Question ASUS P5G41T-M ---- POST fails with 2 beeps with a pause in between them ?

[Sammy_UwU]

I recently got an old motherboard for free from a friend, I know it works and I was going to try and build an old Core 2 Duo system with it. I got everything plugged in and turned on, but it fails POST with 2 beeps.
I've been reading that this was about ram issues, but I couldn't get anything solid. The manual told me nothing and I have tried almost everything I can think of. I've tried 3 different CPUs, 2 GPUs and 2 different sticks of RAM 1 4GB Adata stick and a 2GB Unbranded stick. They're double sided and I was reading in the manual how the board doesn't work with ram sticks that are made of 256Mb chips or less and I know that means Megabits but 4GB/16 is 256MB (Megabytes) so I wonder if that might be a problem.

Another issue is that it might just be the speed but im not sure. I don't know the speed of the 2GB stick and the 4GB one is 1600MHz but my board only supports 800/1066/1333(O.C). It's my only DDR3 ram I have so I just hoped the bios would just underclock it, but I guess that's probably not happening.

The parts it has in it right now are all known working except for the ram.

CPU: Core 2 Duo e7300
GPU: AMD FirePro v3900
Motherboard: ASUS P5G41T-M 2
RAM: 4GB Adata AX3U1600C4G11-SD

I don't want to have to buy the only 4GB ram stick that's on the Supported Vendor part of the manual because it's like $40 per module and I don't want to really spend that kind of money on this build. (If I did I would just buy the other motherboard I actually want with DDR2) I will if I have to, but I want to try anything else first.

I haven't tried:
Both of the sticks at the same time.
A different power supply.
Plugging HDMI into the motherboard.
Unplugging the hard drive (idk why that would change anything, but I figured I'd list it anyways).
Using a SO-DIMM to DIMM adapter with slower ram I have from a laptop, but I did order 2 of those adapters to try just in case, but they won't come for weeks.

I can't really think of anything else, so I'll just end it here ig. Hopefully someone can help me out.

 

[Aeacus]

I don't know the speed of the 2GB stick and the 4GB one is 1600MHz but my board only supports 800/1066/1333(O.C). It's my only DDR3 ram I have so I just hoped the bios would just underclock it, but I guess that's probably not happening.

It is happening.

Namely, 800 MT/s and 1033 MT/s are JEDEC defaults and all DDR3 DIMMs have JEDEC speed as a default. Now, if your RAM supports faster speeds, e.g 1600 MT/s or 1866 MT/s, then you need to enable the XMP from BIOS, essentially overclocking the RAM.

I recently got an old motherboard for free from a friend, I know it works

What grounds do your have, where you know for a fact that MoBo works? Since at current moment, it does not.

Also, MoBo could've very well died en route from your friend's place to yours. E.g if you have quite a bit static buildup in your body, touch the MoBo, produce ESD and fry the MoBo. Hence why always ground yourself before handling sensitive electronics.

My best educated guess is that MoBo is toast.
Chances that two different DIMMs are toast, are small.

But if you want to be thorough, try out all possible RAM configurations. Which for your case, is easy, since your MoBo has only 2x RAM slots.
So:
DIMM 1 (e.g 4GB one) in 1st slot - tests - yes/no for image,
DIMM 1 (e.g 4GB one) in 2nd slot - tests - yes/no for image,
and then:
DIMM 2 (e.g 2GB one) in 1st slot - tests - yes/no for image,
DIMM 2 (e.g 2GB one) in 2nd slot - tests - yes/no for image.

If still no dice, i'd try with 2nd MoBo.

 

[Sammy_UwU]

What grounds do your have, where you know for a fact that MoBo works? Since at current moment, it does not.

Also, MoBo could've very well died en route from your friend's place to yours.

Well the motherboard gets power I know that at least and non of the capacitors are popped, as well as he was using it the other month since it came out of his NAS. Well it was actually his old pc hut he turned it into a NAS after he upgraded it, he recently got a new proper NAS and he gave me some parts from it. I know one of the vcc pins (pin U8) got bent in the socket, it still lines up in line with the other pins but I don't know if it's making proper contact when the CPU is seated or if that would cause too much of an issue.

The GPU and CPU I have used in other boards and have worked but they all had DDR2 so I never tested the DDR3 RAM.

DIMM 1 (e.g 4GB one) in 1st slot - tests - yes/no for image,
DIMM 1 (e.g 4GB one) in 2nd slot - tests - yes/no for image,
and then:
DIMM 2 (e.g 2GB one) in 1st slot - tests - yes/no for image,
DIMM 2 (e.g 2GB one) in 2nd slot - tests - yes/no for image.

Did this and neither post.

Chances that two different DIMMs are toast, are small.

I think it probably is just a ram compatibility thing. But I'm probably wrong. I know the one is the wrong speed and the other is probably the same. If you think it's the motherboard tho then I'll just buy one that I would actually prefer then.

 

[Aeacus]

Well the motherboard gets power I know that at least

Yeah, that doesn't mean MoBo works fine.

It's essentially same with cars, where when the engine starts, you instantly assume the car is roadworthy, without actually doing the test drive.

I think it probably is just a ram compatibility thing. But I'm probably wrong.

Well, in memory QVL, there is stated:

-The default DIMM frequency depends on its Serial Presence Detect (SPD), which is the standard way of accessing information from a memory module. Under the default state, some memory modules for overclocking may operate at a lower frequency than the vendor-marked value.

With DDR, memory compatibility isn't a thing. Unless MoBo specifically states that it only operates with ECC RDIMM RAM. But your MoBo uses non-ECC UDIMM, which is standard consumer RAM, rather than server RAM.

If you think it's the motherboard tho then I'll just buy one that I would actually prefer then.

Since you've validated everything else except the MoBo, process of elimination alone tells that MoBo alone is left as possible culprit.

Hardware often dies without any apparent reason. And the older it is - the higher the chance of it giving up the ghost.