Ram stick up in smoke(almost on fire!)

[araaraara]

At school I rebuilt an "old" IBM PC350 with a K6 233mhz @ 200, 32mb ram, 1.0gb harddrive and Win98SE(for USB support). It ran great, but I wanted to make it a little faster because it was our best system. It had 2*16mb of IBM 72 SIMMS, but it had a DIMM socket. My teacher bought in a stick of 128mb PC133 SDRAM. It wouldn't fit in the socket because of some piece of plastic, but I broke that off and I was able to fit the stick in. Well, when I turned the computer on, it beeped a couple of times and I noticed red spots forming on several of the memory chips of the SDRAM stick. It was glowing red hot! I turned off the system and I could smell burned electronics. I took our the ram(which was quite hot) and saw black spots which were darker thant the rest of the chips. Another couple of seconds longer and the stick of ram probably would have burst into flames! I put the 2 16mb SIMMs back in and hoped for the best. To my relief, the system booted up just fine! Amazing for a system which just fried a stick of ram.

What do you think caused this to happen? It must have been something to do with PC133 sticks not being compatible with PC66 motherboards, but this was really wierd. Do they use different voltages or pin layouts?

[dmoltrup]

I ran into a problem similar to that (I posted about this previously)

I bought a 256Meg module and was in a hurry to install it. Instead of pulling the power supply out like I should have (plus the hard drive was in the way, but I couldn't remove it or it would violate my lease), so I could see, I just installed it blind. I also installed it backwards.
Believe it or not, it actually snapped in and seemed to be seated properly.

The system did just what you said, Beeped like crazy a couple times, then started smoking. I don't know where the smoke came from and I couldn't see any physical defects (after pulling the system apart, with my heart in my throat).

After turning the RAM around it booted up and worked just fine. Of course, I didn't leave it in very long ....Perhaps five seconds or so.

After that, the computer would occasionally lock-up but it only seemed to happen when browsing porn sites! I was leasing the computer so I had it replaced. This was about a year ago, and that same RAM module is still working today!

[madfish]

porn sites, lol, shame on you.. hehehehe
if it's a leased machine, take it back saying it has a problem and get another. ya might had damage the mainbord in some way by puting that ram in wrong. just don't tell them that you tryed to upgrade the ram. most leaseing places frown on that unless they fumble though it themselfs and charge you tripple for it.

Madfish

[dmoltrup]

Originally posted by dmoltrup
I was leasing the computer so I had it replaced. This was about a year ago, and that same RAM module is still working today!

Sorry, already replaced it. And I even told them what I did! I have since leased several other computers, none of which I was happy with, and eventually built my own.

I could perform any upgrade I wished on the unit, EXCEPT I WASN"T ALLOWED TO REMOVE THE HARD DRIVE. Even if I was moving it out of the way to see properly behind it, it was "sealed" in place.

[madfish]

kool, homemade I think is the way to go, just did a P-III a couple weeks ago. that makes it my fourth home built machine

Madfish

[Ammok]

ROTFLMHO:D

This site is the best I've been too, really cheers me up. I could just imagine the look on your face when the question, whats that smell? was answered.

I do sympathise though, and I shall be just a bit extra carful installing ram modules in future.

Red spots, ho ho ho, I bet you never reached for a power off switch so fast in your life!:D

Cheers guys, this has really brightened my day.:D

My "tech" mate bought a cheapo pc. It kept crashing becuase the local shop had not bothered to put a hs/fan on the cpu, a 200mmx.

So he discovered that if he left it near the window, open, it didnt crash. I never laughed so loud as when he told me it was totally trashed cos one day, when he got home, he found it simmering in a large puddle of water.:D Ruined his mobo, cpu, mem the lot. Dozy beggar.:D :D :D

Got his own back when i fried my PIII 1ghz, though:( :D

[Kurylo]

O.K. Yesterday I've fried my PQI PC-133 256MB ($70) stick.

[Ammok]

Kurylo

Tell us how you managed to do it.;)

[michaeln]

I had an old Apricot qi 486 PC years ago. This was one of those MCA architecture mobo's. Great PC but architecture never caught on. Anyway, The Floppy drive died and I replaced it with a new one. I switched on the PC only to see the connector cable go up in smoke and fill the room with black smoke. This was almost instantaneous.

I naturally presumed the worst but when the smoke cleared, I took out the melted cable (which was the standard twisted FDC cable) and replaced it with a straight cable. The system worked fine for years. Neither the mobo nor the FDC were damaged (but I expect that the PSU never worked as hard in it's life):)

[Ammok]

Titter:D

[spoilt]

is it only the ram that fried?

well my mouse fried a minute ago and with my mouse my two fingers also fried.

yea its true!

[Kurylo]

Here's the link: CLICK HERE (http://www.sysopt.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=99727)

I'm lucky to fry only RAM, and nothing more...

[Ammok]

I love messing with things, great fun. But oh so dangerous.:D