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Compaq DeskPro 2000: Cold boot = 8MB RAM, Warm boot = 64MB RAM?

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First post, by InjecTioN

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Hi there,

My first post on the Vogons forum, and I'm starting with a mystery... Cool! 🤣

I got this Compaq DeskPro 2000 (p54 version with a non-MMX Pentium 200MHz) a month ago, and got to work. I've been putting some other hardware in there (VooDoo Rush, SoundBlaster 16 compatible card with OPTI chips, 3Com NIC), and cleaned it all up. Used a clean paint brush and a can of compressed air to clean it all out. It looks great now, boots up and everything. Awesome! 😀

So that being said, I've encountered the following issue:
When I cold boot the PC, after being turned off for a few minutes, the memory counter only shows 8 megs of RAM. This is really strange, because there are 4 SIMM's of 16MB in there.

Temporary fix:
When I turn the PC off and on again, within a second, the amount of RAM finally counts to 64 megs. Which is positive of course, but no solution. 😢

What I've tried:

  • There are no popped capacitors on the motherboard as far as I can see.
  • I also was able to reach the BIOS GUI (it's on a floppy... 😵 ) to see if there are any settings that could help by changing them, but nothing helps.
  • Also, the BIOS has been set to default settings multiple times.
  • It's probably worth mentioning that I've already removed all of the hardware that I used to upgrade the machine with. This of course didn't help either.

Has anyone ever encountered this kind of issues? It's driving me a bit crazy. 😒

Reply 1 of 2, by Koltoroc

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I would clean the contacts of the memory slots and modules, maybe there is a bad contact. The memory modules might not be 100% compatible, getting a different set to test might be a good idea.

Other then that, I would suspect capacitors. Just because they look good does not mean they are. they can and regularly do fail without visible signs of damage.

Reply 2 of 2, by InjecTioN

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Thanks for your reply!

I will thoroughly check the capacitors some day this/next week. It might still be those darn thing indeed. These don't show any sign of leakage as far as I've seen so far, but they're probably too old to be leaking instead of exploding anyway.

I'll definitely replace them when I'm desoldering them.

The RAM slots have already been cleaned thoroughly multiple times. The RAM modules should be compatible, as they are IBM labeled, which means, they came with the system/were ordered especially for this system. I'll check the part numbers to see if they are on the compatibility list.

Thanks again so far!

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