And then it went wrong…
I’d been getting somewhere with WSL Ubuntu 22 on Win 10. My nvme drive was nicely mounted as /data, my swap was configured right. All was well. Even with running on AM3 i’d been managing to run ollama and comfy, and had been experimenting with the differences beween SDXL and flux.
And then it went wrong
I’d started with my 8GB RAM from before, then I’d put in 4x4=16GB RAM total. This is the Asus M4A89GTD-Pro board, which can work with unbuffered ECC, and there have been reports that 8GB DIMMs may work even though they’re not supported. This was an inredibly good motherbord for its time.
I found a set of 4x8GB going pretty cheap on ebay (after all - DDR3, ECC? not very popular), made the purchase.
When they arrived, I noted my PC was running so turned it off. Unpugged power & pressed the power button as normal, popped the case and tried the RAM.
No boot
Used just one DIMM.
No boot
Went back to my 4x8GB DIMMS.
No boot
Got worried, tried a stick of my original RAM.
No boot
By now I’m more than a little concerned.
Wwent through all the troubleshooting stages - other components out, used the “Mem OK” button, and so on. A really odd thing is that the CPU fan also wasn’t right - it had a twitch instead of power on, but I could push it into action with my finger. That suggests power, but… that’s a mobo or PSU issue?
Tries my original PSU, same issue. Plugged the rear case fan into the CPU fan header and that worked fine, so that suggested the fan itself was an issue. Why now?
Uplugged everything, removed CMOS battery, pressed power for a long time (really shouldn’t be necessary, but when all you have left to grasp at are straws…).
No boot
Conclusion
I don’t know what went wrong, but the board feels dead. Could have been the pressure of putting the DIMMs into the old board? Maybe using ECC in the first place? But that should just fail to work, not destroy the board.
Aftermath
Left wth these choices:
- Give up
- Get a new AM3 board and hope the CPU’s okay
- [Selected] Go for AM4
- Go for AM5