[SickPup404]

Good morning,

Long time since I've been here... Too long...

Wanted to start goofing off with my Mini 9 again so I dug it out of the closet. It's been in the closet for about 4 years. I know the battery is obviously dead, and it was a cheap one from eBay, so probably no good anyway now.

Problem I'm having is maybe a RAM issue?

I pulled the battery and plugged it in and tried to boot. I got a 1-4-3 beep code which from the beep code chart makes it sound as if the RAM went bad.

It's a Transcend stick of 2GB DDR2 800 CL5. Wish I had another stick to swap and try, but I don't...

It worked fine the last time I used it. Has anyone ever heard of RAM going bad just sitting in a machine? I've been in the computer arena for about 42 years and this is the first time I've ever seen anything go bad like this...

[holmes4]

I haven't heard of RAM going bad either. The first thing I would do is replace the coin cell battery. See https://downloads.dell.com/manuals/a...nual_en-us.pdf

[darknessblade]

Maybe check if it really is a Ram issue. by Removing the Ram stick. then you should get a error for NO ram found.

Ram does go bad, but then it is mostly the SMD capacitors or resistors on the PCB.
Or the chips have to be Reflowed due some of the solder balls being broken off.
Resulting in 1 of the Pins of the chips not working as intended. {if it is a ground pin it is no issue, but if it is a data pin, it is a issue}

[SickPup404]

Thanks for the suggestions!

I ended up buying a new stick of RAM ($13 Amazon) and a new CMOS battery ($7 eBay) and replaced both.

No joy. Same beep code.

Pulled the RAM stick and got the "beeeep-beeeep, pause, beeeep-beeeep" for RAM missing.

It's got a RunCore SSD in it. I'm looking for the original SSD now to see if swapping that back in is the problem. Doubtful as I already pulled the RunCore and still same RAM related beeps.

Battery took a charge (eBay from a few years ago when it last worked). Pleasantly surprised there.

A real shame. This was my go-to quick machine for configuring new routers/APs/antennas.

[SickPup404]

Well, I ended up getting a new mobo on eBay for it. Just couldn't bear to let the old girl die...

Replaced it and all is well. No idea what failed on the old system board, but now she's back in business!