Motherboard Beeping

[punkrawket]

A friend of mine has an ECS K7S5A motherboard.... ( i know, i know, don't give me crap about it, we just want it fixed)
It doesn't post.... it only beeps 8 times.. stops for a second and beeps 8 times.. and repeats
we tested the RAM multiple times with differnt ram, different video cards pci and agp, and different power supplies

any ideas????

 

[Davegod]

try looking around your BIOS makers site for a list of what the beep codes are tryign to tell you, will narrow down the problems.

if u havent already, strip down the computer totally, so its sitting on a non-static, non-conductive surface (i.e. wooden table), connetced only to PSU. connect a PCI vid card and a memory stick, and try to switch on. if no post, swap the mem stick if poss, still not working? reset CMOS (where bios keeps the settings). youll need to check the manual for this, usually a jumper to do it but sometimes youll have to connect soldered points, do not even try this until you know exactly which points these are, as you could short (read: FRY) the board good and proper.

if BIOS is very screwed (incorrectly flashed), for AMI BIOS's do this:
get the correct flash file, rename the .rom file to AMIBOOT.ROM, stick in the floppy drive and power on. should flash the BIOS for you. this is ONLY to be done as an absolute last resort and of course only applies to AMI bios's (look on the bios chip on the board). there may be an equivalent for others like AWARD.

 

[ST4RCUTTER]

The ECS K7S5A uses an AMI BIOS. Go here for the .pdf on the error codes. Looks like 8 beeps indicate video memory failure. Either the video card is bad or the memory on the card is bad. Probably just needs to be reseated. Here's another good link.

 

[punkrawket]

The funny thing about that is we have replaced the video card twice. One was from a working computer (Gefroce 2 MX AGP) and one was another known working video card (Voodoo 5500 PCI, tried 3 different PCI Slots). This 8 beep thing it really confusing.

Thanks for the help tho!

 

[ST4RCUTTER]

Maybe there's a setting in the BIOS that's incorrect for your video card. Have you tried clearing the CMOS after reseating the card?

 

[Kung Lau]

Thanks for the reference link ST4RCUTTER.

Punkrawket, I'm having a similar problem also. I tried swapping out cards, and I know it's not the video card now. (working fine in other computer)

What else could it be?
I was getting graphic artifacts before it totally shut down like this with the 8 beeps.

Thanks

 

[Ionizer86]

One time I took the ram out of my mobo to look at it. I also did some other stuff with the comp. After putting everything back together, it'd beep three times every time I tried to power up. Rehooked everything, same problem. So I reseated the ram. Still beeped 3 times. "I'm in deep $|-|!7 now!" I said to myself. Reseated once again, memory comes up 128mb (I had 3 sticks: 128, 64, 64)

So I reseat my 128mb stick, and I still have 128 mb. I had to reseat my two 64mb sticks to finally get back to the 256mb I had. Wow! Out of 8 times seating my ram (I had 3 dimms) I only seated correctly 3 times!!

So my advice is to go back and reseat the ram enough to know that you're seating it properly.