Is this a PSU problem ... or a mobo problem ?

NoobyDoo

Senior member
Nov 13, 2006
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My friend has a 4 year old PC with a AGP card.

1) If he powers on the PC after a long time, it responds with one long beep followed by two short ones. This indicates : "The only AwardBIOS beep code indicates that a video error has occurred and the BIOS cannot initialize the video screen to display any additional information. " . The CPU cooler fan, LED on the mobo are on.

2) If he then shuts down the PC ( presses the power button on the cabinet for 4 secs ), it shuts down properly.

3) If he then immediately ( or within a short time, say less than an hour ) powers on the PC it boots and works OK.

I removed all PCI cards, disconnected the hard disk & the DVD drive. Same problem. So the fault must be, afaik, with either the mobo or psu.

Any comments ? He does not have another PSU so I couldn't test it with that.

btw : He has recently replaced the AGP card. This card was being used by someone else before, so it should be OK. The one he had went bad - he had been using it for 4 years.

 

mpilchfamily

Diamond Member
Jun 11, 2007
3,559
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If your getting the beep code for bad video then its the video card. Get your hands on another video card. If the same problems presist then its the motherboard.
 

mindless1

Diamond Member
Aug 11, 2001
8,749
1,759
136
Probably a flaky PSU 5VSB circuit jamming up the logic if left sitting long enough. Check the PS2 and USB jumpers in case they're set to 5VSB instead of 5V and change them if present.

Otherwise it's probably the PSU. Motherboard failure can cause this too but PSU is more likely. First check the motherboard battery.