Beeping on power-on, wont boot up

[sh4smi]

My computer: approx 1 year old custom-built, ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe MOBO, amd-fx55 CPU, 2 gigs of XMS LLPRO memory, 2-74 gb Raptor HDs in raid 0, 2-6800 Ultra video cards in SLI, 1 older 80 GB Western Digital HD for backup data

Computer has been operating fine for a year or so, was just using this afternoon and it ran fine. Came home this evening and tried to turn it on, it powers up , you can hear the hard drives, see the LED's on the RAM sticks booting up as normal, all the fans work, but the Monitor is not showing any boot-up info (i.e. BIOS, etc) The monitor just stays on standby mode as if the computer was not turned on...and the PC speaker cycles a low-toned beep noise every 2 seconds or less. The video cards both appear to be powered-on and the fans are working on both.

HERE IS WHAT IVE TRIED:
-unplugged power to the CD rom drive: no factor
-unplugged the Hard Drives: no factor
-took out the cpu and it did not do the beeping noise anymore but still did not show anything on the screen; dusted everything off with canned Air, reinserted CPU; no factor

Notes: CPU was too hot to touch after only a few seconds of trying to turn on the computer (not a good sign?) or do they really get that hot instantly?

My thoughts: I can only guess that the CPU is fried, if not a portion of the motherboard.

Any ideas guys?? Anything else I should try?

I dont have anything else to test the CPU on, or another CPU to try in the motherboard.

Thanks

[chrisling]

Welcome to PCGuide Discussion Forum.

The beeps are continuous short beeps or a long beep then continue by another long beep? Since you have two RAM currently in using, try take out one of it and try running for one RAM only each time. Clean the 'foot' of the RAM by earaser an plug it in again.

[saphalline]

Notes: CPU was too hot to touch after only a few seconds of trying to turn on the computer (not a good sign?) or do they really get that hot instantly?You had the heatsink/fan on it, right? I hope so! And yes, they really do get that hot instantly. Especially an Athlon64 FX! That's why there's such a large cooling assembly for such a tiny little CPU.

I agree with chrisling - the continuous beeping indicates a RAM issue. Take out the RAM, blow out the DIMM slots, reinsert the RAM a few times, blow out the slots again, then insert the RAM and try to power it up.

[sh4smi]

ok, you were partially right i think, i took the ram out , cleaned it, reinserted 1 pair at a time, it gave me the blue screen of death while loading windows

then i tried the other 2 banks with the other ram, same thing

then i tried putting all 4 sticks back in, this time it didnt beep either but now it just freezes on BIOS screen and it wont let me go into the bios...

thanks for the help so far, any more ideas? i cant believe all 4 sticks of RAM would go bad at once

Thx again

Shane :rolleyes:

[sh4smi]

update: it seems intermittent to freeze at BIOS or just not even go to BIOS then starts the beeping thing again, it is continuous beeping but they are abour 1-second long low-tone beeps, just keeps going over and over

also noticed that when it freezes at BIOS screen , the little LED action lights on the RAM sticks look asymetrical--they arent matching up from one stick to the next

thanks

[saphalline]

Unplug the system, take out the mobo battery (CR2032 button cell), wait 10 minutes, plug the system back in (with mobo battery still removed), and power it up. Any changes?

[sh4smi]

did as you said, no change

put the battery back in, no change,

took out 1 of the pair, it started up, went passed the BIOS, then gave me an error saying "Missing "NTLDR"" whatever that means :o

[Paul Komski]

Cant find manufacturer information on a continuous beep for Phoenix/Award BIOS on the web (eg http://www.technick.net/public/code/cp_dpage.php?aiocp_dp=guide_beep_codes) or in an ASUS A8N-E Manual that I have so it must relate to something severe.

eg apart from RAM perhaps it could be No/Bad Power, Loose Card, a Short or an Overheating/Slow CPUfan speed. The temperature at which you will be warned can, I think, be set in the BIOS setup if you can get in there and see the Hardware Monitoring section.

A bare bones boot (minimum hardware attached) with the mobo out of the case on insulated material attached to a known good PSU could be worth a shot.

EDITED ADDITION
Missed your last post so if you are getting a ntldr is missing message the boot process just cant find the correct partition to boot from and clearing the CMOS has solved the "hardware problem". Try bootcfg /rebuild from the installation CD's Recovery Console to correct the boot pointers in the boot.ini file or indeed a full Repair Installation http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

[sh4smi]

Thanks Paul but I dont think that will fix my problem. I only got it to boot to the Missing "NTLDR" stage once, now that I put all 4 RAM sticks back in it still is not wanting to even boot past the BIOS.

I think this problem is more serious than a home remedy can tend to. I am going to take it into a computer store up the street and have them run some diagnostics to figure out what exactly I need to replace. Hopefully its nothing but a bad Mobo or a bad RAM stick or two. It would suck to have to replace my CPU. (Athlon FX55)
:rolleyes:

Thanks again

Shane