make the beeping stop!!

[dmbforums]

Twice tonight, my computer has started beeping at me, and would not stop until I shut off the power. It's an alternating high and low pitch beep, and it just keeps going and going and...you get the picture.

Any ideas...?

 

[D1gger]

Maybe if you gave us some info, like what motherboard you are using, someone would be able to interpret the beep codes.

 

[dmbforums]

WinFast K7nCR18D PRO

I'm trying to find something about the beep codes, but no luck as of yet.

 

[mechBgon]

And what CPU? More specs!

 

[dmbforums]

haha...let's see...

1.2 Athlon...ancient, I know.
512 Mb RAM pc2100 I believe...
100G WD hard drive.
GeForce 4 Ti4200
plextor 52x burner
toshiba dvd-rom

As you can see, I built this computer years ago, haha.

 

[mechBgon]

Don't feel bad, for a while I was using a 1GHz Duron on an AMD760 mobo with a PCI Voodoo3 here

Ok, one possible cause of beeping is CPU overheat. Start by comparing your heatsink installation to the third and fourth photos on this page. If there is a shim between the CPU and the heatsink, take it out and reinstall the heatsink with a fresh coat of thermal grease and no shim.

Also, blow out the heatsink if it's really dusty.

 

[dmbforums]

Shouldn't cpu overheat shut down the machine entirely?

I'll give it a look, though. There's no shim, but I put ithe heatsink on a couple of years ago, so it couldn't hurt to get some fresh thermal grease on there, etc.

 

[SolMiester]

Old board, its not the CMOS battery is it?

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: dmbforums
Shouldn't cpu overheat shut down the machine entirely?

Not with a Thunderbird, they don't have that capability. That's the main reason that I asked what CPU it is.

 

[dmbforums]

Originally posted by: SolMiester
Old board, its not the CMOS battery is it?

Good question...how would I know?

I took the fan off and dusted the heatsink thoroughly without taking it off. There was a big nasty sheet of dust on it which is obviously a problem. We'll see if it happens again...if so, I guess taking the heatsink off and reapplying the arctic silver will be the next step...