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

[Skybird]

Hi,

my system did not boot when I switched it on this evening, after the football match. Or maybe it does, it is hard to tell, but the screen remains black, the screen's power LED remains yellow instead going blue (blue=normal opperation, active).

What happens is that I get a beep code:

Beeeeeep beep beep beep (1 long, 3 short).

Some seconds later the harddrive starts working, and it could be that it is booting and loading Windows indeed, but I cannot verify that, sine the screen is dead. There is HD activity. All fans (CPU, power, gfx board) are running.

My mainboard is an Asus P8H67. There is a memory switch with a red LED in the right upper corner. When switching power on, the red LED goes on for a second, then goes off. i think that indicates that the memory check was successfull and showed ni mistakes. Is that correct? Then I can rule out the RAM bars (4x2GB).

I tend to think the graphics board is off into Nirvana. I cannot check it out, since my old system from which I am typing this, is an AGP-equipped mainboard, I cannot switch the boards therefore, the new system is PCI, of course.

Graphics board was a Gainward GTX460 1GB.

Any ideas? What do you think about my theory that it is the graphics board? Money is in short supply, I do not want to buy a new gfx card if I am not really needing one.

Could it be the mainboard itself that is broken?

[Rockstar]

Hmmm 1 long 3 short? Sound signal for a vessel being towed in restricted visibility (if manned).

[MH]

Try removing and putting back your memory sticks....or get some from old PC if they are compatible.

[Skybird]

In case a new gfx board is needed, I liked the Gainward GTX460, it was silent, and did the job. I do not need more power. But it costs still 170 Euros. There are already GTX560 boards with 1 GB as well, costing the same.

Recommendations which one to choose, and which model is good? Price not higher than 170, 180 euros or so. And yes, I intend to stay with nVidia.

(Still using driver 275.33. All later drivers were instabile, causing 2-4 seconds of black screen every couple of minutes. ) But why not, 275.33 was stable and did the job.

[TLAM Strike]

can you remove the graphics card and use the onboard to check and see if the OS is firing up?

[VipertheSniper]

That's the gfx card for sure, when I built my rig, I forgot to plug one powercord to the card and it did that, and I think I got the same mainboard.
Edit:
Just checked, I got the same, a damn shame that isn't even covered in the manual anymore

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

can you remove the graphics card and use the onboard to check and see if the OS is firing up?

The onboard? - what? There is no onboard VGA connector, I think. On the backside, there are 6 USB2, 2 USB3, power, LAN, 6 sound-related connectors. That'S all. Ah, and two empty slots where the gfx board used to sit.

I think Viper is right. I will go to my shop tomorrow and aks if they can check it in the backroom on the fly. And then buy a new board.

I will now run the featured MemOkay!-function of this board which should check the functionality of the RAM bars, at least their compatability.

I also googled beep codes. There is no full consensus on 1-long-3 short for Asus boards, but gfx related issues got mentioined most often. I hope it is the board, not the PCI connector on the board.

Heck, one really feels naked without a functional PC these days. I don't like to be naked this way. And I do not like that I do not like it.

Thanks.

[Skybird]

It's getting strange. This now is typed on the new (effected) system again. I hit the little button in the right top corner, MemCheck!, a function that checks RAM bars compatability and functionality. The system shut down, booted again - and the screen sprang to live and sending me to the BIOS. I saved and closed the BIOS, and it send me to Windows, and here I am.

I have not even touched the RAM bars, I am always afraid about static electricity with those buggars.

Can dust cause some kind of temporary shortcuts on the board? I keep it clean, using pressured air, on the fans a little brush with natural hair and - never touching components - a vacuum cleaner.

I shut down now the system. If I do not come back, you know that rebooting did not work as hoped for. I will then switch in the old PC tomorrow again to read any possible answers.

[Skybird]

Warm reboot successful.

Doing a cold reboot now with electricity switched down.

[Skybird]

Cold reboot successful, with power shut off 1 minute.

Any thoughts? I am clueless on what is going on, and why. For the time being, it seems to run again. I hope it stays like that. Will see if and how long it lives.

To bed now.

[Stealhead]

Dust can kill your PC actually in more than one way it acts as an insulator keeping heat in your PC bits which will cause them to fail prematurely.It can also deteriorate connections so it could cause an electrical issue.

A PC actually sucks in dust so even if you have a fairly spotless house your PC will attract dust.I would give any PC that you own a good once over with compressed air once a week.I doubt dust was causing your problem if you are immaculate as you say.

Dont they make those cheap little plastic tools to avoid an accidental static discharge? I mean your PC is not the Hindenburg I think if you touched something to make any static in you come out before you removed RAM you would be fine.

You never know with a PC though.Once I had a PC give the beep codes I do not recall what it was supposed to be but is was something bad then I noticed a zip drives was in one of the USB ports so I shut the PC off and removed the zip drive and tried again all was fine.

[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.

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]

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]

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]

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?