[Chipset & BIOS]

[sryii]

So I have a laundry list of problems on my wife's computer. Recently, while playing a computer game her system froze up and we did a hard restart. The log on took forever and from then on it was very slow to startup and to log on. She had a bad sector on her drive which the seagate tools said it was able to fix and it worked much better but its still a bit slow. Another problem that sprang up while I was looking at the issues was she got some Post beep errors. We are getting the normal start up beeps followed by 3 short beeps which for the AMI bios I believe it means a RAM issue.

Here is what I did:

1) took out 2 of the 4 sticks and restarted but the beeps still persisted

2) put in the other 2 sticks by themselves but the beeps still persisted

3) ran a memory diagnostic on the first set(they were dual sticks so I figured its best to test them together since I will have to RMA them together) and it showed up with an error! I should start the RMA process but I haven't

4) ran a memory diagnostic on the second set(also dual) and they came up fine but the bios beeps still persist.

Is there some sort of basic thing I am missing? Is the BIOS right and the memory diagnostic wrong?


My specs are:

MOTHERBOARD: MSI K9A2VM-FD AM2+/AM2 AMD 780V Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
CPU: AMD Phenom 9950 Agena 2.6GHz Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Black Edition Processor HD995ZXAGHBOX
OS: Windows 7 64 bit
RAM: OCZ SLI-Ready Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model OCZ2N800SR4GK **The theoretically good set but still throwing errors**
VIDEO CARD: SAPPHIRE 100259L Radeon HD 4870 512MB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

 

[o1die]

If you don't want to rma the ocz ram, look for some used ddr2 on craigslist. I found 2x2gb of wintec the other day installed on an old am3 board for only $35. Both the board and ram work fine. Also check your motherboard hardware monitor section for the cpu temp. Idle temp for your cpu shouldn't be higher than 40c.

 

[sryii]

It hovers around 40C for the cpu during idle times. I don't think cpu temp would cause a POST beep.

 

[bobalazs]

3 short beeps is ram trouble indeed
the memory diagnostic should be done before the OS loads
if no fault was found- i can't find an explanation why the error persists with perfectly good rams - try restore bios defaults?
if that doesn't work- it may be an option to set the spd manually- and not using the default values - for ddr2 check the rams SPD in either everest or Aida programs - then set values in bios- if you screw up - your pc might not boot - but a bios reset solves the problems then... hope i helped.