PC Won't Display Image, 1 Long Beep 2 Short Beeps

[Saad073]

Hello,

I've just had my desktop shipped from one country to another. After setting things up, I turned it on and my monitor was failing to bring up any picture and the machine would do 1 long beep and 2 short fast beeps.

I looked it up and since my motherboard has an AWARD based BIOS, I discovered that it was either a video card problem or a memory problem. I know the problem was not with the memory, so I assumed my video card had blown out (the capacitors on it were bursting out a little bit).

I bought a new card and installed it but the same error keeps occurring! I'm assuming it is a motherboard problem but I have no idea where to start! Can anyone help?

Motherboard: DFI Infinity NF Ultra II-M2

Old Video Card: EVGA 7600GT 256MB DDR3

New Video Card: EVGA GT 240 512MB GDDR5

Monitor: Dell 15" Flatscreen (VGA)

 

[Maziar]

Hello and welcome to the forums
1 long and 2 short beeps is usually caused by improper installation of VGA or because of a defective VGA or motherboard.
Since you re-seated your card and tested another card in your system, and the problem still exists then your motherboard is probably defective.

 

[andrern2000]

Remove the vga card, test it without vga (using onboard vga). Does it work?

Is your new vga olso working, by testing it in other?

 

[Saad073]

My motherboard only comes with an onboard DVI and my monitor only has VGA so the graphics card is my only solution. However, the graphics card is working in the x8 slot so I'm assuming the x16 slot is no longer functioning.

New question: so I installed the GT 240 in the x8 slot and things are working perfectly (i.e. games run, aero on Win7 is flawless, etc). Is it safe to leave the card in that slot or should I start looking into a new motherboard?

 

[Maziar]

So it seems your x16 slot has gone bad.
Well the difference between x16 and x8 is noticeable in some games,check this review and you'll get the idea
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pcie-geforce-gtx-480-x16-x8-x4,2696-17.html

 

[Saad073]

Thanks for the link Maziar. Pretty helpful info there. I think I'll work with the x8 slot and slowly raise money for a new motherboard and cpu.

 

[Saad073]

Best answer selected by Saad073.