[blutigmord]

Hey everyone, i'm new to the site but i'd really appericate your help. anyways here's my situation.

I woke up this morning, booted up my computer and recieved an error code on my motherboard's POST led's that looked like 26, which ended up being the error code 2b which is something about my video card. This problem has happened before and i had fixed it by taking out my graphics card (Nvidia 9800 gx2), and then putting it back in.

This time it didn't work so i figured i'd try to reset the CMOS, so i took out my battery on my motherboard and replaced it back as how i had taken it out. Upon bootup i still recieved the same error code so once again i had an idea, lets test the ram.

I have 4 sticks of ram and i took out the one furthest from the CPU, this stick and ONLY this stick. i replace and put it back in to its slot. again i try to boot it up but instead of the 5 beeps and the 2b error code all of the fans on my computer are stuck on full speed while all of the LED's are on, the error code i receive this time 80 or maybe its 8D, looks more like 80 though.

I spent 3 hrs on the phone with dell tech support and they ended up telling me basically that my motherboard is shot due to overvoltage, i had never had this problem after 4+ years of owning this computer. They told me to either buy a new motherboard or a completely new system, i think its a power supply problem though (my computer is for a cord that does 120-240volts, i was running on one with 250~). Anyone have any thoughts?

tldr; getting an error code of 80 or 8D after i took out and replaced a stick of ram with itself. dell says my motherboard is shot but i'm not sure what to think, what do?

[crjdriver]

Since the specs I checked show that as a hybrid atx/btx mb, I highly doubt it would be worth installing a new mb [If you could even buy one from dell]

About the only thing you can do is to do some basic troubleshooting;
1 The specs show that your system uses a standard atx pw supply so I would swap in a known good pw supply for testing. Note known good does NOT mean new; it means one pulled from a working system that you know works.
2 With the system OFF, remove all ram and clear cmos with the clear jumper. Replace jumper to the "keep" position. Replace ram making sure each stick is fully seated.
3 Pw ON and test. If it works, great, if not, I would NOT invest any money into this system since replacing the board would not be cost effective.

[blutigmord]

thanks crj, i ended up fixing it by doing your step 2, the ram wasn't put all the way back in. after that my problem reverted back to the whole 2b video card error which i fixed by having my monitors powered up while i tried to boot my computer. It makes NO sense but hey i got my computer to work! lol

[crjdriver]

You are welcome. You can mark your own thread as solved using the button at the top of the page.