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New build Strange beeping

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  • Homebuilt
  • Power
  • New Build
  • Systems
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November 12, 2006 11:16:39 AM

Just built my first machine. Thought I had followed the manual as close as possible, hit the power button only to hear a continuous beeping with nothing really happening...

Any ideas?

More about : build strange beeping

November 12, 2006 12:25:12 PM

You´ve to put in some paper to get it printing. :wink:
November 12, 2006 1:03:43 PM

Quote:
Just built my first machine. Thought I had followed the manual as close as possible, hit the power button only to hear a continuous beeping with nothing really happening...

Any ideas?


Simplify.
Start with the most basic bootable configuration then add stuff in to find out which part is causing the problems.

The most basic bootable configuration is a motherboard with CPU, ram, 1 videocard and psu (no drives or anything else plugged in except screen and keyboard obviously). Even remove all the front panel plugs (hd led etc) except for the power switch connector.
That should be as minimal as you can get but be enough to at least power up into bios.

If even that won't boot, do the following steps, using the most minimal set up you can. Check bootability after each stage if you change anything even slightly:

0: Work in a static-free environment. Your problem may be because you have already blown-up something if you're not using a wrist strap, especially if you didn't ground yourself and you built your PC in a carpetted area.

1: Check the PSU is rated for a sufficiently high wattage for your system. Then check the all the rails in the PSU are supplying power to the system. If the 12v rail is dead no fans will run. If the 5v rail is dead, you might get pretty much what you describe and any leds on the motherboard or DVD drives etc won't ever flash or light up. Look to see if you have any led's on your system and if they ever light up (even momentarily) or not.

2: Make sure all the PSU connectors necessary are plugged in properly. some Mobos require a big ATX power connector and also a liittle 4-pin square connector that can be easily overlooked. Also some Video cards require one or two extra power connectors too.

3: remove the motherboard from the case. Put it somewhere where there is definately no risk of anything shorting out anything on the back, and plug only the minimal necessary to boot it up outside the case. The reason wer'e doing this is to make sure nothing in the case is shorting out stuff on the back of the mobo, like sometimes the little mounting posts can.

4: Check your ram is in the right slots and doens't have a bad connectiion ( remove and reinstall the ram). Do the same with the CPU.

5: find the way to reset the cmos to defaults on your motherboard and do it. It may be by temporarily removing the small battery or temporarily shorting a connector out. It should say in the manual.

If its still not booting by now, its probable that the memory is inompatable, you've zapped something with static, or bent a pin somewhere, such as the cpu socket. I had a similar problem as yours with an ASRock 775 Dual-VSTA mobo. By default it uses low memory voltage settings in the bios which wouldn't work with the PQI turbo memory I had. I couldn't even get it to boot as far as the bios to change the setting. I had to RMA the memory and buy a different brand.

If you have access to another PC such as a friend with one, swap your memory, video card, CPU and PSU with the ones in the other PC (one at a time) to at least prove one or more of those components aren't fried.
Related resources
November 12, 2006 1:13:50 PM

Quote:
Thought I had followed the manual as close as possible, hit the power button only to hear a continuous beeping with nothing really happening...

Seriously, assuming that the beeps come from the motherboard, it means that there is a basic problem with your installation.

Listen carefully and note down the length and timing of the beeps, and check your motherboard manual, or its online support, for "beeps" "beeping" and "POST" to find out what the beeps mean.

If your motherboard is one of the few that also has a small LED display right on the motherboard, check in your manual etc what the number displayed by the LED means.

Reply back if you still have problems.

Fuzzy
November 12, 2006 1:29:26 PM

Quote:
You´ve to put in some paper to get it printing. :wink:


LOL.. "PC Load letter? wtf is PC Load Letter?..."
November 12, 2006 2:30:54 PM

AMI Beep Codes
-------------------
1 beep DRAM refresh failure. There is a problem in the system memory or the motherboard.
2 beeps Memory parity error. The parity circuit is not working properly.
3 beeps Base 64K RAM failure. There is a problem with the first 64K of system memory.
4 beeps System timer not operational. There is problem with the timer(s) that control functions on the motherboard.
5 beeps Processor failure. The system CPU has failed.
6 beeps Gate A20/keyboard controller failure. The keyboard IC controller has failed, preventing gate A20 from switching the processor to protect mode.
7 beeps Virtual mode exception error.
8 beeps Video memory error. The BIOS cannot write to the frame buffer memory on the video card.
9 beeps ROM checksum error. The BIOS ROM chip on the motherboard is likely faulty.
10 beeps CMOS checksum error. Something on the motherboard is causing an error when trying to interact with the CMOS.
11 beeps Bad cache memory. An error in the level 2 cache memory.
1 long beep, 2 short Failure in the video system.
1 long beep, 3 short A failure has been detected in memory above 64K.
1 long beep, 8 short Display test failure.
Continuous beeping A problem with the memory or video.
_____________________________________________________________

Phoenix 4-beep codes
---------------------------
1-1-1-3 Faulty CPU/motherboard. Verify real mode.
1-1-2-1 Faulty CPU/motherboard.
1-1-2-3 Faulty motherboard or one of its components.
1-1-3-1 Faulty motherboard or one of its components. Initialize chipset registers with initial POST values.
1-1-3-2 Faulty motherboard or one of its components.
1-1-3-3 Faulty motherboard or one of its components. Initialize CPU registers.
1-1-3-2
1-1-3-3
1-1-3-4 Failure in the first 64K of memory.
1-1-4-1 Level 2 cache error.
1-1-4-3 I/O port error.
1-2-1-1 Power management error.
1-2-1-2
1-2-1-3 Faulty motherboard or one of its components.
1-2-2-1 Keyboard controller failure.
1-2-2-3 BIOS ROM error.
1-2-3-1 System timer error.
1-2-3-3 DMA error.
1-2-4-1 IRQ controller error.
1-3-1-1 DRAM refresh error.
1-3-1-3 A20 gate failure.
1-3-2-1 Faulty motherboard or one of its components.
1-3-3-1 Extended memory error.
1-3-3-3
1-3-4-1
1-3-4-3 Error in first 1MB of system memory.
1-4-1-3
1-4-2-4 CPU error.
1-4-3-1
2-1-4-1 BIOS ROM shadow error.
1-4-3-2
1-4-3-3 Level 2 cache error.
1-4-4-1
1-4-4-2
2-1-1-1 Faulty motherboard or one of its components.
2-1-1-3
2-1-2-1 IRQ failure.
2-1-2-3 BIOS ROM error.
2-1-2-4
2-1-3-2 I/O port failure.
2-1-3-1
2-1-3-3 Video system failure.
2-1-1-3
2-1-2-1 IRQ failure.
2-1-2-3 BIOS ROM error.
2-1-2-4 I/O port failure.
2-1-4-3
2-2-1-1 Video card failure.
2-2-1-3
2-2-2-1
2-2-2-3 Keyboard controller failure.
2-2-3-1 IRQ error.
2-2-4-1 Error in first 1MB of system memory.
2-3-1-1
2-3-3-3 Extended memory failure.
2-3-2-1 Faulty motherboard or one of its components.
2-3-2-3
2-3-3-1 Level 2 cache error.
2-3-4-1
2-3-4-3 Motherboard or video card failure.
2-3-4-1
2-3-4-3
2-4-1-1 Motherboard or video card failure.
2-4-1-3 Faulty motherboard or one of its components.
2-4-2-1 RTC error.
2-4-2-3 Keyboard controller error.
2-4-4-1 IRQ error.
3-1-1-1
3-1-1-3
3-1-2-1
3-1-2-3 I/O port error.
3-1-3-1
3-1-3-3 Faulty motherboard or one of its components.
3-1-4-1
3-2-1-1
3-2-1-2 Floppy drive or hard drive failure.
3-2-1-3 Faulty motherboard or one of its components.
3-2-2-1 Keyboard controller error.
3-2-2-3
3-2-3-1
3-2-4-1 Faulty motherboard or one of its components.
3-2-4-3 IRQ error.
3-3-1-1 RTC error.
3-3-1-3 Key lock error.
3-3-3-3 Faulty motherboard or one of its components.
3-3-3-3
3-3-4-1
3-3-4-3
3-4-1-1
3-4-1-3
3-4-2-1
3-4-2-3
3-4-3-1
3-4-4-1
3-4-4-4 Faulty motherboard or one of its components.
4-1-1-1 Floppy drive or hard drive failure.
4-2-1-1
4-2-1-3
4-2-2-1 IRQ failure.
4-2-2-3
4-2-3-1
4-2-3-3
4-2-4-1 Faulty motherboard or one of its components.
4-2-4-3 Keyboard controller error.
4-3-1-3
4-3-1-4
4-3-2-1
4-3-2-2
4-3-3-1
4-3-4-1
4-3-4-3 Faulty motherboard or one of its components.
4-3-3-2
4-3-3-4 IRQ failure.
4-3-3-3
4-3-4-2 Floppy drive or hard drive failure.
_____________________________________________________________

Phoenix 3-Beep Codes
---------------------------
1-1-2 Faulty CPU/motherboard.
1-1-3 Faulty motherboard/CMOS read-write failure.
1-1-4 Faulty BIOS/BIOS ROM checksum error.
1-2-1 System timer not operational. There is a problem with the timer(s) that control functions on the motherboard.
1-2-2
1-2-3 Faulty motherboard/DMA failure.
1-3-1 Memory refresh failure.
1-3-2
1-3-3
1-3-4 Failure in the first 64K of memory.
1-4-1 Address line failure.
1-4-2 Parity RAM failure.
1-4-3 Timer failure.
1-4-4 NMI port failure.
2-_-_ Any combination of beeps after 2 indicates a failure in the first 64K of memory.
3-1-1 Master DMA failure.
3-1-2 Slave DMA failure.
3-1-3
3-1-4 Interrupt controller failure.
3-2-4 Keyboard controller failure.
3-3-1
3-3-2 CMOS error.
3-3-4 Video card failure.
3-4-1 Video card failure.
4-2-1 Timer failure.
4-2-2 CMOS shutdown failure.
4-2-3 Gate A20 failure.
4-2-4 Unexpected interrupt in protected mode.
4-3-1 RAM test failure.
4-3-3 Timer failure.
4-3-4 Time of day clock failure.
4-4-1 Serial port failure.
4-4-2 Parallel port failure.
4-4-3 Math coprocessor
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