PC will not boot - steady beeping noise

[Stu1961]

Hello,

I'm very much hoping someone might be able to assist me with diagnosing the source/culprit for a failing PC.

I built this system for my in-laws a little over a year ago. Their needs are minimal: email, some online banking, checking on stocks etc. Basically they were just looking for smallish, and dependable ... so far it looks like I've only supplied "smallish".

Symptoms:
■When turned on there's a single beep ... <pause> ... and then a steady beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep from the mobo speaker
■fan on CPU spins as normal
■rear case fan spins, stops, stutters, hums, starts ... looks to be struggling?
■Monitor does not turn on. There's a click-click ... click-click sound every second or so. As though it's beginning to turn on but then shuts down immediately only to retry a second or so later.
■ possible tie-in: brother-in-law said there was a power spike on the same day the PC failed. Then again he also told me, despite several warnings, that my father-in-law routinely shuts down the PC (when he deems it to be mis-behaving) by powering off the power strip. Hey, he's 83, even when he does hear you - he rarely listens. :lol:

Components include:

AMD Athlon II X2 240 Regor 2.8GHz
GIGABYTE GA-MA785GM-US2H
Thermaltake Purepower 500W ATX 12V 2.0 Power Supply
Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
ASUS EAH4350 SILENT/DI/512MD2(LP) Radeon HD 4350 512MB 64-bit DDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 CrossFireX Support Low Profile Ready Video Card
...all stuffed into an APEX TX-381-C Black Steel Micro ATX case

Any thoughts, insight, and/or suggestions would be welcomed. Unfortunately, I don't have much in the way of spare parts lying about to swap out - so I'm praying for a direct hit pinpointing the problem.

Thanks,

Stu

 

[jmsellars1]

Sounds to me like the power spike/not shutting the PC down probably made the power supply go wrong and kill the motherboard. Its hard to say without looking at the PC but i think the motherboard is dead to be honest, maybe the PSU too. As for the monitor, i had a problem like that once and i just replaced the power cable and it was fine. Maybe try that? Sorry i couldn't be more of a help, good luck.

 

[jmsellars1]

Just had another thought, despite the CPU fan spinning you might want to check the heatsink and thermal paste because that beep usually means overheating.

 

[ko888]

From the GA-MA785GM-US2H User's Manual:

The following Award BIOS beep code descriptions may help you identify possible computer problems.
(For reference only.)

1 short: System boots successfully

2 short: CMOS setting error

1 long, 1 short: Memory or motherboard error

1 long, 2 short: Monitor or graphics card error

1 long, 3 short: Keyboard error

1 long, 9 short: BIOS ROM error

Continuous long beeps: Graphics card not inserted properly

Continuous short beeps: Power error

 

[Stu1961]

Follow-up:

Lacking replacement/swap-out parts, all I could do was strip it down to the bare essentials. All peripherals removed, all but one stick of RAM removed, and the graphics card pulled, with a monitor (a known working one) hooked into the mobo onboard graphics.

Booted - no beeping.

Added RAM back in a stick-at-a-time and ... it still boots.

What are the conclusions to be drawn (and verified)?

* Graphics Card dead?
* PCI Express 2.0 slot fried?
* other?
* Could it still have been a PSU issue? Would the circuitry for the PCI-E be a weak link on the mobo to be affected first?
* I should be able to confirm the status of the monitor today - as I have borrowed/cannibalized a power and D-Sub cable.

I'm thinking it's a Graphic card failure - since the mobo is sending out a beeping signal (slot must work to detect a problem, right?). Faulty logic?

It doesn't appear to be the seating - since it worked for over a year seated as it was, and I've removed and replaced it three times with the same result (besides I don't know how to insert it any better 😀 ).

Are there any good diagnostic programs (free would be nice) that I could download, and run on the system which could verify the functionality of the motherboard components and circuitry (the PCI-E slot at a minimum)?

Thanks,

Stu1961

 

[j3hdz]

I have an HP Pavilion a6417c PC and an IBM Lenovo 3000 J115 series. I bought an Asus EAH4350 silent graphics card and first installed it on the Pavilion.

It worked fine for 4 months until one day it just simply did not boot anymore. I was able to hear the hard drives spinning fine, fan, other drives, all fine.

I took the card out and placed it in the Lenovo, again it worked fine for a few months until it didn´t boot either.

Both PC´s sat for a few months while I researched and asked around computer geeks what I could do. They all said motherboard failure was the answer but since hard drives and everything else but the monitor worked, I never believed them.

One day I saw an opinion on a forum stating the ram might be burned out, so I decided to try with a new stick.

Took old ram sticks out, replaced with a new one and wonderfully both PC´s started to work. Cleaned out original ram sticks and reinstalled (along with video card) and evrything worked fine (again for a while).

Now I know the graphics card is the problem, some compatibility problem that blocks ram memory from working properly.

If anybody finds the fix for this card to work, please let me know.

Joe

 

[andy1998]

Hmm i seem to be having the same problem did you fix it? how did u fix it?

 

[j3hdz]

Hmm i seem to be having the same problem did you fix it? how did u fix it?

After replacing the ram sticks a couple of times (just take them out, boot the pc with a new stick, then put back the original sticks) I noticed the video card was really hot, so I simply took out one of the sides of the tower and kept it open with enough air going through and I've had no more problems since.

So it seems to be an overheating problem that affects the ram sticks and you get no video. Remove the side or install a bigger fan, just cool the pc down and you'll be fine.

 

[M4DCRUSH3R]

Hi guys I would like to know if this is normal if because it happened to me once. I booted up my laptop and the windows logo before booting up froze and made more than 7 beeps before shutting down. I did not see the bios logo and when I booted again it was perfectly fine except the screen saying windows did not start normally and would you like to run start up repair but I just went normally and it was fine. Is this normal?

 

[M4DCRUSH3R]

I read up the codes and I believe it is a power error however how long is a long beep?