help - what in the heck just happended

[cthulhu]

I have
epox 8k7a
crucial 256 mb ram
maxtor 20 gig hd
viper v770 3d card
nic
**see my sig in case I forgot something

My computer just shutdown and rebooted. Everything seemed ok. I walked into the nexy room and the pc started beeping - about every 3 secs. I came back and the screen was blank. I tried the mouse thinking the monitor had powered down and nothing happened. Nothing happends when I try the power button. I looked at the mb and the led read C1 = auto detection of onboard dram & cache. If I try the reset button the led readout goes from C1 to FF (system booting, the bios already pass the control right to the os).

I have tried resetting the vid card and ram. No improvement.

Latter tonight I will try pulling the vid card out of my wife's pc( I am writing from now) and see if my vid card is the culprit. I don't have any spare parts to switch out. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions? Thanks for your time.

 

[MasterHoss]

Try pulling out your manual... it'll explain the beep codes and the LED indicator codes... I'm thinking it's either your RAM or your video card.

 

[cthulhu]

Ok, the epox site says that continuous beeps is memory related. Only prob is that I don't any memory to switch out. Gonna have to think about this.

 

[ScrapSilicon]

<< Ok, the epox site says that continuous beeps is memory related. Only prob is that I don't any memory to switch out. Gonna have to think about this. >>

think?? open the box up...pull(after proper antistatic precautions ) the stick( if its 2 pull both test one at a time) take a dry newspaper(regular not that glossy crap..don't ask why ..just do it) wipe the contacts reinsert making sure tabs engage...fire system off. Still no go grab a new stick from somewhere and RMA the crucial( never have had a bad stick but....)

 

[wfbberzerker]

same thing happened to me - your ram is most likely dead. a few weeks after i got my computer (same mobo, crucial ram), my computer randomly started dying, giving me the constant beeps and C1 on the mobo code. Call crucial and rma it.

 

[LuDaCriS66]

Yep.. wfbberzerker is right. The same thing happened to me also.. but with an Epox 8KHA+ and two 256mb PC2100 DDR sticks. You're gonna have to take your RAM out and RMA it.

I honestly think this is an Epox problem... I've read about at least 20 other people having the same problem and all of them have Epox boards. This doesn't seem to be a common occurance on Amddb.com's forums though... so I don't know.

Now if I put a stick of RAM in the second slot, it'll die... I haven't tried the third slot yet but I do have a working DIMM in the first slot.

 

[cthulhu]

ScrapSilicon said think?? Yes, I was trying to think of a way to test the ram in light of the fact that I have only one stick of ram compatible with by mb. I'll try the newspaper trick - thanks.

wfbberzerker & LuDaCriS66 Thanks. I plan on calling tomorrow if the newspaper trick doesn't work.

 

[cthulhu]

Praise be to scrapsilicon. The newspaper did it!! I bet a coffee filter would work also. I remember a tech service guy telling me to clean some leads on my printer and that worked. Thanks ss.

 

[cthulhu]

Ok, I spoke to soon. The pc ran fine for about an hr and then froze. When it rebooted, same old thing - beeps etc. I tried cleaning the terminals again to no avail. I will call crucial in the am and try to rma the stick of ram.

 

[LuDaCriS66]

The thing is when I had the problem, taking it out and reseating it fixed it for about an hour... just like you. So you should definately RMA it with Crucial and when you get the stick back, put it in a different memory slot... just in case. I didn't and I put it back in the same slot that killed my first DIMM and that stick died on me the next day.