they can of course, although it's uncommon. it could be a problem with the controller chips on the board, or more likely the contacts on the ram slots are dirty/oxidized. they are hard to clean as the part that makes contact is the bottom part of the finger and it's hard to get to. you might try a thorough cleaning of the whole board and scrubbing the ram slots with a tooth brush or fingernail brush. what i do is first remove the logic board and the pram battery. you can then wash it and scrub the ram slots in hot soapy water. rinse thoroughly with warm tap water to get all the soap off, and then rinse again with everclear (190 proof grain alcohol, great solvent, terrible thing to put in your body), this helps it dry faster, particularly in the crevices. it also will dissolve oils etc. so it might be good to give the ram slots an extra splash. you then let it dry for a day or two in the sun against a window or in winter by a heat vent.
you say you cleaned the contacts, what did you use? there are spray contact cleaners that will make the problem worse because they are designed for sliding contacts and form a film that isn't displaced when things are just pressed together like in simm sockets (i've made that mistake with a great contact cleaner i've used on allot of things, i had to scrub it off with hot soapy water and wait for the board to dry again). the best way is to use a clean pencil eraser (pen erasers are too abrasive), you want to clean/polish them until they are shiny, sometimes it does take several tries particularly on older ram, i've had to pull out the ram and try again as many as 3 times before finally being rewarded with success. after each cleaning of course you want to blow off all of the eraser crumbs and don't touch the connector fingers of course. in any case, i'd try another cleaning of the ram before i worried about cleaning the whole board. Sara Hartman wrote: > > I have a c600. About a month ago it refused to start up. I removed one of > the 64MB RAM sticks and everything was peachy. But today it refused > again to start up so I took out the other stick. It will start up (barely) > but I can't do anything with just the 16MB on the motherboard. My husband is > going to try to have the RAM tested tomorrow, but I am wondering whether > the slots can go bad. If so, is that a sign that the whole motherboard is > failing? I guess it doesn't matter much, because I can't do anything as it > is. > > I have tried every combination of RAM sticks and slots, cleaned contacts, > reset CUDA, and zapped PRAM. ------- -- "To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." (Richard Henry Lee, Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress, initiator of the Declaration of Independence, and member of the first Senate, which passed the Bill of Rights.) -- SuperMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | Service & Replacement Parts [EMAIL PROTECTED] | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> SuperMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/supermacs/list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/supermacs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
