Forum Home
Press F1
 
Thread ID: 69037 2006-05-19 21:57:00 'POST beep' wont stop - no boot Erger (10062) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
456203 2006-05-20 20:13:00 "What the BIOS actually does during its boot sequence varies slightly from manufacturer to manufacturer;
these basic steps are performed during the boot sequence:
1. When the PC is powered on, the internal power supply initializes.
The power supply doesn’t immediately provide power to the rest of the computer. First, it determines whether it can supply the proper voltages that the PC’s components require. The power supply sends out a POWER GOOD signal when it determines that it can supply reliable power to the rest of the PC.
When the chipset receives this signal, it issues a SYSTEM RESET signal to the processor.
2. When the processor receives the SYSTEM RESET signal, it accesses the jump address for the start of
the BIOS boot program at its hard-wired preset address and loads it into RAM.
Remember The jump address contains the actual address of the BIOS boot program on the ROM BIOS chip. The jump address is usually located at address FFFF0 (hexadecimal) or 1,048,560 (decimal), which is the upper end of the first megabyte of system memory.
3. With the primary part of the BIOS now loaded to RAM, the POST process begins.
If any fatal errors happen during the POST process (problems that prevent the PC from operating normally), the appropriate error beep codes sound or perhaps an error message displays, and the boot process stops. At this point in the boot process, only the system speaker (because it’s technically
part of the motherboard) can notify the user of errors.
4. If all is well, the boot sequence continues, and the system BIOS loads the device BIOS of the video..."

Accodrding to the above-from A+ Certification- and from what you have already changed(M/B)- the only other suspect is CPU: Is is damaged? is the heatsink/fan working properly? I had a CPU Fan once that crashed the system 9 out of 10 times... 		georgeks (9122)
456204 2006-05-20 20:16:00 Default Re: 'POST beep' wont stop - no boot
"What the BIOS actually does during its boot sequence varies slightly from manufacturer to manufacturer;
these basic steps are performed during the boot sequence:
1. When the PC is powered on, the internal power supply initializes.
The power supply doesn’t immediately provide power to the rest of the computer. First, it determines whether it can supply the proper voltages that the PC’s components require. The power supply sends out a POWER GOOD signal when it determines that it can supply reliable power to the rest of the PC.
When the chipset receives this signal, it issues a SYSTEM RESET signal to the processor.
2. When the processor receives the SYSTEM RESET signal, it accesses the jump address for the start of
the BIOS boot program at its hard-wired preset address and loads it into RAM.
Remember The jump address contains the actual address of the BIOS boot program on the ROM BIOS chip. The jump address is usually located at address FFFF0 (hexadecimal) or 1,048,560 (decimal), which is the upper end of the first megabyte of system memory.
3. With the primary part of the BIOS now loaded to RAM, the POST process begins.
If any fatal errors happen during the POST process (problems that prevent the PC from operating normally), the appropriate error beep codes sound or perhaps an error message displays, and the boot process stops. At this point in the boot process, only the system speaker (because it’s technically
part of the motherboard) can notify the user of errors.
4. If all is well, the boot sequence continues, and the system BIOS loads the device BIOS of the video..."

Accodrding to the above-from A+ Certification- and from what you have already changed(M/B)- the only other suspects are CPU: Is is damaged? is the heatsink/fan working properly? I had a CPU Fan once that crashed the system 9 out of 10 times...
POWER SUPPLY: Is it capable of supporting the system? How many USB devices have you connected may also affect the solution.. 		georgeks (9122)
456205 2006-05-20 21:46:00 Default Re: 'POST beep' wont stop - no boot
"What the BIOS actually does during its boot sequence varies slightly from manufacturer to manufacturer;
these basic steps are performed during the boot sequence:
1. When the PC is powered on, the internal power supply initializes.
The power supply doesn’t immediately provide power to the rest of the computer. First, it determines whether it can supply the proper voltages that the PC’s components require. The power supply sends out a POWER GOOD signal when it determines that it can supply reliable power to the rest of the PC.
When the chipset receives this signal, it issues a SYSTEM RESET signal to the processor.
2. When the processor receives the SYSTEM RESET signal, it accesses the jump address for the start of
the BIOS boot program at its hard-wired preset address and loads it into RAM.
Remember The jump address contains the actual address of the BIOS boot program on the ROM BIOS chip. The jump address is usually located at address FFFF0 (hexadecimal) or 1,048,560 (decimal), which is the upper end of the first megabyte of system memory.
3. With the primary part of the BIOS now loaded to RAM, the POST process begins.
If any fatal errors happen during the POST process (problems that prevent the PC from operating normally), the appropriate error beep codes sound or perhaps an error message displays, and the boot process stops. At this point in the boot process, only the system speaker (because it’s technically
part of the motherboard) can notify the user of errors.
4. If all is well, the boot sequence continues, and the system BIOS loads the device BIOS of the video..."

Accodrding to the above-from A+ Certification- and from what you have already changed(M/B)- the only other suspects are CPU: Is is damaged? is the heatsink/fan working properly? I had a CPU Fan once that crashed the system 9 out of 10 times...
POWER SUPPLY: Is it capable of supporting the system? How many USB devices have you connected may also affect the solution..


While not being able to respond to all the comments and questions I can confirm that the problem continues to occor with absolutely no peripherals attached. (there is never anything seen on-screen when a monitor is attached). Just the box plugged into the wall.

It occurs no matter what the room / socket I plug it into and I have tried a second lead.

The PC does not emit a series of beeps which I realise can idicate one of a multitude of problems depending on their number and sequence. It emits one long never ending beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee e .... which never ends until you turn the PC of (so its not even a beep) There was a time when you could just keep pressing 'reset' and after a few goes (2 or 10) the PC would eventually boot and then operate with no aparent problem. (You could tell when it would start by a change in noise from the machine - fan or drives?)

If it is important, the problem would never re-occur on a warm re-boot and in the main even if you did a cold re-boot it would not occur if you had already had the machine running.

George

ps sounds to me like the problem is very early as it takes less than 8 secs to get from power on to the f&^%$*g beeeeeeeeeeeeeee :badpc: 		Erger (10062)
456206 2006-05-21 02:30:00 Below is a table of the most common AMI, Phoenix and Award BIOS beep codes.

AMI (American Megatrends International) BIOS Beep Codes.
AMI BIOS uses beeps of the same length and pitch. The error is displayed as a number of beeps. For example, 4 beeps indicated a timer failure.
BEEP CODE MEANING POSSIBLE CAUSE
1 Beep (No video) Memory refresh failure Bad memory
2 Beeps Memory parity error Bad memory
3 Beeps Base 64K mem failure Bad memory
4 Beeps Timer not operational Bad motherboard
5 Beeps Processor error Bad processor
6 Beeps 8042 Gate A20 failure Bad CPU or Motherboard
7 Beeps Processor exception Bad processor
8 Beeps Video memory error Bad video card or memory
9 Beeps ROM checksum error Bad BIOS
10 Beeps CMOS checksum error Bad motherboard
11 Beeps Cache memory bad Bad CPU or motherboard

Award BIOS Beep Codes
Award BIOS uses beeps of varying duration. A long beep will typically last for 2 seconds while a short beep will last only 1 second. Award BIOS also uses beeps of different frequency to indicate critical errors. If an Award BIOS detects that the CPU is overheating it may play a high pitched repeating beep while the computer is running.
BEEP CODE MEANING POSSIBLE CAUSE
1 Long, 2 Short Video adapter failure Bad video adapter
Repeating (Endless loop) Memory error Bad memory or bad connection
1 Long, 3 Short Video adapter failure Bad video adapter or memory
High freq. beeps (while running) CPU is overheating CPU fan failure
Repeating High, Low beeps CPU failure Bad processor

Phoenix BIOS Beep Codes
Phoenix BIOS uses beep code patterns to indicate problems. In the table below the '-' indicates a brief pause between beeps.

Example: 1 - 1 - 2 would sound like BEEP <pause> BEEP <pause> BEEP BEEP
BEEP CODE MEANING POSSIBLE CAUSE
1 - 1 - 2 CPU / motherboard failure Bad CPU / motherboard
1 - 1 - 3 CMOS read/write failure Bad motherboard
1 - 1 - 4 BIOS ROM failure Bad BIOS chip
1 - 2 - 1 Timer failure Bad motherboard
1 - 2 - 2 DMA failure Bad motherboard
1 - 2 - 3 DMA failure Bad motherboard
1 - 3 - 1 Memory refresh failure Bad memory
1 - 3 - 2 64K memory failure Bad memory
1 - 3 - 3 64K memory failure Bad memory
1 - 3 - 4 64K memory failure Bad memory
1 - 4 - 1 Address line failure Bad memory
1 - 4 - 2 Parity error Bad memory
1 - 4 - 3 Timer failure Bad motherboard
1 - 4 - 4 NMI port failure Bad motherboard
2 - 1 - 1 64K memory failure Bad memory
2 - 1 - 2 64K memory failure Bad memory
2 - 1 - 3 64K memory failure Bad memory
2 - 1 - 4 64K memory failure Bad memory
2 - 2 - 1 64K memory failure Bad memory
2 - 2 - 2 64K memory failure Bad memory
2 - 2 - 3 64K memory failure Bad memory
2 - 2 - 4 64K memory failure Bad memory
2 - 3 - 1 64K memory failure Bad memory
2 - 3 - 2 64K memory failure Bad memory
2 - 3 - 3 64K memory failure Bad memory
2 - 3 - 4 64K memory failure Bad memory
2 - 4 - 1 64K memory failure Bad memory
2 - 4 - 2 64K memory failure Bad memory
2 - 4 - 4 64K memory failure Bad memory
2 - 4 - 4 64K memory failure Bad memory
3 - 1 - 1 Slave DMA failure Bad motherboard
3 - 1 - 2 Master DMA failure Bad motherboard
3 - 1 - 3 Interrupt controller failure Bad motherboard
3 - 1 -4 Slave IC failure Bad motherboard
3 - 2 -2 Interrupt Controller failure Bad motherboard
3 - 2 - 3 <RESERVED>
3 - 2 - 4 Keyboard control failure Bad motherboard
3 - 3 - 1 CMOS batter failure Bad CMOS battery
3 - 3 - 2 CMOS configuration error Incorrect setting
3 - 3 - 3 <RESERVED>
3 - 3 - 4 Video memory failure Bad video card or memory
3 - 4 - 1 Video init failure Bad video card or memory
4 - 2 - 1 Timer failure Bad motherboard
4 - 2 - 2 CMOS shutdown failure Bad motherboard
4 - 2 - 3 Gate A20 failure Bad motherboard
4 - 2 - 4 Unexpected interrupt Bad processor
4 - 3 - 1 RAM test failure Bad memory
4 - 3 - 3 Timer failure Bad motherboard
4 - 3 - 4 RTC failure Bad motherboard
4 - 4 - 1 Serial port failure Bad motherboard
4 - 4 - 2 Parallel port failure Bad motherboard
4 - 4 - 3 Coprocessor failure Bad motherboard or CPU.
9 - 2 - 1 Video adapter incompatibility Use a different brand of video card 		zqwerty (97)
456207 2006-05-21 02:43:00 Chnage the BIOS backup cell . If the BIOS sets the CPU or memory speed randomly after losing its settings (because of bad 2032) that might make it very unhappy .

If it does start, and gets into the BIOS and sets the default settings that would make sure that it can boot again . (The BIOS memory needs such a small amount of power to maintain it that once it's set it will be Ok for some time .

In case it's RAM memory, be prepared . Make a boot disk for memtest86 . The next time the computer boots, put that disk in and run the test for a while .

Have you noticed any temperature dependence? Warmer might make it more likely to fail if it's memory "only just nearly fast enough" . 		Graham L (2)
456208 2006-05-21 05:26:00 1 long beep on my computer is memory (RAM)


Accodrding to the above-from A+ Certification- and from what you have already changed(M/B)- the only other suspect is CPU: Is is damaged? is the heatsink/fan working properly? I had a CPU Fan once that crashed the system 9 out of 10 times... I very much doubt it would be the CPU. If so the computer wouldnt POST or would give the appropriate post error code.
CPU fan will overheat the system, and yes, shut it down, but won't issue a post code, nor will it shut the system down in 8 seconds. 		Myth (110)
456209 2006-05-21 08:23:00 Just my 2 cents worth.
Are you sure it is a BIOS beep or is it a warning that the heatsink and fan not fitted correctly with thermal paste etc. I had one person bring me a computer some time ago with a very long beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep and could have sworn the sound was coming from the monitor.

In the BIOS it was set to warn at 65% and shutdown at 70% for overheating.

Took the heatsink and fan off and found excess paste all over the top of the CPU. Cleaned everything up and refitted and this system is still working.

A guess I know but this has happend. 		Sweep (90)
456210 2006-05-21 08:39:00 One more thing, I know this sounds stupid, but I had a customer do this, do not put fridge magnets on your case.

Lol, I have one on this computer...but it's been there for ages and never had any problems at all.

as for the beep problem, I'd say a RAM problem, maybe the bios is setup badly where the ram timings etc are concerned.

a new motherboard and swapping in some other ram should have fixed any phyiscal problems... 		Agent_24 (57)
456211 2006-05-21 08:40:00 You can find all the Bios beep codes in the right hand window.

www.bioscentral.com 		Pancake (6359)
456212 2006-05-21 21:48:00 Just my 2 cents worth.
I had one person bring me a computer some time ago with a very long beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep and could have sworn the sound was coming from the monitor.

In the BIOS it was set to warn at 65% and shutdown at 70% for overheating.

Took the heatsink and fan off and found excess paste all over the top of the CPU. Cleaned everything up and refitted and this system is still working.

Overheat warning beep is a high low siren beep.
Its RAM! 		pctek (84)
1 2 3