point on, it never failed as described above. So my question is this:
Why did the computer fail to behave properly ONLY when power was
completely removed and ONLY when two 1 GB sticks of PC3200 were
installed???? Since it is no longer a problem, I am curious to
understand what might have been happening. Any theories???

perhaps not properly seated causing short.

On Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:43:49 -0500, Ken wrote:

Why did the computer fail to behave properly ONLY when power was
completely removed and ONLY when two 1 GB sticks of PC3200 were
installed???? Since it is no longer a problem, I am curious to
understand what might have been happening. Any theories???

Either you blew something by plugging the ram in while the standby
power was on or the new ram requires more standby power than the power
supply can produce. Standby power is low and you 300W psu may not have
a higher current rating for standby than the 250W one, it may be that
only the 5v or 12v rails can give more power. The labels on the psu
usually have the ratings for each rail.

Have you tried both 1GB sticks with a 512MB one and they both give the
same symptoms?

--
Regards - Rodney Pont
The from address exists but is mostly dumped,
please send any emails to the address below
e-mail ngpsm4 (at) infohitsystems (dot) ltd (dot) uk

To the extent that I understand your problem, I think it's a non-problem.

In general, it's not enough to simply shut down the machine. Before doing
any work, you should throw the "standby" switch on the back to "off", and
wait for the green LED to go out. Then, and only then, should you swap
cards, update memory, etc.

If the machine still boots correctly when its original memory is installed,
then there is nothing wrong with the machine. If the machine does not boot
correctly when the new memory is installed (the standby power off), then
either the memory is defective, or it is not the appropriate memory for that
machine.

In short (no joke intended), I don't think you have a problem. At least, not
with the computer itself. I would not, at this time, worry about "why".

Rodney Pont wrote:
On Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:43:49 -0500, Ken wrote:

Why did the computer fail to behave properly ONLY when power was
completely removed and ONLY when two 1 GB sticks of PC3200 were
installed???? Since it is no longer a problem, I am curious to
understand what might have been happening. Any theories???

Either you blew something by plugging the ram in while the standby
power was on or the new ram requires more standby power than the power
supply can produce.

This makes the most sense. I am not sure the standby current is listed
for either PS on the label. Each rail is, but not the standby current.

As for blowing something, both sticks work just fine. In fact, I took
one stick I had replaced with a 512MB one and placed it in my current
computer when I saw a possibility existed for a problem when a total
power shut down occurred. Both sticks are working just fine right now.

Standby power is low and you 300W psu may not have
a higher current rating for standby than the 250W one, it may be that
only the 5v or 12v rails can give more power. The labels on the psu
usually have the ratings for each rail.

Have you tried both 1GB sticks with a 512MB one and they both give the
same symptoms?


Yes, it did not matter which 1GB stick was used. They behaved the same
way.

William Sommerwerck wrote:
To the extent that I understand your problem, I think it's a non-problem.

I agree, I do not have a problem. I am just curious as to why the
computer behaved as it did. Call me overly aggressive, but I like to
come away from a problem with an explanation to a solution. In most
cases when you find the solution you are able to understand why it
behaved as it did.


In general, it's not enough to simply shut down the machine. Before doing
any work, you should throw the "standby" switch on the back to "off", and
wait for the green LED to go out. Then, and only then, should you swap
cards, update memory, etc.

I do not dispute your point. That IS the best way. But in this case a
complete removal of power (such as a power failure) forces the power
supply to continually cycle with no way to interrupt it. Even the reset
button would not interrupt it.



If the machine still boots correctly when its original memory is installed,
then there is nothing wrong with the machine. If the machine does not boot
correctly when the new memory is installed (the standby power off), then
either the memory is defective, or it is not the appropriate memory for that
machine.

I am not trying to be argumentative, I appreciate your input and that
of everyone else. But if the memory were defective, why would it
operate correctly with either 1 GB stick, but not both??



In short (no joke intended), I don't think you have a problem. At least, not
with the computer itself. I would not, at this time, worry about "why".



As I said, I am curious as to why it behaved as it did.

I am not trying to be argumentative, I appreciate your input and
that of everyone else. But if the memory were defective, why
would it operate correctly with either 1 GB stick, but not both?

Good question. Does the computer support two 1GB sticks of that memory type?
Also, does it matter which stick goes in which slot?

You needn't reply; I'm just asking questions.


As I said, I am curious as to why it behaved as it did.

And I didn't fully understand what you were getting at.

William Sommerwerck wrote:
I am not trying to be argumentative, I appreciate your input and
that of everyone else. But if the memory were defective, why
would it operate correctly with either 1 GB stick, but not both?

Good question. Does the computer support two 1GB sticks of that memory type?
Also, does it matter which stick goes in which slot?

You needn't reply; I'm just asking questions.

I don't mind replying if you don't mind reading it. Both 1 GB sticks
DO work in the computer and pass a rigorous test regardless of their
slot. The problem only exists when the computer is applied power from a
totally off condition. That is with no standby voltage built up and
applied to the motherboard.

If I were to install the 2 GB of RAM with standby voltage applied to
the MB, it would run just fine.


As I said, I am curious as to why it behaved as it did.

And I didn't fully understand what you were getting at.

I agree, I do not have a problem. I am just curious as to why the
computer behaved as it did. Call me overly aggressive, but I like to
come away from a problem with an explanation to a solution. In most
cases when you find the solution you are able to understand why it
behaved as it did.

Something I have noticed repeatedly, with modern PCs having ACPI-aware
BIOSen and "soft" power supply switching, is the following:

- PC was shut down properly, unplugged, and serviced

- PC is plugged back into the wall

- There is an obvious surge of current - lights dim in the room for a
moment, fans start to spin, power LED comes on, etc.

- PC apparently shuts down, stops drawing power... fans stop, lights
go out, etc.

- Pressing the power-on button causes the motherboard and peripherals
to power up and boot.

In systems of this sort, the power-supply switch is "soft"... it's
actually just a logic signal to some circuitry on the motherboard,
which is powered by the PSU's low-current "standby" supply, and which
kicks the rest of the system awake. A similar kick can be provided by
the "wake on LAN" signal from the Ethernet adapter.

These motherboards also tend to have a BIOS setting which tells them
what to do when power is applied from a cold start: remain off, or
power up, or restore the previous power state.

I believe that the system design is such that if the motherboard is
powered down completely (i.e. no standby power available from the
PSU), it will automatically tug on the "power on, please!" line to the
PSU. Thus, when the PSU is plugged it, it'll immediately switch on
and provide full power to the motherboard, which goes through a full
reset, initializes the CPU, and starts up the BIOS.

The BIOS then presumably goes through some amount of its normal POST
processing, reads the system configuration out of NVRAM, and decides
whether it ought to power up. If so, it just continues with the boot.
If not, it configures the motherboard to generate another power-supply
wakeup event if the POWER button is pressed, and then switches off the
main power supply (leaving the standby supply running).

I can well believe that if there's a failure of some critical
early-stage step in the POST (including a failure to initialize the
DRAM controller or the DRAM itself), then the system might either just
stop dead in its tracks, or attempt another power-off/power-on cycle
to do a really *hard* reset of the failing hardware.

I suspect that's what you were seeing, if you plugged in some DRAM
that the motherboard "didn't like" for one reason or another.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

"Ken" wrote in message
...
William Sommerwerck wrote:

I am not trying to be argumentative, I appreciate your input and
that of everyone else. But if the memory were defective, why
would it operate correctly with either 1 GB stick, but not both?

Good question. Does the computer support two 1GB sticks of
that memory type? Also, does it matter which stick goes in which
slot? You needn't reply; I'm just asking questions.

I don't mind replying if you don't mind reading it. Both 1 GB sticks
DO work in the computer and pass a rigorous test regardless of
their slot. The problem only exists when the computer is applied
power from a totally off condition. That is with no standby voltage
built up and applied to the motherboard.


Ah! Well...

What happens when you turn on the standby power ("the green LED") and then
wait briefly before applying the main power (that is, pressing the main
power switch)? This is the usual way PCs are operated. I think.

I can't think of any other way of doing things. You have to turn on the
standby power before you start the machine, and it takes at least a second
or two to get your hand from the standby power switch to the main power
button.

Again, no reply is needed. I don't want to waste your time considering
possibly incorrect suggestions.

On Thu, 04 Jun 2009 18:05:28 -0500, Ken wrote:

Either you blew something by plugging the ram in while the standby
power was on or the new ram requires more standby power than the power
supply can produce.

This makes the most sense. I am not sure the standby current is listed
for either PS on the label. Each rail is, but not the standby current.

It is on every psu I've looked at, +5Vsb. It's not very high about 1amp
but I did have a motherboard that required 1.5amp minimum.

The power supply comes fully on initially, as another poster explained,
to run the cpu and read the BIOS to see what to do on power
application. Your psu is trying to do this but the initial surge is too
much for it and it shuts down and then has another go. I've seen this
when a drive failed once and once when lightning took out the memory on
a system.

You could try disconnecting the drives to see what happens but check
the 3.3v rail limits on the psu labels between your 250 and 350W psus.
It may just be the 5 and 12 volts that have extra current and the 3.3v
rails have the same limits. The memory uses the 3.3v rails [1] with on
motherboard regulators dropping it to what the memory needs, and it's
possible that the new memory is simply taking too much when when first
switched on. What I'm trying to say is that just because a power supply
is a higher wattage it doesn't necessarily follow that all rails have
the limits increased.

I'd want to run a memory test, such as Memtest86(+) for 24 hours though
to ensure that the memory wasn't damaged by inserting it with the
standby power on. The system gets the settings for the ram from a chip
on the ram module and if that's been damaged the defaults may be a
little high and overheat things after a while causing failures. If you
are running Windows then CPU-Z should be able to read and display the
ram configuration for you.


[1] usually I think, at one time memory was run at 3.3v but nowadays it
seems to be around about 2v and I don't know if that's from the 3.3v
rail or the 5v rail regulated down.

--
Regards - Rodney Pont
The from address exists but is mostly dumped,
please send any emails to the address below
e-mail ngpsm4 (at) infohitsystems (dot) ltd (dot) uk

Rodney Pont wrote:
On Thu, 04 Jun 2009 18:05:28 -0500, Ken wrote:

Either you blew something by plugging the ram in while the standby
power was on or the new ram requires more standby power than the power
supply can produce.
This makes the most sense. I am not sure the standby current is listed
for either PS on the label. Each rail is, but not the standby current.

It is on every psu I've looked at, +5Vsb. It's not very high about 1amp
but I did have a motherboard that required 1.5amp minimum.

The power supply comes fully on initially, as another poster explained,
to run the cpu and read the BIOS to see what to do on power
application. Your psu is trying to do this but the initial surge is too
much for it and it shuts down and then has another go. I've seen this
when a drive failed once and once when lightning took out the memory on
a system.

I think this is exactly what is happening. There definitely seems to
be a correlation between the initial surge and it failing as it did. If
you recall I could overcome this failure by allowing the LED on the PS
to turn off and immediately plug in the power cord again. I suspect the
standby voltage had started to discharge but not yet fully discharged
and that built up voltage overcame the surge.


You could try disconnecting the drives to see what happens but check
the 3.3v rail limits on the psu labels between your 250 and 350W psus.

I do wish I had thought of unplugging the hard drives and trying it,
but I have already sent off the computer.

It may just be the 5 and 12 volts that have extra current and the 3.3v
rails have the same limits. The memory uses the 3.3v rails [1] with on
motherboard regulators dropping it to what the memory needs, and it's
possible that the new memory is simply taking too much when when first
switched on. What I'm trying to say is that just because a power supply
is a higher wattage it doesn't necessarily follow that all rails have
the limits increased.

I'd want to run a memory test, such as Memtest86(+) for 24 hours though
to ensure that the memory wasn't damaged by inserting it with the
standby power on. The system gets the settings for the ram from a chip
on the ram module and if that's been damaged the defaults may be a
little high and overheat things after a while causing failures. If you
are running Windows then CPU-Z should be able to read and display the
ram configuration for you.

I have AIDA32 on both computers utilizing the PC3200 RAM, and the SPD
chip on each stick reads correctly. I did not run the memory test for
more than twenty minutes, but both computers are working perfectly with
the PC3200 RAM.

I admit that I do not have a problem, but a curiosity. One thing that
puzzles me however is the failure of the manual reset I wired in to
reset the logic during the failure I described. One would have thought
if anything were being read from the bios, that the +5 volts would need
to be up. If the +5 were up, then the reset would have also worked.
This is why I doubt that the wake by LAN or any bios setting could
account for the power starting and stopping every 1/2 second. I don't
think the +5 ever reaches that level. In fact I tend to believe the
standby voltage is also not up to an adequate level.

At any rate, I got some good suggestions and comments. The next time I
encounter such a problem I have a couple more ideas I might explore.
Thanks to all who commented.




[1] usually I think, at one time memory was run at 3.3v but nowadays it
seems to be around about 2v and I don't know if that's from the 3.3v
rail or the 5v rail regulated down.

On Fri, 05 Jun 2009 07:18:57 -0500, Ken wrote:

I admit that I do not have a problem, but a curiosity. One thing that
puzzles me however is the failure of the manual reset I wired in to
reset the logic during the failure I described. One would have thought
if anything were being read from the bios, that the +5 volts would need
to be up. If the +5 were up, then the reset would have also worked.
This is why I doubt that the wake by LAN or any bios setting could
account for the power starting and stopping every 1/2 second. I don't
think the +5 ever reaches that level. In fact I tend to believe the
standby voltage is also not up to an adequate level.

I shouldn't think it was getting up to read the BIOS or see the reset
switch. It would be the psu that's doing the shut down due to overload
and nothing to do with the bios.

--
Regards - Rodney Pont
The from address exists but is mostly dumped,
please send any emails to the address below
e-mail ngpsm4 (at) infohitsystems (dot) ltd (dot) uk

Hi!

I was adding some memory (DDR) to a Compaq 6000T computer
to send to a friend. *This computer is a Celeron 2 GHZ that can
accept up to 2 Gig of RAM. *The minimum speed is PC2100 and
the MB has two slots for memory.

Is this an ASUS board? (read on, you'll see why this might be
interesting...)

Now the interesting part: *I purchased two sticks of low density
PC3200 DDR so that I could put the maximum memory in the
computer before sending it out.
Upon returning to the computer I plugged in the power cord to
the A/C and immediately the computer tried to start without
having pushed the power start button on the computer front.
*It did NOT successfully start, but went into an oscillation of the
power supply starting and stopping every half second or so.

I have an HP Pavilion from about the same timeframe that behaved
precisely the same way. I picked it up off the curb, complete with
monitor keyboard and mouse. It is based on an ASUS board.

The powering on from a dead stop after sevreal hours unplugged
suggests a weak CMOS battery, which is well within the realm of
possibility. This isn't always immediately noticeable, as most ATX
motherboards maintain the memory from the standby power coming out of
the power supply while they're plugged in. The battery is only used
when the system is completely without power.

When the battery goes bad, some boards even lose track of their power
state and come back on as though it is the default state.

My HP system did this, and replacing the CMOS battery (about $3, it's
a CR2032 cell) solved that problem.

But then the cycling started up. I upgraded the memory in much the
same way you did, using PC3200 parts. The system was happy, passed a
memory test and then the next time I went to use it, it would only
cycle repeatedly with a tiny "flub" noise from the power supply. The
cycling indicates a power supply which is going into overload or short
circuit protection, coming out of it when the supply shuts down and
starting the cycle over again.

I cleaned and *firmly* reseated the memory. It solved the problem.

Every now and again, when the weather changes or the computer is moved
(it is not, for obvious reasons, a primary system of mine) I have to
reseat the memory or this problem crops up. My guess is that either
the memory DIMMs were not quite made properly or there is something
slightly strange about the sockets they go into.

William

William R. Walsh wrote:
Hi!

I was adding some memory (DDR) to a Compaq 6000T computer
to send to a friend. This computer is a Celeron 2 GHZ that can
accept up to 2 Gig of RAM. The minimum speed is PC2100 and
the MB has two slots for memory.

Is this an ASUS board? (read on, you'll see why this might be
interesting...)

I really do not know who made the MB for Compaq. Since I no longer
have it, I cannot answer that question. I do know it was seen as a
"Trigem Glendale," and I have seen some comments about Asus. Perhaps
Asus makes it??


Now the interesting part: I purchased two sticks of low density
PC3200 DDR so that I could put the maximum memory in the
computer before sending it out.
Upon returning to the computer I plugged in the power cord to
the A/C and immediately the computer tried to start without
having pushed the power start button on the computer front.
It did NOT successfully start, but went into an oscillation of the
power supply starting and stopping every half second or so.

I have an HP Pavilion from about the same timeframe that behaved
precisely the same way. I picked it up off the curb, complete with
monitor keyboard and mouse. It is based on an ASUS board.

The powering on from a dead stop after sevreal hours unplugged
suggests a weak CMOS battery, which is well within the realm of
possibility.

The CMOS battery is not the problem, as I replaced the old one with a
new one. The old one measured 2.92 volts and since I had it open I
thought it was easier to put a new one in.

This isn't always immediately noticeable, as most ATX
motherboards maintain the memory from the standby power coming out of
the power supply while they're plugged in. The battery is only used
when the system is completely without power.

When the battery goes bad, some boards even lose track of their power
state and come back on as though it is the default state.

My HP system did this, and replacing the CMOS battery (about $3, it's
a CR2032 cell) solved that problem.

But then the cycling started up. I upgraded the memory in much the
same way you did, using PC3200 parts. The system was happy, passed a
memory test and then the next time I went to use it, it would only
cycle repeatedly with a tiny "flub" noise from the power supply. The
cycling indicates a power supply which is going into overload or short
circuit protection, coming out of it when the supply shuts down and
starting the cycle over again.

You seem to have experienced the same problem as I did.

I cleaned and *firmly* reseated the memory. It solved the problem.

Every now and again, when the weather changes or the computer is moved
(it is not, for obvious reasons, a primary system of mine) I have to
reseat the memory or this problem crops up. My guess is that either
the memory DIMMs were not quite made properly or there is something
slightly strange about the sockets they go into.

I cannot argue with the results you achieved. All I can say is
re-seating did not solve my problem. In fact even after I had resigned
myself to the 1 GB + 512 MB stick combination, I went back to see if the
problem would occur again consistently. (I am one of those people who
has a hard time accepting a mystery, as I am convinced there IS an
explanation, just not known.) It behaved the same way again! It did
not matter which socket was used or which 1 GB stick was used. If the
combination was two of the 1 GB sticks, it would fail the same way. If
I placed one 512 MB stick in combination with a 1 GB stick, it worked.

It might just be that I will have to accept this mystery? It does
however make me wonder if the two different speeds had an impact? The
thing that upsets all my theories is the ability for it to run with 2 GB
if the standby voltage is still applied or not totally discharged.

I do appreciate your comments and your relating how you encountered the
same problem. It convinced me that I am not losing my mind!!



William

Ken wrote:

I really do not know who made the MB for Compaq. Since I no longer
have it, I cannot answer that question. I do know it was seen as a
"Trigem Glendale," and I have seen some comments about Asus. Perhaps
Asus makes it??


Trigem made it. Glendale is the model. Trigem made a lot of older HP
& Emachines motherboards. The only difference in some was the bios
chip. Their 'Florida' model was in a lot of Win ME models.


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense!

[about misbehavior in odd circumstances after RAM install]

There are some complications that can be dismissed, like

(a) the standby power is a small +5V supply, and runs some watchdog
circuitry, and perhaps the system clocks. PC3200 RAM uses 2.5V. It
is completely irrelevant to memory install whether 'standby' is off or
not.
Off is recommended, just in case wires get crossed during install.

(b) SDRAM is not a heavy consumer of power, it is NEVER necessary
to upgrade the power supply when adding SDRAM.

(c) startup with a 'new' RAM configuration always does different
things
from normal, because there are new memory-map tables to be
constructed.
Even if you set the BIOS to skip long memory test, a long memory test
WILL occur.

(d) immediate startup on power-connect is a normal behavior for lots
of server-class machines. If it surprises you, check the BIOS
settings and
the battery.

There are two explanations to the odd occurrence: the memory-table
build
step could be not fully supporting the new configuration (look for
BIOS
flash upgrades and/or try another memory-slot for the big modules), or
maybe the power parts on the logic board are full of dying capacitors
and sometimes the good RAM fails a memory test due to noisy power.

William R. Walsh wrote:
I cleaned and *firmly* reseated the memory. It solved the problem.

Every now and again, when the weather changes or the computer is moved
(it is not, for obvious reasons, a primary system of mine) I have to
reseat the memory or this problem crops up. My guess is that either
the memory DIMMs were not quite made properly or there is something
slightly strange about the sockets they go into.

Next time, try air-gunning or dusting out the RAM sockets before
plugging in the RAM.

--
W
. | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because
\|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." Perna condita delenda est
---^----^---------------------------------------------------------------