1 long beep and 3 short

vx53c

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Aug 25, 2009
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Hello fellows,
I have been dealing with computers my whole life and i got a problem that i need your help with.
Ok so, gf's computer consists of:
Thermaltake psu toughpower 750 watt
8gb kingston blu ddr3 1600 ram
Asus M5A78L LE mobo
phenom ii x4 840
sapphire amd randeon hd 6850
1gb seagate baracuda 7200.12
System always on UPS

And here is the problem:
During summer ONLY, and only on days where ambient temps are about 32C, while taxing the computer with relatively medium tasks, but mostly during video playback through hdmi to the tv, the computer will hang, monitors will get no signal, sound will get stuck to what was playing on a very short loop, after a little while, the sound dies too, i get 1 long beep followed by 3 short beeps and the computer remains unresponsive but still on, until i force a shutdown (5 sec power button)

I closely monitored the temps and i get 58 tops on the gpu at the time of the crash, early 30's on all the 4 cores. 42 degrees in the box.
The ram has been extensively tested through memtest when it was bought 2 years ago. Also when i assembled the system i have run it through hellish nights of prime95, occt tests etc. Always great temps, rails stable as rocks, system never failed while being dragged through all this.

This happens only during summer and mainly when doing video playback with extended desktop monitor(dvi)>tv(hdmi). It happened extremely rarely and i didn't think much on it until today when it kept on hanging 5-15 mins in playback.
Right now the computer is fine and gf plays her castleville on it, no problems whatsoever for 4 hours.

I am beginning to think it has to do something with the PSU but i don't have a reliable spare one to test it out. Anybody met this problem before? Could ambient temps on the PSU destabilize the 12v rails? (i guess i should check that next).

Note: I have considered the possibility of air flow reversal of the psu, revved the rear and top fans down to allow psu to push air through it, if anything it made things worse.

Any help is welcome.
Ty in advance.
 
Solution
Hi, 1 long 3 short is related to graphics issue.
So, yes, it could be the graphics card, power supply (if PCIe cable needed) or motherboard.
I would suggest borrowing a graphics card and testing, but since the issue occurs only in specific conditions...
If RMA is possible, try RMA-ing both power supply and graphics card.
Hi, 1 long 3 short is related to graphics issue.
So, yes, it could be the graphics card, power supply (if PCIe cable needed) or motherboard.
I would suggest borrowing a graphics card and testing, but since the issue occurs only in specific conditions...
If RMA is possible, try RMA-ing both power supply and graphics card.
 
Solution