Windows 10: Possibly fried RAM and CPU - could it damage a working PC?

This forum mainly concerns software or software related hardware issues, and this post concerns neither, but I know that there are some pretty hardware-savvy people on here. I have a PC from my Dad which was fried as a result of a close lightning strike. Luckily, the HDD and graphics card survived, but I haven't tested any of the other hardware yet. It's been sitting around for a while. I have a terrible Dell Inspiron machine (530, I think) that is compatible with the Core 2 Duo and the 6 GB of DDR2 RAM in the crippled PC. If the CPU or RAM is fried, is there a chance that it could damage the Dell, and if so, what conditions would cause that? Thanks.

:)

 

Windows 10 won't install - stuck in BSOD loop

Hi GamerPET

Sorry you're having the same issue :-(

I gave up in the end and returned my CPU, MB and RAM and ordered new ones. My totally uneducated guess is that something got fried, either CPU or MB.

One thing I came across was that some people seem to think that the z170 is not compatible with RAM greater than 2133 MHz - no idea if that's true, but I decide to get that spec RAM to be on the safe side.

My advice is to cut your losses and replace the components if possible.

Out of interest, do you know what you were doing when you had your first crash?

 

Blue Screens After New Hardware

So the the CPU is forsure bad? I just want to make sure it couldn’t be just a ram issue that made the errors. If the CPU could possibly be okay I would rather change the much cheaper ram versus the expensive CPU. But if it seems like the cpu is bad I’ll
replace it. Thank you for the help!

 

Hello,
I dunno the answer,
It is not a similar thing that happend, but one day years and years ago, i was removing and puting ram while windows was on, and i learnt my way:

I couldn't use again two of 4 memory slots.
Ram was ok.
With hard disk i hot swaped with ide cable and power, was a very bad idea.
I shorted something on the motherboard.

I will never do this again.
Now about your issue:

You can try to run the dell with: motherboard,psu ,your old processor and one stick of old ram. + external vga if no integrated graphic inside.

I tryed to check forums, and fryed cpu or ram won't fry your motherboard, if it's compatible with your dell.

What fryed my mother board like i sayd, was shorting things by hot swaping components while i was a kid lol.

Also removing the power cord directly from the psu while the computer is off instead from wall,
I see lighting strikes.

Just to say it's surely safe to test components one by one.

Ps

I'm not sure it's a thing to try but for me i could diagnostic xhy my motherboard won't post, just removing ram, i heard 3 beeps. so motherboard was posting.

 

It will not damage it. It will either work or it won't. Like @Elbern said try them one at a time in case memory works but not cpu (or vv).

Most likely they will both be OK and only the fuse on the motherboard is blown - that is what happened to my Lenovo when I dropped a screwdriver on the board when it was plugged in.

Good luck

 

Hi, did you try another Psu(power supply) with your old pc(from your dad)? Sometimes its only the psu that fries in lightning strike, also you will need to use other power cables, since they can actually melt together inside the the rubber.

You graphic card can actually be fried also not only from the motherboard, but from the monitor if the strike passed through that.

I have had systems that were protected by AVR and UPS getting fried by a monitor, untill I found the cause - I noticed the monitor were still ON even though the AVR were OFF.

 

I don't know about protection on newer systems but some years back some RAM short circuited in a PC and destroyed the motherboard. I don't see why it wouldn't happen - RAM shorts out and draws too much current through the power lines on the motherboard.

 

Thanks for the advice. I guess I'll try it. Wish me luck!

 

Good luck, You *Smile

On my way i will have to entirely reinstall windows, i can't recover a partition i artificially tryed to shrink and move from left to right, and stopping the process in kde disk manager completely destroyed the windows partition (raw) .

Enough talking, good luck again *Smile

 

Which version of windows are we talking about? Have you tried to boot with windows(your version) recoveryDVD and repair startup problems - Raw is not your windows partition, its the bootloader partition!

Normally before re-install, I would run HDD regenerator(if you have it), just to make sure there are no bad sectors(and fix if there is), then I would boot with windows recovery DVD and repair startup problems, then run chkdsk from elevated command prompt, then see if it worked. If not then I would boot on Linux LiveDVD and run Gparted and make room for 100mb raw Partition in the start of the hdd, this time format it, and boot with Windows recovery DVD again. then run the Startup repair again.

I'm directly against re-install if something else can be done!

Just my 50 cents!

JBJ

 

I don't know if this will help as I'm not sure if "raw" means completely destroyed, but if it did move successfully or cancel successfully can run the following commands in a command prompt from a Recovery CD:

bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /rebuildbcd

For the last command it may tell that it found Windows installations. If so, add them.

Take out the disc, reboot, and cross r fingers.

 

Elbern - when you look at the partition table in gparted or disk manager, which partition is it you think is the windows one(the one you call raw)?

Look at the size of the partitions, the one that normally is raw is only a few hundred megabytes(thats windows bootloader and always the first Partition on the HDD). When in linux or mini window XP the Raw partition with the bootloader might be called C: . because its found as the first partition by the LiveCD!

I'm asking the above just to make sure you fix the correct Partition!

But if the partitions are correct then yes follow my suggestions above in previous post, but first follow the ones YOU gave*Smile

JBJ
IT support through 25 years - from CPM to Dos to Windows - and some linux.

 

I hijacked the thread with an answer meaning, i have things to repair too on my computer.
Wa not trying to fix things on this thread and did already a post about this problem.

I tryed solutions given, before posting, nothing could been recovered, /fixboot and /fix mbr there was no errors,
And i didn't tryed rebuildbcd.

Anyway i just installed windows on a 2TB hard drive, with three new sata 6gb/s akasa cable.
And just to say i think my samsung f3 was damaged.
And about partitions, none was green, i could only try to find partitions that couldn't be repaired,
and none of the 7-10 entrys for each quick search and deep search, had folders i could check.

I compared to my fresh install, and my harddrive in test disk has all partition green in gpt / ntfs testdisk config.
But again there is no solution to fix it, i did a reinstall on both drives *Smile

ANyway thanks, and sorry again for hijacking by mistake.

ps the raw partition was showing as an almost full 465 and 464 gb.
And i did a big mistake: I checked in expert mode what i thought been the true 464 gb partition, and selected it as wrigt, there was no more windows been detected in win 10 dvd repair disk and dvd install disk same for win re that couldn't try to repair it anymore.

And before i choosed the main mbr instead of mirror that could be the good mbr.

Lol i speack a lot, i stop now.