2 second post beep 4 seconds silence 2 second post beep repeat

[maxxpowerr]

I was listening to music. When the music ended I asssumed I had come to the end of playlist. Since monitor had shut down I attempted to access desktop but the monitor remained on standby. I restarted my pc and got a single long post but with a hint of a change in beep toward end. The floppy disc light remained on for until I reset pc and again the same. I had recently, in the last week or more changed the video card. Since the single beep could be either memory or video(normally) I changed the memory first. At this point post began to repeat itself. Long beep(2 secs) 4secs of silence and long beep.

I then put in original memory and changed out the video card. Same thing.

All fans turn on, the harddrive spins up and there is no hint of a burning smell.

ecs k7vta3 mb
amd athlon 2400
evga fx5200 vid(new) geforce 2 mx 64(old)
512mb ram kingston
120gig seagate hdd
40gig western digital hdd

 

[maxxpowerr]

Ok ..I switched the ram to the other slot and made sure it was seated correctly..it booted up. Now if it is a problem with the ram slot, does this pose a problem in the future?

Now ..in my search for answers I came up with more questions. I noticed on the ECS website that my motherboard has a few versions...How would I be able to tell what version I have. I ask this because I noticed some of the lower versions do not support hdds over 120 gigs. I have had no problem and actually don't know if that means they don't support the size of the drive itself or just the partitions.

I also read that bios for motherboard should be updated if you are adding new hardware ..obviously I added the hdd and have recently added a newer video card.

I have also in the past 3 months upgraded to xp pro. To this point I have not even had a single BSOD or freeze up. Everything has run just fine.

This problem just hit me out of the clear blue and now I wonder if I did not take the necessary precautions ie. update bios?