I just put together the following rig on Friday morning:
The Rig
CASE FAN|ROSEWILL RFA-120-RL Here
MB GIGABYTE | GA-MA770T-UD3P AMD770 Here (Flashed to the very latest bios today)
CASE APEX|PC-389-C Here
CPU AMD|ATH II X4 620 AM3 Here
MEM 2Gx2|OCZ OCZ3G1600LVAM4GK Here
PSU OCZ|OCZ600MXSP 600W Here
VGA SAPPHIRE|100269VXL HD4890 Here
Western Digital Raptor WD740ADFD 74GB 10000 RPM SATA 1.5Gb (my main drive)
Western Digital Caviar RE WD1600YS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb (for storage)
I have only installed windows xp sp2 at this point.
The Issue
The first time I went to turn on the newly built computer, I got 3-4 long beeps from the Award bios. It would cycle this over and over. There is a tiny led on the back of the Sapphire card labeled "CTF" that would blink on between each cycle of beeps (which doesn't mean much other than it was turning on for a brief second before another series of beeps).
At this point I read the manual, and it said continuous long beeps could indicate the vga card is not seated properly. So I pulled it out, checked it, and put it back in. Same result.
Now this beeping wouldn't always be the same, it would be 3 long beeps and then 1 and then a long pause. And sometimes it would be one short (which indicates all is ok) and it would post, and load windows without any problems. But with each reset, something different would occur (more times than not, it would do the long beeps over and over).
So in the process of elimination I did the follow:
-Replaced the Sapphire with my old 7600gs card, same result.
-Switched the ram chips, removed one and left one in, removed all the ram (same long beep result for each scenario.
-Switched out the PSU and put in a 500w from my old rig, same result
-Removed all HD's, fans (except cpu fan), dvd drive, etc. Had only the ram, mb, and video card installed, pc speaker, and power switch plugged in and still same result.
I also ran memtest and it gave me some errors (it had errors again when I did test number 6): http://i36.tinypic.com/al290n.jpg
Here are the cpu-z screens (you'll notice the memory timings got messed up, they are supposed to be 8-8-8-24) http://i38.tinypic.com/1zfrcyf.jpg Sometimes the bios will reset the memory timings to whatever it autodetects.
Here are the HWmonitor numbers: http://i34.tinypic.com/k0knpe.jpg
If I only had some different ddr3 ram to throw in there to test, but I don't.
Temperatures are well within the acceptable range (37 C for processor, 49 C for graphics card, and system temp under 40 C)
I'm trying to figure out whether it's the ram or the motherboard. I am siding towards it being a ram problem.
I can eventually get it to log into windows. Once in windows things work pretty good. But Firefox 3.5 tends to crash and there are some occasional program shutdowns/errors.
What does it sound like to you guys? Thanks for the input. (If I need to clarify something, please point it out).
The Rig
CASE FAN|ROSEWILL RFA-120-RL Here
MB GIGABYTE | GA-MA770T-UD3P AMD770 Here (Flashed to the very latest bios today)
CASE APEX|PC-389-C Here
CPU AMD|ATH II X4 620 AM3 Here
MEM 2Gx2|OCZ OCZ3G1600LVAM4GK Here
PSU OCZ|OCZ600MXSP 600W Here
VGA SAPPHIRE|100269VXL HD4890 Here
Western Digital Raptor WD740ADFD 74GB 10000 RPM SATA 1.5Gb (my main drive)
Western Digital Caviar RE WD1600YS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb (for storage)
I have only installed windows xp sp2 at this point.
The Issue
The first time I went to turn on the newly built computer, I got 3-4 long beeps from the Award bios. It would cycle this over and over. There is a tiny led on the back of the Sapphire card labeled "CTF" that would blink on between each cycle of beeps (which doesn't mean much other than it was turning on for a brief second before another series of beeps).
At this point I read the manual, and it said continuous long beeps could indicate the vga card is not seated properly. So I pulled it out, checked it, and put it back in. Same result.
Now this beeping wouldn't always be the same, it would be 3 long beeps and then 1 and then a long pause. And sometimes it would be one short (which indicates all is ok) and it would post, and load windows without any problems. But with each reset, something different would occur (more times than not, it would do the long beeps over and over).
So in the process of elimination I did the follow:
-Replaced the Sapphire with my old 7600gs card, same result.
-Switched the ram chips, removed one and left one in, removed all the ram (same long beep result for each scenario.
-Switched out the PSU and put in a 500w from my old rig, same result
-Removed all HD's, fans (except cpu fan), dvd drive, etc. Had only the ram, mb, and video card installed, pc speaker, and power switch plugged in and still same result.
I also ran memtest and it gave me some errors (it had errors again when I did test number 6): http://i36.tinypic.com/al290n.jpg
Here are the cpu-z screens (you'll notice the memory timings got messed up, they are supposed to be 8-8-8-24) http://i38.tinypic.com/1zfrcyf.jpg Sometimes the bios will reset the memory timings to whatever it autodetects.
Here are the HWmonitor numbers: http://i34.tinypic.com/k0knpe.jpg
If I only had some different ddr3 ram to throw in there to test, but I don't.
Temperatures are well within the acceptable range (37 C for processor, 49 C for graphics card, and system temp under 40 C)
I'm trying to figure out whether it's the ram or the motherboard. I am siding towards it being a ram problem.
I can eventually get it to log into windows. Once in windows things work pretty good. But Firefox 3.5 tends to crash and there are some occasional program shutdowns/errors.
What does it sound like to you guys? Thanks for the input. (If I need to clarify something, please point it out).
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