my PC has been dead since february and i've decided its time to try and resurrect.. i've chatted to ryan about it at length and he suggested that i ask on here as you're a tech savvy and helpful bunch!

so, i built my system last august and everything was grand until it died in early january (i was playing crysis). Every time i turned it on after that point it would enter into an infinite boot/crash cycle. I had a fiddle with it and took out a stick of ram (from 2x1gb sticks, to 1x1gb) which seemed to sort it out and it began booting as normal. hurrah!

But, around february i started needing to do quite a bit of image processing for uni and it started running annoyingly slow, locking up and crashing (usually all 3) and i kept losing data. I assumed that it may be a RAM issue so i tried putting the other stick of ram back in which turned out to be a stupid move and it hasn't booted since.

Here's the specs:
Psu: Antec TruePower Trio 650W
Mobo: ASUS P5K AiLifestyle Series iP35 Socket 775 mobo
Cpu: Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 2.66GHz 1333FSB Socket 775 4MB Cache
Hdd: Seagate ST3500630AS 500GB Hard Drive SATAII 16MB Cache 7200RPM
Sound: Creative Soundblaster X-fi Xtreme Gamer Soundcard
Gfx: XFX GeForce 8800GTS (320mb)
Ram: Corsair TwinX 2gb DDR2 (2x1gb) 1333FSB

(copied directly from ebuyer invoice)

Since i stuck the other stick of ram back in it doesn't boot. I've swapped the ram around between sockets, one in/one out etc, even went back to the original configuration where it booted ok and its to no avail. Pressing the power button causes it to power up.. all the fans go around and the lights flicker into life but theres no other output at all; no beeps, no display.. doesn't matter how long i wait, it does absolutely zilch. It's not the gfx card, power supply or sound card as i've tested them in another system and they work fine. So it's either the cpu, mobo or the ram itself. I've reset the mobo bios etc and nowt changes.

anyone have any suggestions or have any similar experiences? normally i'd just splash out and replace the lot but thats not really an option as im meant to be saving for my phd. i love technology but its ridiuclous when it breaks! any help would be appreciated!

i just had this exact same problem with some new ram i tried installing this morning. put the new sticks in, nothing, just spinning fans. take the ram out and its back to normal.

so i would put my money on your ram being duff. also, if it was crashing after a while and not straight away when some strain was put on it, that sounds like the ram too. when i tried overlclocking my stuff it would be fine for like 3 or 4 hours then when the ram started to fill up it would get to a dodgy stick and just hang.

It deffo sounds like your RAM, what sort of warranty does it have?

(certain makes might have a lifetime warranty)

You could try easing off the latency timings of the ram in your BIOS too, that might help

good shout on the warranty front, i had a look around and i've got both lifetime warrenty with corsair and with scan.co.uk. I'm going to check the details of each to see which would be better to chase up.

i would change the ram timings and setting in bios but i cant get to it with no display.. im going to have a rummage later and see if i've got any spare/old ram modules knocking around i can try! will let you know how it goes!

hopefully i'll figure out what it is soon and get it fixed before uni starts, im using my macbook at the minute and its not up to any of the stuff i need to do!

Sounds to me like the ram is fubar, contact Scan and ask them who it's best to RMA the sticks with, as it's a year or so, they're going to say go direct to Corsair I'd bet.

Could also try resetting your bios with the jumper.

im in agreement with the rest that its probably the ram...