1-3-4 has to do with memory.

Try install just one stick at a time and see if it boots (one only in first bank)

I would bet that you have a bad stick. Try all four to find bad one (but only one at a time)

 

Mike

 

System (1) XPS720
Windows Vista Ultimate
Intel® Core™2 Quad Q6600 2.40 GHz 1066 Mhz, 4Gb Crucial DDR2 PC2-6400 800MHz SLI-Ready
Qty.(1) Seagate Barracuda 250Gb Hard Drive, Qty.(2) Seagate Barracuda 500Gb Hard Drive
nVidia GeForce 8800 GTX 786Mb Memory, Dual Drives: 16X DVD-RW & 16X DVD-Rom
Dell 24" Widescreen Flat Panel LCD Monitor

 

System's (2) thru (15) Vostro 400's
Intel® Core™2 Quad Q6600 2.40GHz 1066MHz, Windows XP Home Edition
2GB Dell DDR2 PC-6400 800MHz, 128MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8300GS
250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive, Dual Drives: 16X DVD-RW Burner & 48X CD Burner/DVD
Dell 20" Widescreen Flat Panel LCD Monitor

PaulTech,

Researching this.

Memory?  Goodness, could that really be possible again?

 

It passed the diagnostics. 

 

I ordered the machine with 4GB of the "good stuff" ... 1066Mhz Corsair Dominator. 

 

The memory died in February.  I had never opened the case, moved the machine. overclocked the machine, or run any performance applicatons on the machine.

 

It is a render workstation with 3 monitors attached, and not an Xtreme Gaming enthusiast machine that is pushed to the limit.

 

The CPU runs at 2.93Ghz (stock), and because of the prior failure, we run the memory in non-sli mode (800Mhz).  The machine arrived with the CPU clocked at 3.2Ghz.  We underclocked the shipped and warranted speed, because the CPU was hitting 83C on Prime95.

 

We are extremely conservative with the $5,000+ beast.  We should have gotten a lessor machine for less money, but the 2 graphics cards were a necessity. 

 

Nothing is really stressing the machine beyond its specificatons.  We're not pushing it at all.

 

When the memory failed in February, they sent "refurbished" replacement sticks.  One of the replacement sticks arrived from DHL broken.  As in physically broken with the heat spreaders fallen off.

 

So we had to get yet another RMA for that stick.  They refused to send matched pairs (which is better for high performance memory), and only replaced the one physically damaged stick.  So we apparently got Dimms from the Frankenstein bin, and decided to clock them down from the shipping confirugation.

 

If it's the memory again, we're going to have to cry foul and just hold it out as a lemon. 

 

It was bought at new, retail, with no discounts.  No penny was spared.

 

It's hooked up to a UPS with power conditioning, and all other machines in the building have no issues. 

 

If the memory is failing at a rate of once every 3 months or so, then I have to think that there is an underlying problem causing the memory to go bad.  RAM doesn't typically crash like this.   Unless it is really, really inferior RAM.

 

Either the memory banks (essentially the motherboard) or the memory is bad.  I would suggest contacting dell and getting a motherboard replacement at this point.

Yes, I guess that is my only option.

 

Although if I wanted to build my own PC, I could have done it for significantly less money.

 

I suppose I should have since I will be doing so anyway.  Live and learn.

 

One of these day I am going to find out what the "next day on-site service" is all about, since I do all of the shipping and labor.  (They make sure to pester me to send back the parts I replace, even though THEY are supposed to be replacing them at my office and I shouldn't have to make two trips to DHL).

 

*I* do the onsite service, typically after it takes the parts 4 business days to get here.  I wonder if I will be getting a technician paycheck? 

 

Not sure why things go bad so frequently on this machine.  Like I said, must be a lemon.

 

They should document the 1-3-4 failure, since the light sequence absolutely does exist. 

 

 

I had the same problem, it was the memory for me. do you have epp/sli enabled in the bios. these boards   the (680i) are notorious for overvolting the memory and frying a stick of memory. I would suggest to find the bad stick and send them back to be replaced as a kit. then I would look for a spd for the ram and flash it to a lower voltage, this could solve your problems.   Madbirmy

Yeah, this appears to be what happend with the first set of RAM a couple of months ago.  The RAM fried during the A04 -> A05 BIOS upgrade.

 

It was running in SLI mode at that time. 

 

After getting the replacement RAM, we run it in non-SLI/EPP mode, or 800Mhz.

 

This thing is totally UNDER-clocked from the factory shipped condition. 

 

Frankly, I had no problems before A05.  Other than graphics card drivers dumping.

 

I still have the .exe for the A04 BIOS.

 

Does anyone know if it will do any damage to flash back to A04 from A05? 

 

I really feel like this BIOS just eats RAM.  Especialy if it is loaded with 4GB. 

 

 

Hi,

 

Don't get me started with DHL from ????,

 

But please try my suggestion, you can narrow it down. If all your sticks allow you to boot into windows (again one at a time) then you can rule out the memory. and maybe along the problem has been the motherboard.

 

Mike

I don't think it's the memory per-se.  I thrown all kinds of memory tests at it, built in, and third party, such as memtest86 +.  No problems.

 

I just ran it for 2 hours, and not one memory problem.  The first time the memory went bad, the memory tests picked it up quickly.

 

Dell's diagnostic "stress tests" in the maintanance partition also return no errors. 

 

If I unplug the machine, press the bower button to get rid of the flea power, and reboot, it will let me in about 40% of the time, after doing a "startup recovery".

 

When I dig into the details, it says that it crashed because "system configuration changed".

 

Exactly what changes, it does not say.

 

It also doesn't explain why it fails to post after these mysterious crashes.

  

There is a specific sequence of things that I can do to get it rebooted sometimes.

 

Oh, and when I can get back in, the year is always reset to 2002.

 

Something is just ugly.

 

I am thinking about trying to downgrade the BIOS to A04, but that may make things worse.

 

I don't think swapping memory modules would do much of anything. 

 

What a mess. 

You should just try one stick at a time to rule it out. I believe you have a bad stick of ram. it's your call though.