Flashing BIOS question from total idiot

idiot_03

Distinguished
Apr 5, 2009
1
0
18,510
Hello,

I am new at this CPU building thing and not off to a great start. I have a Gigabyte GA-K8VM800M Motherboard I got from a friend, who told me that it worked and passes POST and all of that. I have installed it in my case in a way that I believe to be correct, but when I fire it up I get one long repeating beep, and it will not load up at all- DRAM error says the motherboard log. I'm fairly certain that I have good RAM inserted correctly, and I have experimented with different sticks in different slots, one at a time, in many different combinations. However, the one long beep is persistent and the computer will not load, nothing appears on the screen at all.

So, I understand why you would want to flash the BIOS and the idea of how to do it- I have my .f8 file on the floppy disk, in the floppy drive. But how the heck am I supposed to get to the BIOS screen to use it if I can't get past this infernal DRAM error beeping??

Thanks for any help. As you can probably tell I'm about ready to jump out a window. :hello:
 
I would get your friend to check your setup. You may have not inserted one stick of ram correctly, or forgotten a connection from the power supply. It could be anything, so before you screw something else up, have it checked by someone with more experience. I always do a bare post when all else fails. Place the board on a phonebook or cardboard box, and connect everything but the optical and hardrives. Start with one stick of memory and onboard video. Touch the power switch pins on the motherboard to fire it up.
 

ogs

Distinguished
Apr 6, 2009
1
0
18,510
OK, the first thing you do is check the graphic card. Sometimes, it's very often that bios beep is not the answer(base on my experience). So, I suggest you to put one by one memory stick, try to "fire it up" every single stick. Just pay attention where is the first slot, sometimes "DIMM1" or "DIMM0". You can find that on your motherboard manual. Pay attention to for dual channel memory. If that is not working, try to take out your graphic card from motherboard. Just try only the Processor and motherboard, Fire it up, and what is the result? another version of beep? If yes, consult your manual. But, dont worry about another beep, it's supposed 1long&2short. It's caused because you take out the graphic card. NOW, put back every single piece in place. Start from your graphic followed with RAM stick(still one by one). If all of that is not working, it's time to bring your machine to the 'hospital' :D . Good luck, I wish it can help.