Problem with mobo/ram

[alidabiri]

hi,
i have home made pc that i built in march 2006. it's based on asus p5rd1-v. two 100 gb hard drives, 1024 mb ram, dvd-r, cd-r, modem, and nic card. it has windows xp-pro.
the pc was working ok until recently. when i booted up, the motherborad logo used to appear for a couple of seconds and then go away, and the windows xp would start.
now, the motherboard logo appears and stays on without going further. i have to turn off the pc, and turn it back on for it to go normally. and after the motherboard logo, it gives a message that "could not start overclocking, f1=setup, f2=load defaults".
i have also noticed that my memory that used to show 1024 mb in "my computer" property, now shows 960 mb. somehow i have lost 64 mb of my ram. the ram sticks are 256, 256, and 512.
sometimes when i turn the machien on, a long continuous beep sounds and stays on. if the motherboard battery goes bad, could it cause this?
can anyone explain what this probelm is caused by?
thanks.

 

[vintwala]

Hey,

I don't think that the motherboard battery would cause something like this. You should try going into the bios and load default settings. If that doesn't fix the problem, then you should start with just one memory chip and then add more if the problem goes away, because it could be different memory speeds. If that doesn't fix the problems then you should try updating the bios itself.

If all of the above doesnt fix the problem then you should strip down the computer and just start with the minimum required components. And work your way up from there.

Hope this helps.

 

[kitty500cat]

I think it might be a RAM problem. If you have your CPU, RAM, and/or FSB overclocked, I'd recommend undoing that before proceeding. Do you have a spare video card that you could put in it to see if that helps it work? Also, what kind of BIOS do you have (i.e. Award, Phoenix, etc.)? I think the problem w/going from 1GB to 960MB is that, at least it would seem, that the extra 64MB is somehow for your onboard graphics (cuz I have 512MB but it only shows up as 448 because 64 is allocated for onboard graphics).

And I agree w/what vintwala said.

--kitty

 

[alidabiri]

kitty, i have onboard video. but the pc always showed the right amount of ram. only recently, it started showing 960 instead of 1024. it happened after i installed 512 mb of ram.
vint,
i think you're right about the different memory speeds. the pc had 512 mb of ram. i'm not sure if it was 3200 or 2700. so, i bought another 512 mb which was 3200. that's when the pc started having problems. is there anyway i can find out what memory speeds i have? i have 2 sticks each 256mb (unknown speed). and i have one stick that is 512 mb (3200). is it possible to mix and match them? or as you say, it would cause problems?

 

[Tedster]

read the NO POST/ Troubleshooting guide in the guides forum

read the FAQs about installing RAM in this forum.

 

[alidabiri]

i can't seem to find "no post / troubleshooting guide" or FAQ about installing ram.

ted,
excellent faq on troubleshooting ram/upgrading. i now see what my problem may be. the two rams have different speeds. one is for sure 3200. the other ones, i'm not sure. is there anyway to find out? what speed a ram stick is?

 

[Tedster]

the troubleshooting / NO POST guide is definately in the guides forum. At the bottom of your screen (in that forum) select show all posts from the beginning.

CPU-z program will tell specs about ram, cpu, etc...