"Personal Computer (PC) Hangs During Boot"

By Ron Stultz

25 April 2010

Summary: Did not know that a defective memory module can totally hang system from booting but it can!

PC system assembled from components.

Worked fine for month or more and then no video at all and no normal boot "beep".

Power supply swapped = no change.

AGP video card added in place of motherboard video = no change.

Swap motherboard out with spare and accidentally leave installed memory modules on it.

System boots normally.

Take out old memory and use original memory installed. System will not boot!

Take out one memory module = system will not boot.

Take out memory module and replace with other = system boots.

Insert suspicious memory module back into system = will not boot.

Bottom line: did not know that a defective memory module could keep a PC from booting but it can, so check this if you system will not boot.