PC boot failure: black screen, one long three short beeps

JU_88 · 06-23-12, 12:38 AM

In the 10 years Ive spent assembling or dissasembling PCs both at work and at home, Ive yet to kill a working component with a static shock. If your really worried buy a wrist strap.

Dust does hamper the cooling in a PC - but not by much, it needs to be several milimeters thick before it causes it to loose more than 1 or 2 degrees worth of cooling.

A good practice is -once a year take you PC outdoors (when its not raining

) remove the side panel and hose down the guts with can of compressed air, remove the cpu fan and blast the heat sink and fan clean too, also wipe off any thermal compound and reapply some fresh.
Its worth removing the graphics card so you better clean out the fan on that also,

A compressed air duster is about 5 euros or so and it should last for ages if your only using it on one machine.

HunterICX · 06-23-12, 03:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JU_88

In the 10 years Ive spent assembling or dissasembling PCs both at work and at home, Ive yet to kill a working component with a static shock. If your really worried buy a wrist strap.

Heh, not long ago I pried out the Ram sticks while wearing a thick woolen jumper

Just touch something that's earthed like the house's radiator before digging into the case and don't forget to pull the main cord out of the power supply.

@Skybird...seems you describe something I had (also having an Asus main board)

Pushed the button, greeted with no image on the monitor and just remained that way after and a couple of tries I swapped the ram around in their slots so from slot 1 to 3 they went to slot 2 and 4 this time still no image and there where these 3 beeps. This time along with the ram sticks I also pried out the battery on the main board to have the BIOS reset and put the sticks back into 1 and 3 and this time it booted ofcourse asking I wished to have to BIOS back to factory default and not had any issues as of then.

HunterICX

Skybird · 06-23-12, 04:26 AM

Asus beeb codes that I googled say for the most 1-long-3-short is the graphics card (no card or bad Video RAM). Memory issues would have been 4 or 5 short ones, if I recall correctly.

I did not touch the RAM bars this time, but I see in my system monitor that they give the full 8173 MB that they always showed, and all I did was pushing that MemCheck! button on the board.

The HD always started to work after 20 seconds (which is normal, some scanning before booting). I assumed all the time that the booting went on, even when i did not see any picture.

Dust I clean 2-3 times a year.

Can a condensed flock of dust that strayed when cleaning, settle on the board and by that cause a temporary shortcut between two critical spots or components?

Anyway. What is the current normal GTX560 1GB manufacturer to choose, if one needs to change the grafix card and only needs digital output connector, no additional gimmick stuff, and when one wants a silent card, no noisy cooler? Gainward again? This is my third by Gainward, and beside the cards after 1.5-2 years usually dying, I am satisfied with them. Price is also below the pain mark, 170 Euros. I mean, it is not really, I'm short on money, but it is the price I would will to invest if needing to go for a card.

Skybird · 06-23-12, 04:35 AM

And while I'm at it, temperatures. I understand there is a difference between core and case temperature, some software reads out the one, other software reads pout the other. I use a software called "core-temp", and on a system with normal BIOS settings the most stressed cores gets up to 61°C hot, if BIOS is set to full performance mode, it is 6°C max. In idle, all cores show 29-30°C. By the specifications for the i5 2500, the critical max would be 72°C.

Can I trust the temperature readout by Core Temp?

Is there a way, or how do I set it up to measure the temp in the grafix board chip?

kranz · 06-23-12, 04:40 AM

wrong forum
(

)

HunterICX · 06-23-12, 04:38 AM

Well at first I didn't had any beeps at all untill I swapped the ram into the other slots on my board...then it started to give me this long bleep followed by 3 short ones.

my asus has AMI bios
and 1 long and 3 shorts ones is according to AMI Conventional/Extended memory failure.

to solve it reseat, relocate or swap with different Ram to solve it and that's how I fixed my issue.

HunterICX

Skybird · 06-23-12, 04:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HunterICX

Well at first I didn't had any beeps at all untill I swapped the ram into the other slots on my board...then it started to give me this long bleep followed by 3 short ones.

my asus has AMI bios
and 1 long and 3 shorts ones is according to AMI Conventional/Extended memory failure.

to solve it reseat, relocate or swap with different Ram to solve it and that's how I fixed my issue.

HunterICX

Beep codes vary with BIOS companies.

http://www.bioscentral.com/beepcodes/awardbeep.htm

HunterICX · 06-23-12, 04:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skybird

Beep codes vary with BIOS companies.

http://www.bioscentral.com/beepcodes/awardbeep.htm

I'm aware of that...but as said I fixed it by messing with my ram sticks.
So in my case it was my memory.

HunterICX

Skybird · 06-23-12, 04:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HunterICX

I'm aware of that...but as said I fixed it by messing with my ram sticks.

In a way I did that too, but by that MemCheck button, not by unplugging. I just have re-read the board manual, it seems it not only runs a diagnosis, but also starts the RAM bars with default parameters again.

Skybird · 06-23-12, 04:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JU_88

In the 10 years Ive spent assembling or dissasembling PCs both at work and at home, Ive yet to kill a working component with a static shock. If your really worried buy a wrist strap.

Well, every couple of minutes I take a grip on the heater attached to the wall.

My nervousness from RAM bars comes from bad exoerience. In older systems I happened to touch the little memory compnents on them accidentally with a fingertip on two occasions in past years. In both cases, that was it and ended with replacing the memory bar with a new one. I hate RAM bars.

when I was y small school boy, I could not wear watches, mechn aical robust watches. They stopped working. Non-working watches by ma grandfather or my parents occasionally started to work when I touched them.

And this to a reasonable, logical coldblooded Vernunftsmenschen like me - that is not fair!

kiwi_2005 · 07-24-12, 11:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JU_88

A good practice is -once a year take you PC outdoors (when its not raining

) remove the side panel and hose down the guts with can of compressed air, remove the cpu fan and blast the heat sink and fan clean too, also wipe off any thermal compound and reapply some fresh.
Its worth removing the graphics card so you better clean out the fan on that also,

A compressed air duster is about 5 euros or so and it should last for ages if your only using it on one machine.

Thats exactly what i do once a year, plus i have couple of software that cleans windows up and i run that once every couple of weeks. Tuneup Utilities 2012 or the free version of IOBit cleaner are good programs and also Nortons 360 premier edition i run also has cleaning tools. Yea i know its norton but norton's isn't bad works well and doesn't slow down the pc like the old norton days.

I won a copy of Bit defender total protection 2012 in a comp that was going at a tech website in NZ here recently so i decided to try it out, uninstalled nortons and installed BD. What a system hogging piece of junk, Computer took ages to load up each time and FF wouldn't load up unless i disable bit defender? So i went back to norton.

06-23-12, 04:26 AM	#3
Skybird Soaring Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: the mental asylum named Germany Posts: 42,632 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	Asus beeb codes that I googled say for the most 1-long-3-short is the graphics card (no card or bad Video RAM). Memory issues would have been 4 or 5 short ones, if I recall correctly. I did not touch the RAM bars this time, but I see in my system monitor that they give the full 8173 MB that they always showed, and all I did was pushing that MemCheck! button on the board. The HD always started to work after 20 seconds (which is normal, some scanning before booting). I assumed all the time that the booting went on, even when i did not see any picture. Dust I clean 2-3 times a year. Can a condensed flock of dust that strayed when cleaning, settle on the board and by that cause a temporary shortcut between two critical spots or components? Anyway. What is the current normal GTX560 1GB manufacturer to choose, if one needs to change the grafix card and only needs digital output connector, no additional gimmick stuff, and when one wants a silent card, no noisy cooler? Gainward again? This is my third by Gainward, and beside the cards after 1.5-2 years usually dying, I am satisfied with them. Price is also below the pain mark, 170 Euros. I mean, it is not really, I'm short on money, but it is the price I would will to invest if needing to go for a card. __________________ If you feel nuts, consult an expert.

06-23-12, 04:35 AM	#4
Skybird Soaring Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: the mental asylum named Germany Posts: 42,632 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	And while I'm at it, temperatures. I understand there is a difference between core and case temperature, some software reads out the one, other software reads pout the other. I use a software called "core-temp", and on a system with normal BIOS settings the most stressed cores gets up to 61°C hot, if BIOS is set to full performance mode, it is 6°C max. In idle, all cores show 29-30°C. By the specifications for the i5 2500, the critical max would be 72°C. Can I trust the temperature readout by Core Temp? Is there a way, or how do I set it up to measure the temp in the grafix board chip? __________________ If you feel nuts, consult an expert.

06-23-12, 04:40 AM	#5
kranz The Old Man Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Poland Posts: 1,430 Downloads: 5 Uploads: 0	wrong forum ()

06-23-12, 04:38 AM	#6
HunterICX Rear Admiral Join Date: May 2006 Location: Malaga, España Posts: 10,750 Downloads: 8 Uploads: 0	Well at first I didn't had any beeps at all untill I swapped the ram into the other slots on my board...then it started to give me this long bleep followed by 3 short ones. my asus has AMI bios and 1 long and 3 shorts ones is according to AMI Conventional/Extended memory failure. to solve it reseat, relocate or swap with different Ram to solve it and that's how I fixed my issue. HunterICX __________________

06-23-12, 12:38 AM	#1
JU_88 Silent Hunter Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: UK Posts: 3,803 Downloads: 11 Uploads: 0	In the 10 years Ive spent assembling or dissasembling PCs both at work and at home, Ive yet to kill a working component with a static shock. If your really worried buy a wrist strap. Dust does hamper the cooling in a PC - but not by much, it needs to be several milimeters thick before it causes it to loose more than 1 or 2 degrees worth of cooling. A good practice is -once a year take you PC outdoors (when its not raining ) remove the side panel and hose down the guts with can of compressed air, remove the cpu fan and blast the heat sink and fan clean too, also wipe off any thermal compound and reapply some fresh. Its worth removing the graphics card so you better clean out the fan on that also, A compressed air duster is about 5 euros or so and it should last for ages if your only using it on one machine.