Beep Beep..

degrassinoel

I've always hated beep codes,
i have an unusual one here, or at least one i cant figure out without some help

Machine was running fine, no recent hardware changes, additions or removals, either internal or external.

6 beeps on boot pre-bios screen - repeating.

Machine is around 5 years old, i can get it running until another restart/shutdown if i unplug and hold the power button down to err unpower the machine, sorry i forget the terminology there. Anyway, after that, i've found if i remove the ram, and restart it without the ram to force a different beep code then "unpower" it again and reseat the ram it will boot perfectly fine.

I have absolute no clue what could be causing this, but this is currently the only way of starting the machine "normally", i dont have any spare parts atm to play around with, any ideas?

smuggler.ie

Different manufacturers/models have different codes - what is yours?

degrassinoel

smuggler.ie wrote: »

Different manufacturers/models have different codes - what is yours?

it's a dell machine, with whatever bios they had as standard around 5 years ago - the beep code is 6 beeps in quick succession, a pause and then the beep code again.

smuggler.ie

Model matters also. See what apply to you.
Understanding Beep Codes on a Dell Desktop PC

unkel

Try blow some condensed air around your memory slots (while the memory is out). Then insert just one stick in one slot and boot up. It's quite likely you either have some sort of short there or a stick or RAM being faulty. Keep troubleshooting (try the stick in another slot, try another stick in the same slot, etc.) and let us know the results!

FobleAsNuck

6 Beeps: Reseat or replace the video card or replace the motherboard / system board

degrassinoel

I'll try the memory first, the gpu is a seriously expensive one and i really hope that's not going

thanks - will update as i go

degrassinoel

smuggler.ie wrote: »

Model matters also. See what apply to you.
Understanding Beep Codes on a Dell Desktop PC

Aurora R4 - bought from dell, but an alienware machine.


Rebooted again, same problem, so i stripped the components - memory resat, gpu resat, and cmos battery resat, cleared all the connections on both sides, board and components with compressed air.. and yay.. works on reboot so far, tested it a handful of times and it seems okay, but i'm still not 100% confident it's fixed lol - and that's probably just a personal thing rather than technical but yeah..
Beep Codes man

Thanks folks, will update if it reoccurs

unkel

Result!

From my experience it was most likely the connection of the RAM to the motherboard...

degrassinoel

unkel wrote: »

Result!

From my experience it was most likely the connection of the RAM to the motherboard...

I spoke too soon, it just happened again - this time the OS locked up and i had to force a reboot to which end, it did the beep code again

unkel

How many sticks of RAM do you have and how many slots on the mobo? Did you play around with these like I suggested?

degrassinoel

two used slots, switched them around as i cleaned them - next time it goes i'll try one stick

unkel

Good luck! If I were a betting man, I'd put money on one stick working in either slot and the other stick gone faulty...

degrassinoel

unkel wrote: »

Good luck! If I were a betting man, I'd put money on one stick working in either slot and the other stick gone faulty...

Hope its just one of the sticks and not the board or something more expensive
Will post again, no doubt if it happens again