Hardware
- Dell Optiplex 320 Tower
- Micron MT16HTF12864AY-667D4 200716 CBNCHLF013
1GB 2RX8 PC2-5300U-555-12-E0
1GB, DDR2, 667, CL5
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| Display showing vertical lines on a Dell Optiplex 320 |
One of our staff computers refused to boot and was showing a vertically-striped Dell boot screen. This reminded me of an earlier problem I had with another Dell box where I thought it was a RAM issue but it turned out to be a bad Hard Drive. You can read about my troubleshooting steps and the solution here: Dell Optiplex 320 Will Not Boot or Go to Bios. In that case the hard drive was clicking very quietly and that was keeping it from booting. I listened to this computer’s hard drive carefully and couldn’t hear any clicking and then I disconnected the hard drive and it still did the same thing. Having eliminated the hard drive from being the culprit I swapped out the RAM and it booted right up.
Typically RAM has a lifetime warranty so I looked at the chip and saw that it was made by Micron:
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| Micron MT16HTF12864AY-667D4 200716 CBNCHLF013 RAM |
If you visit micron.com and follow the links for tech support you will end up on Crucial.com’s website. It turns out that Micron makes OEM products and Crucial makes their end user products. Micron RAM is warranted by the OEM manufacturer, in this case Dell. Dell doesn’t offer a lifetime warranty on the RAM, only the standard warranty that comes with the rest of the machine, maybe 3 years or so. That has long since expired so I guess I’m just out $20 or whatever replacement RAM costs on one of these machines, which isn’t much.
At least it was an easy fix and we’re back up and going in less than 5 minutes plus the time it took me to vacuum out all the dust that had accumulated in this 6+ year old machine.
Here are all my other Dell Computer Repair Postings:
- Computer Randomly Shuts Off Power Supply Issues on a Dell Optiplex GX520 (Small Form Factor)
- How to Replace the Power Supply Fan in a Dell Optiplex GX520
- Dell Optiplex 320 Will Not Boot or Go to Bios
- How to Replace the Memory in a Dell Latitude D830
- Dell Optiplex GX520 Randomly Shuts Off
- How to Replace the Power Supply in a Dell Optiplex GX520
- How to Fix a Striped Display on a Dell Optiplex 320 (this post)
- How to Troubleshoot Dell Optiplex GX520 Power Supply Issues
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