That tip about booting with one stick of RAM saved me 2 hours

Someone on another forum mentioned that if a PC won't POST, try stripping it down to one RAM stick in slot A2. I had a Dell Optiplex sitting on my bench for 3 hours last Wednesday that I assumed had a dead CPU, but I tried that trick and it booted right up. Anyone else found simple troubleshooting steps that get overlooked too often?

2 comments

2 Comments

hugo_hayes1mo ago

That same trick saved me last month with a HP ProDesk. I had already ordered a replacement PSU and was about to swap the motherboard when I found an old forum post about single stick boot testing. Popped one RAM module out, cleared CMOS, and it fired right up. What gets ignored way too often is actually unplugging all USB devices too. I had a bad USB hub once that was shorting the 5V rail and preventing POST. Took me two days to figure that one out.

schmidt.grace1mo ago

Forgetting USB devices is my specialty, I once spent an hour troubleshooting a PC that wouldn't POST only to find a dusty flash drive in the front port.