Burning Smell!, no screen, no beeps...

A friend had some malware...I came here, as I've done before, and did the "cleanup" and posted to malware forum late last night, etc...and I figured while I was waiting, I'd just remove the cover, and put some more ram in (famous last words) as he has an older system, and I had some ddr ram, which is what it used etc,,,

But *anyway* I take the ram out, see that it is *all* covered in dust back there, so I blow out all the dust, and realize I'd have to go *buy* the ram, so I reinstalled same old ram, in same old slot, and booted up...and screen was dark, no beeps, so I figure maybe the ram hadn't seated, and of course, I can't u know, shut it down "softly" so I just hold down "start" button, and that's when I start to smell slight burning smell, and after a second of total panic,:cry ...

...I pull the electrical cord out of the back, and after calming down, and going "uh oh" a few times, I take ram out, look to see if anything *looked* wierd, and it all "looked" o.k., so I put ram back in, and boot again, w/finger next to power switch, and it seems to be booting up, but no beeps, no screen, and no joy here, u know, since this is a real old friend, and a good guy who trusts me, I have to fix this, but before I run it down to a shop or something, did anybody have suggestions for what it might be?

Doesn't seem to be power unit, btw: I have had them fry before...something else...

As always, I appreciate the help...

 

Hey DuckFeet,

Seems like your in a predicament. First things to check. That burning smell is possibly that the RAM that was in use was on a different frequency (300mhz, 433mhz, 533..ect) and may not have been compatible with the motherboard. Possibly what went on is it tried to read it and could not, cause in affect, it smoked the sticks of Ram. At this point, do you have another computer you can test most of the hardware on. Such as Ram/Hard-drives.. Motherboard you really can't test, and chip seems the same. Do you see any marks what-so-ever on the motherboard anywhere? or even on the CPU to see if there are burn marks?

Try these things and I hope ya get this resolved.
Thanks,

 

Yep: when it's some electrical like this, I know I have to replace *something*...but since power unit seems o.k...and the ram that caused this was actually the same ram I had pulled out, tho I *did* put it in the lot right next to it, but it was same, u know, set up...older box, w/ddr ram, and all my xtra ram were ddr2...so I don't *think* it was the ram...I almost think it was the *power* button for some reason, as it was when I was holding *that* in that not only did screen stay black--which is why I was shutting it down in first place, the holding down the button is when I first noticed the smell...

But since it (the power button) worked fine as far as brining system up, I thought maybe it was something else...

What I figured I'd do, is trot down to Frys, and get the ram anyway, and install the new ram, and see if I just somehow dinged up the ram and fried something there...I already unplugged the DVD and other stuff, to see if it was some hardware...but it still *powers* up, and screen is *still* black, and still no beeps, and still power button will not shut down computer...but I haven't had a burning smell since--not that that is any consolation--but I guess I'll give it a try by replacing the ram, "just in case" that was it...again, tons of dust back there, which I blew out...

Thanks again for help...

 

No problem. Best of Luck,

Hope the Ram fixes the issue, if not ya'll come back now and let me know

 

Yeah: this is weird: since this whole thing happened, when I was just "cleaning up a computer for a friend..." I figured it was on my watch, so I had to fix what I broke...so I go thru all the shit, get the problem isolated to either mobo or cpu, and pick up nice clean six year old dell machine, w/*legal* OS, and bring it home, and the "new" computer is running fine, so I plug in *old* HD, which had the bugs...but it still won't boot...

I can *see* the files, if I boot up w/other HD, but I can't get original HD to boot...so I put in XP OS disk that I have, and u know, run the repair thing...but it still won't boot...won't even recognize this HD in bios/cmos, nothing...but when I boot up *other* HD, I can see the darned thing...

Probably something totally lame, that everybody but me could fix in 5 seconds...and meanwhile, my logs of the spyware scans are "in line" over on the malware forum...and I had to "bump" thread, to let those guys know that computer was a *dead* computer, etc...and figured they blown it off...but today, chaslang got to me after my place in back of line crept to front, and said "logs were clean..."

Which makes it even weirder...anyway, I copied all his data files to an external HD, and gave him the "semi" new old dell, and called it good...but I've still got old HD that started this whole mess, so now I'm bound and determined to get it to work...it's like "an obsession" haha...I'll be cackling to myself, years down the road, *still* trying to find out why this thing won't boot...probably in some psyche ward, holding on to this old ide HD like it was gold....:-D

Thanks again for help...