Confused - beeps and RAM

johnc24

Hi all

I done a Self build well over a year ago now and everything was 100%.

Just yesterday I ran into a problem. I restarted to a long beep. Then it self corrected and started as normal.

This morning I have similar issues but at the moment I have 3 short beeps on startup which afaik indicates a RAM problem.

Here is what I have done so far : Removed all RAM and tested each stick in each slot.

STICK 1*

Slot 1 (BLACK) - No beep but monitor goes as far as MSI splash screen and stalls.

Slot 2 (BLUE)- 3 beeps but nothing on screen.

Slot 3 (BLACK)- same as slot 1.

Slot 4 (BLUE) - same as slot 2.

STICK 2 - Exact same results as STICK 1

Both sticks in BLUE channel - 3 beeps no display.

Both sticks in BLACK channel - No beeps but MSI splash screen appears again and stalls.

Anyone got Any ideas how I should proceed.*All help greatly appreciated.

NOTE: I am trying to get some spare RAM to try, although unlikely both sticks have gone bust.*

JonathanAnon

Does the manual of the board tell you what the beeps are for? Usually there is a list of what the different beep patterns mean..

Nothingbetter2d

have u tried your ram out in another machine?

have u tried reseating all your pci / pci express cards to ensure none of those were loose?

have u tried a cmos reset? (remove the battery for a few mins)

sounds like you may have a bad setting in your cmos that is something to do with ram timings... a reset to default should clear it

you have your cpu over clocked i see... u may have fried it or overclocked it too much. agan a cmos reset will set it back to default and it may help.

johnc24

@nothingbetter2d

Thanks for info. The battery is cut at the moment. I hope it will be a reset to default will clear it up. Earlier in the day it did manage to boot up twice, how I don't know but it did.

I'll report back if it solves the issue. I hope so.

As you say I did tinker with overclocking, hopefully the CMOS reset will help

johnc24

Hey all

I removed the CMOS battery for a few mins and I tried again but it still stalled at the MSI splash screen.

I then pressed delete and it took me to the BIOS where I configured just the time and date and clicked save and exit. Again stalled at the splash screen, hit delete again to do some more configurations I thought but no it just jumped to
"Starting Windows" so I am not sure what is going on.

Any further advice on how to progress would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks all

John

Nothingbetter2d

try set the ram only to use slot 1 and see if it boots after the cmos reset.

otherwise u may have a dying motherboard...probably a knackered chipset due to overclocking

johnc24

Hey it appears the RAM is fine, well when I run sisoft sandra, it shows 6GB installed.

At the moment the problem I have is when I start up or restart it gets to the MSI splash sreen and puts out a long single beep, however that said any button press on the keyboard seems to clear it and it proceeds to boot to windows everytime without problem. The strange thing is when I hit the delete key to enter BIOS it wont, again it just cancels the beep and proceeds to load windows............. any thoughts on that one

Cheers
John

Antar Bolaeisk

johnc24 wrote: »

Hey all

I removed the CMOS battery for a few mins and I tried again but it still stalled at the MSI splash screen.

I then pressed delete and it took me to the BIOS where I configured just the time and date and clicked save and exit. Again stalled at the splash screen, hit delete again to do some more configurations I thought but no it just jumped to
"Starting Windows" so I am not sure what is going on.

Any further advice on how to progress would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks all

John

Hi John, when you removed the battery did you make sure to short the connecting pins while holding the power button? This will make sure that any residual charge stored in capacitors will be removed.

Make sure the computer is unplugged first before doing this.

johnc24

Hi all

Further to my previous comment about the long beep and any keypress to bypass it, I decided to reboot without the keyboard and it booted fine, then I inserted the USB keyboard and it installed relevant software. Restarted again with keyboard connected and again got the single PASS beep.

So it appears things have stabilised for the time being. The only thing I will note is just for the sake of it I swapped the graphics card around and back again to its original position perhaps inadvertently reseating it...but as I say all seems fine at the moment.

Thank you all for your input.

John