PC - beeping and no boot (SOLVED)

[destrekor]

DFI Infinity P965-S
Intel C2D 6420 @ 3.2ghz
2x1gb DDR2-800mhz
450w Coolermaster PSU

Fans all turn on, dvd drive does initial spin-up it sounds like (access light turns on), and hard drives sound like they spin up.
This system has been around for less than 2 years. PSU might be a little older, cannot remember if I got it when I got the case or when I got the current build.
Nothing happens on the display, but the case front system LED (not the HDD activity LED) flashes non-stop. And I got a BIOS beep, one long beep, but keeps repeating after an almost equal time in-between (beeeeeeeeeep................beeeeeeeeeep....(x inf))
If I hold down the power button it'll turn off, but the front LED keeps flashing. I have to switch the PSU off to get it to stop.
I've had to hook the system up a few times in the past month, and each time after the first time I had to after coming home from school, it's done this. BUT, after messing around with the system I've been able to get it to boot just fine, and is stable, no loss in performance or stability. After toggling the PSU on and off, and removing the power cord, or on some occasions (possibly not even having done anything) I've reseated the mobo power connectors, or jiggled the ram.
But no luck yesterday or today after returning from school. I don't get it.
I've reseated all mobo power connectors, reseated both DIMMs, unplugged and toggled the PSU multiple times.
Is the PSU dead? I should have grabbed the Antec True550 I have in reserve after my parents upgraded to new machine and brought it down to school with me. Dammit I wish I did, I could try it then.

But if I've been able to get past the beeping on some occasions, and now I cannot... is it the PSU or something else going wacky? Once I could get it to boot successfully, it'd run perfectly, no problems with power... even playing games so I know the PSU could handle the power draw from the nVidia GeForce 8800gts. hmmm

thanks if anyone can help, and maybe provide some good news. buying a new psu is going to suck, cannot afford to buy these things at the moment.


UPDATE: 26 January 2009

Ugh. So it's definitely not the PSU. Just installed a PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750w. No dice, same symptoms.

Well, so it wants to be weird: prior to buying the new PSU, the last thing I did was reset the BIOS and the beeping stopped, but turned into endless reboots with no POST.

After installing the new PSU, it did the same thing. Mind you, I had to remove the mobo and one of the thins I did was remove the two sticks of RAM, and not sure if I put them in the same slots they had been, had no intention of even trying to do that.
First boot, it does the same thing: endless reboots with no POST, no error codes, nothing. Just boot up, everything starts spinning, then stop and lights turn off, then do it again.

The front case Power LED keeps flashing endlessly, and it did this prior to the new PSU as well, and did it no matter: whether there was a beep or endless reboots, the Power LED continues to basically strobe.

Well, I figured, now to move to the test idea: memory. So I pulled the second stick, and turned it on. What happens this time? Beeeeeeeep.... pause.... and repeat to infinite.

Now, I'm about to go to bed so I'm going to put this off till tomorrow afternoon after class. I'll have to dig into the system to remove stick 1, the CPU cooler, specifically the attached fan is blocking access to the first stick, so I'll have to remove the fan portion to do so.

Does it sound like it's just bad memory? Why would having both sticks in result in endless repeat of initial boot cycle with no POST, yet one stick in result in a single long beep repeating infinitely? Does that imply it's not even a memory issue then? Was it simply chance that it went down like that, and no matter what I do short of resetting the BIOS again will bring back the silence?

If it were a bad CPU, what would it do in that case?

I'm still trying to figure out why it does this non-stop now, but when the symptoms first began, I could eventually get it to boot, though the first few tries would result in the long beep repeating... though with enough tries it did successfully boot and remain stable. That's what made me think it was power.
If it was a bad motherboard or bad memory, why would it display those symptoms yet eventually turn on? Isn't something like the motherboard or memory going to either fail or not fail, versus just being stubborn and not putting all the effort to boot until enough attempts had coerced it into booting? This is really confusing me. With the original progression of symptoms, it was almost a sure-bet that it was the PSU.

UPDATE #2:

Solved. New memory solved it.

 

[mpilchfamily]

What video card do you have? Have you re seated the card and power?

 

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: mpilchfamily
What video card do you have? Have you re seated the card and power?

GeForce 8800gts (eVGA)

though, I was looking in the manual for my motherboard, and it said a video error would be a single long beep followed by 3 short beeps. I get a long beep, but it keeps repeating as a long beep.
The manual said the only other beep code was a single long beep. It doesn't indicate anything about repeating, so I don't know if that is just repeating the single long beep, or if it is unrelated and still power related.

 

[mpilchfamily]

I'm thinking its a power issue.

Is the PSU the iGreen or the eXtreme Power?

Now i'm assuming you have the iGreen or at least any other model then the eXtreme power since the eXtereme power 430W doen't offer the connectors for an 8800GTS nor does it have the power to support it.

Now chances are the PSU you have was just on the edge of being able to support your system and now its reached a point where it just can't handle the load anymore. So likely the video card isn't getting the power it needs so the system isn't able to boot. Try borrowing a larger PSU and see if that helps. Thats the best way you'll know if its a bad PSU or not.

 

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: mpilchfamily
I'm thinking its a power issue.

Is the PSU the iGreen or the eXtreme Power?

Now i'm assuming you have the iGreen or at least any other model then the eXtreme power since the eXtereme power 430W doen't offer the connectors for an 8800GTS nor does it have the power to support it.

Now chances are the PSU you have was just on the edge of being able to support your system and now its reached a point where it just can't handle the load anymore. So likely the video card isn't getting the power it needs so the system isn't able to boot. Try borrowing a larger PSU and see if that helps. Thats the best way you'll know if its a bad PSU or not.

It's the Coolermaster RealPower 450w.
Has the ATX 2.0 24pin connector, but the CPU power is still the 4pin and not the 8pin my mobo can accept (though 4pin works perfectly, and I overclock with it), as well as the 6pin video connector.

 

[mpilchfamily]

Remove the OC. That is the majority of your problem. The PSU isn't powerful enough to support your system with a good OC. If you still have problems at stock speeds then you may have a problem with the video card and it may need to be replaced.

 

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: mpilchfamily
Remove the OC. That is the majority of your problem. The PSU isn't powerful enough to support your system with a good OC. If you still have problems at stock speeds then you may have a problem with the video card and it may need to be replaced.

well... it's been plenty powerful enough for nearly two years. Even had my GPU OC'd for awhile until Vista came into play, then I could no longer run the OC due to incompatible software.

That, and well it won't even POST, so the BIOS isn't even loading.
It may be able to boot with OC and without the current video card in it, but that doesn't mean it's not a failing PSU.
I'm gonna pick up a PC Power and Cooling PSU, the Silencer 610w... when I can afford it, gotta wait a few days, get all my books purchased first. As long as I can continue just using this laptop it's not a crazy priority, not over books.

 

[Quiksilver]

Try resetting CMOS?
This doesn't sound like a PSU issue.
Sounds more like a) motherboard or b) memory issue to me.

 

[destrekor]

Alright, reset CMOS... that took a lot. My overclock settings are officially done I imagine... going to be fun trying to get it back to where it was, whenever this thing starts working.

So, if that didn't spoil the surprise, well... yep, PC still doesn't work.

No more beeping anymore, but now it just never starts. Well, it'll start up like it's trying, fans start spinning, but... it never quite makes it. Seems like it is constantly trying to make it, but before it can it just turns off, and tries again. If I don't turn it off manually, it just keeps turning on and off, on and off, never completely making it into being fully on.

And front case LED is still flashing.

Does it sound like PSU now? No idea what the beeping was, maybe the PSU couldn't even supply the memory enough power and thus the mobo thought the memory was bad? But now all the components, as registered by the mobo, are getting enough power to register as functioning, but the PSU can't supply enough power to actually get the PC to turn on? Does that sound like a valid theory? I hope, least amount of hassle to replace... well scratch that, memory is the easiest and it would be preferred to only be a memory issue at this point, though I do want to get that new PSU at some point soon.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Try running the system on the bare minimums, cpu, 1 stick of ram, vid card, leave everything else out and see what happens. Computers can randomly start breaking down for no good reason at all, gotta love em.

 

[Denithor]

Sounds more like a bad ram stick (or two). Pull one, clear BIOS, try to boot. If still no boot, try a different socket with the same stick (and not one of the sockets either stick was installed in, if you have four of them). If no joy, try with the other stick (alone).

If still nothing, do you have any other memory sticks to try? Fortunately RAM is cheap these days, you can get 2GB Corsair for $6AR or 4GB for $24AR (look around newegg or peek in the Hot Deals forum). Heck - for $6 it might be worth getting just to have some spares...

One way to check the PSU is to pull everything non-essential to booting (optical drives, hdds, etc) and try to boot like that.

Let us know if anything here helps.

 

[TheKub]

A persistent repeating beep typically signifies bad memory. I would suggest using each stick independently to trouble shoot.

The constant on\off I have seen in a number of Dell GX260s with bad caps. So I suggest you take a look at the top of all the capacitors on your mobo and see if there is any bulging. If not this is sounding more like a bad PS. Though if you haven?t already you can try to start the system out of the case to rule out a short but unless you were recently really mucking about inside its hard to spontaneously get a short.

 

[destrekor]

Update:

Ugh. So it's definitely not the PSU. Just installed a PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750w. No dice, same symptoms.

Well, so it wants to be weird: prior to buying the new PSU, the last thing I did was reset the BIOS and the beeping stopped, but turned into endless reboots with no POST.

After installing the new PSU, it did the same thing. Mind you, I had to remove the mobo and one of the thins I did was remove the two sticks of RAM, and not sure if I put them in the same slots they had been, had no intention of even trying to do that.
First boot, it does the same thing: endless reboots with no POST, no error codes, nothing. Just boot up, everything starts spinning, then stop and lights turn off, then do it again.

The front case Power LED keeps flashing endlessly, and it did this prior to the new PSU as well, and did it no matter: whether there was a beep or endless reboots, the Power LED continues to basically strobe.

Well, I figured, now to move to the test idea: memory. So I pulled the second stick, and turned it on. What happens this time? Beeeeeeeep.... pause.... and repeat to infinite.

Now, I'm about to go to bed so I'm going to put this off till tomorrow afternoon after class. I'll have to dig into the system to remove stick 1, the CPU cooler, specifically the attached fan is blocking access to the first stick, so I'll have to remove the fan portion to do so.

Does it sound like it's just bad memory? Why would having both sticks in result in endless repeat of initial boot cycle with no POST, yet one stick in result in a single long beep repeating infinitely? Does that imply it's not even a memory issue then? Was it simply chance that it went down like that, and no matter what I do short of resetting the BIOS again will bring back the silence?

If it were a bad CPU, what would it do in that case?

I'm still trying to figure out why it does this non-stop now, but when the symptoms first began, I could eventually get it to boot, though the first few tries would result in the long beep repeating... though with enough tries it did successfully boot and remain stable. That's what made me think it was power.
If it was a bad motherboard or bad memory, why would it display those symptoms yet eventually turn on? Isn't something like the motherboard or memory going to either fail or not fail, versus just being stubborn and not putting all the effort to boot until enough attempts had coerced it into booting? This is really confusing me. With the original progression of symptoms, it was almost a sure-bet that it was the PSU.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Check your manual for beep codes. one long beep sounds like RAM

 

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: ch33zw1z
Check your manual for beep codes. one long beep sounds like RAM

I would agree too, but the weirdness of the different symptoms is just throwing me off.

Especially due to the fact that it stopped beeping after a BIOS reset, but when removing one stick it starts beeping again. Would that imply the one stick I removed might be good? Hoping I have at least one good stick so I can actually diagnose it as strictly a memory problem.
Hoping its not a DIMM socket problem though.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Failing RAM can and will cause an array of issues, and not always constant to make it more fun. You should try to POST one stick at a time and run memtest when POST is successful. Have any spare RAM to toss in there?

 

[destrekor]

Hmm, no doubt RAM likes to play around.

Normally I have a dual-channel configuration. So last night I took out the stick in DIMM 3, but what happened? PC no longer did infinite reboot with no POST, no error code, but rather switched back to after booting up doing a single long beep on infinite repeat.

Well, today I swapped the stick that was in DIMM 1 and placed the stick I took out last night into that DIMM. How does my PC greet me? Everything spins up, then turns off, and comes alive again, and the beep returns.
I reset the BIOS once again using the jumper setting, and upon booting up... it continues to do that.
So now it soft starts, reboots, and on the second 'boot' it starts doing the beeping thing.

Memory is giving me the run around and it is annoying the hell out of me.
So one stick results in instant beep, the other stick results in soft start, reboot, then beep.

I'm about to run to MicroCenter to get some new DDR2, as I have none laying around sadly.

So here's the thing - currently I have PC2-6400. If I get the next step up, can I get memory with looser timings? The PC2-6400 I currently have, G-skill with 4-4-4-12 timings, pretty tight and that gave me room to bump it up some to overclock it to about 860mhz. Not sure what was holding me back from getting anything more, could have been the memory, could have been the mobo (this I actually suspect, as I still have just a passive cooler on the NB).

 

[earthman]

If not RAM, this may be a fault on the mainboard itself, probably the chipset.

 

[destrekor]

Phew.

It was the memory. I do wonder if it was a failing PSU that caused the memory to fail, because both sticks were bad. Granted, they were overclocked, but barely. They were DDR2-800 (PC2-6400), and I had them running at somewhere around DDR2-850 iirc. Voltage may have been upped .1 or .2, cannot remember at the moment and the settings were cleared when I reset the BIOS.

Thankfully it was just the memory, although that took away my reason to do a partial rebuild. But whatever, I'm happy. New, very stable and very capable PSU, and gained some more memory at a cost of barely looser latency timings. My old memory kit, 2x1gb PC2-6400 @ 4-4-4-12, versus my new kit, 2x2gb PC2-6400 @ 5-4-4-15. Should be able to hit the same overclock as it wasn't very straining on the memory I'd imagine, more on the FSB and CPU. That'll be later this week, gotta focus on my midterm tomorrow night and some other things this week before I devote the time to re-overclocking my system.

But it gave me a reason to re-wire my system, and now it's not so scary to look inside of it - power and data cables are better managed this time, although the case structure doesn't really give all that much ability to truly wire it efficiently, it's far better than it was.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Cool, :thumbsup: