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Gigabyte P35 board; 3 beeps, pause, continuing beeps on POST

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macklin01

Computational Oncologist / Biomathematician / Mode
Joined
Apr 3, 2002
Location
Bloomington, IN
Hi, guys,

I have the following hardware:

Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R mobo
Intel Q6600
4 x 1 GB Crucial Ballistix PC1066 (DDR2)
Corsair HX-series CMPSU-520HX psu
Nvidia 8600gt
Audigy 4 Pro
Samsung 500 GB SATA2 drive, and one more SATA2 drive

Everything is on a APC UPS, etc.

Aside from the failed BIOS flash (linked above), the system ran very smoothing for at least a year. Then, I started coming home to random reboots, and then had difficulty restarting and/or resuming from standby with increasing frequency. After a few days of this, I couldn't boot at all: all fans and drives powered up, but no video, and 3 beeps, a pause, followed by a constant series of short beeps.

I left the computer alone for one-to-two months and just finally had a chance to give it a look. (The joys of being a parent and young research faculty.)

Having read that 3 beeps indicates a base 64K failure, and figuring that failing RAM could have caused my earlier intermittent reboots, I removed the RAM and tried the memory one stick at a time in all 4 slots and determined that the computer would fail to boot/post if one particular stick was in (interestingly, with no beeps whatsoever). So, I figured the stick of RAM had failed and ran with my remaining good set of DDR2.

The computer ran fine for 1-2 days like this, but then started having the same difficulty resuming from hibernation, and now has the same 3 beeps while failing to POST.

All fans and drives appear to power up fine. For the 1-2 days the computer worked, it seemed stable. Video and sound cards are clearly fine. Power supply seems fine, as it's a top-notch one running well below capacity, and it worked for a few days after swapping out the RAM.

So, what do you think? By incredibly bad luck, both sets of RAM failed? Or is there something going on with my mobo or power supply?

I greatly appreciate your insight and help. -- Paul
 
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have you tryed bumping you nb volts up a hair it sounds like memory as cheap as it is right now you could always try a cheap set and see for sure
Rich
 
Nice idea, but can't even get to BIOS. No video. Will see if I can boot with just one stick and try that, though. Thanks --- Paul
 
Are your 4 x 1GB Crucial Ballistix PC1066 most likely using D9GMH ICs? If so you should probably just RMA all four pieces to Crucial, IMHO. Those ICs have been notorious for failing, especially if you have been running them at their rated 2.2v.
 
Are your 4 x 1GB Crucial Ballistix PC1066 most likely using D9GMH ICs? If so you should probably just RMA all four pieces to Crucial, IMHO. Those ICs have been notorious for failing, especially if you have been running them at their rated 2.2v.

I can't seem to get at the IC version without removing the heatspreaders, and I'm loath to remove them and risk voiding the warranty. I'll probably go ahead and RMA both sets and see if there's an update that doesn't require 2.2V.

Thanks for your help!! -- Paul
 
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