HELP! Startup problem

jure16

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Nov 24, 2011
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i haven't used my pc for awhile (6 months) and now when I turn it on it gives me a long beep and restarts.
Motherboard: gigabyte ga m720 us3
cpu: amd phenom x4
gpu: sapphire radeon hd 3870
ram: 2x kingmax ddr2- 800
hdd: seagate barracuda 250gb

can anyone please help me?
the graphics card works on other computers
 

johnnyq1233

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Aug 15, 2007
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First off..is this machine overclocked?
if yes then clear the cmos by jumping the pins on the board...(make sure the machine is off and unplugged from the wall...)
or pull the cmos battery and leave it out for a while.
Please pull the video card, ram and any other cards that are in the system and clean the contacts with contact cleaner...
Blow out the dust from the slots that these were in..again you can spray a little contact cleaner in each slot and insert/remove the cards several times...
These should be dry after a few minutes...
Put the ram and video card back in and start the machine...if it all goes well then shut down and add another card and repeat until all the cards are back in and functioning..
Dust is the computers worst enemy and will cause all sorts of bad things...
Hope this helps....JQ
 

EhDude

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Nov 23, 2011
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Please don't do everything that was indicated above. Remember you have a manual that you can look up things like this in. It could be that your keyboard isn't plugged in. Even better open up the manual online and do a find on "beep". Sometimes just reinserting the problematic component is enough.

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3006#manual

Here's what you will find:

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
 

johnnyq1233

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Aug 15, 2007
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it's a spray on that you can get at any electronics store...
you spray it on the contacts or slot and then insert/remove about 4 times...until dry.
If this still fails I would consider contacting a close friend that has good hardware knowledge and see if he can help..
BTW..have you tried a different video card in this pc?
JQ