Extremely slow ram count and reboot after post

Question

My system was running fine (Dell 4400, 2.4hz, 768 ram, XP) until I decided to give it to my Dad. After that, I put in his 56k modem and MSI Ti4200 video card and now it wont boot. It first said low CMOS battery, then no boot device so I check the BIOS and sure enough all my settings are gone. I corrected everything except boot devices and it wouldnt recognize my Western Digital 120gb hard drive. Ok, so I check all my cables thinking I may have bumped something but all connections are tight. During the course of my many reboots I notice strange symbols and garbled characters on the screen and also the ram count is extremely slow. After it finishes counting ram it goes to a black screen and reboots. So I removed the modem and tried another known good video card and even changed electrical outlets but the same thing keeps happening. At least the BIOS now recognizes my hard drive and cdrom, so I swapped out different ram sticks and get the same results. Finally I unplugged all devices, hard drive, cdrom, floppy, etc. to see if the BIOS would POST normal but it still won't and the ram count is still extremely slow. Could his video card or modem card somehow shorted out something on the motherboard? Would flashing the BIOS be a possible solution? I'm stumped. Any help would be appreciated.

volcano11 · Answer

Have you tried replacing the CMOS battery? Steve

Crazydog · Answer

I havent replaced the CMOS battery b/c I've never known that to cause the ram check to be slow, but I could be wrong. Also, the garbled characters makes me think something has caused the ram sticks to go bad. The memory is Crucial which I have high regards for, which makes me think a pci or agp card caused the problem but I'm not an expert in that area. I'm gonna try a couple other things. Just wondered if anybody had encountered any similar issues.

Majestic · Answer

Try taking out the video card and see if that resolves the problem.  I am assuming your model has the integrated video so try switching back to that and give it a try.  Garbled characters on previously readable screens during boot up can be an indication of video card problems.

Crazydog · Answer

On mine it does not have integrated video so I swapped out video cards again and removed one of the ram sticks and it finally booted to cd-rom where I could reinstall Windows but it is still extremely slow. What should have been a 25 minute install took 2 hours. The memory check during bootup goes in 4mb increments and takes about 1 second for each 4mb count. The four diagnostic lights on the back are all green now but something is still not right since it is so slow. What would cause the ram count to be so slow?

Majestic · Answer

Since it is possible for the NVRAM to become corrupted after a hardware change, have you ever tried clearing the NVRAM ?  Although the BIOS Setup does have an option for resetting the configuration I would try doing a 'hard' reset of the NVRAM instead by pulling the battery from the motherboard.   Just follow these directions for doing a 'hard' reset....   With the machine unplugged from the wall remove the battery from the motherboard.  Then with the machine still unplugged press the On button for several seconds to dissipate any remaining electrical charge on the motherboard.  Then re-install the battery, plug the machine back into the wall and see if it will boot normally.   If the NVRAM clearing doesn't offer any improvement then I would try running the Dell Diagnostics on the system if it is still booting up.  That may or may not give you an indication of where the problem lies.  Have you also checked the BIOS Setup to see if the Quick Boot option is enabled?  By having that option enabled it should skip over the RAM testing at boot up and speed things up although that is sort of a band-aid fix to the problem.

Crazydog · Answer

Mr. Majestic, you sir are a genius. I emailed Dell tech support and even chatted with them live online and they kept giving me basic 'scripted' responses and never understood the advanced nature of my issue as you did. Apparently the NVRAM became corrupted when I installed the new pci cards. Even though I used the BIOS option to 'Reset all config' it apparently did not work as promised. Once I did as you suggested it cleared the corrupt NVRAM and I installed all my devices again with both sticks of ram, reformatted and reinstalled Windows and everything booted up superfast no problems whatsoever. Turns out that was all that was wrong and I was so worried my ram or motherboard was bad. Amazing how something as simple as this has given me so much frustration the last few days. My hat goes off to you for your expert advice and taking the time to help a stranger out... Thank you

Majestic · Answer

Glad to hear everything is up an running!  As always, I am happy to be of assistance!

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Extremely slow ram count and reboot after post

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