Can anyone help? My PC failed for no reason!

[crb41479]

Hi everyone,

I am running a Intel P4, 1.8a ghz, CPU on a Soyo Dragon P4S Ultra, with 1024MB RAM, ATI AIW 9800 video card, Creative Soundblaster Audigy 2 Platinum, and 4 hard drives (each 7200RPM, 8MB buffers).

I have a dual Win 2000/Win XP boot on the system

I actually just finished reinstalling Win XP after a corrupted file (froze during virus check and then when I rebooted, I couldn't get back in).

Anyway, my system was working fine yesterday morning. I turned it on to check a few things online before going to work.

When I came home from work and turned it on, all I got was a long beep from the motherboard and nothing else!

I checked the motherboard manual and it said to reset the CMOS (which I did), check the video card/ram connections (which I also did), but still no luck.

Any idea why this would happen? What do you think my next move should be? I have an extra video card around that I may test, but I don't think I have spare RAM. Those are 2 possible causes.

I should also note that my computer had been freezing up a lot during virus checks the past few weeks...I don't know if it was heat related. I have around 5 or 6 fans in the Thermaltake XaserV.

I also bought a pretty good power supply when I upgraded the case.

Thanks for your time

 

[rhino56]

sounds like your going to have to test the components one by one to see whats causing the problem.
try a different psu first.
if nothing then take the board out of the case and put it on something non conductive like wood or a book or something and try to get it running outside the case.

 

[/\\/3|2o]

i THINK, now im not sure but I THINK th long beep means its a processor problem.

Try disconnecting everything you dont really need to boot up (hard drive, cd rom, etc), just keep the things you need in order to get into bios. Try booting it up.

If no luck, take one stick of ram out and leave the other one in and try booting up (assuming you're using 2 sticks).

If still no luck then try doing the same thing but with the other stick.

Let us know what you find out.

 

[crb41479]

Update ...

Guys,

I think I have it fixed for now...Here is what I did.

I took out the 2 512MB sticks of RAM and reset the CMOS. After that, I put 1 stick in one of the 3 slots. After the initial message that hardware changed, I was able to get back in Windows.

Here's the thing.

If I would try to add the 2nd stick, it would do that beeping again and not turn on.

If I SWITCHED the sticks, it would also work though!

Here's another strange thing, sometimes it would work in 1 slot and other times it wouldn't. I had to keep changing the slots I was putting the RAM into because the slot I thought was working, would then start giving me the same error as before!

At one point, I got both sticks working in 2 different slots, but Windows would only load in safe mode...When I would go to regular mode, it would freeze on that initial Win XP light blue animated screen.

So the only way I could get my system to work was to reset the CMOS and put in 1 stick of RAM.

Any idea why the system was being a b-yotch with both sticks when it has always worked that way? It seems like every slot was working because at different times, I was able to boot up with 1 stick in one of the three slots.

I am wondering if it is the RAM or the motherboard.

What do you think?

UPDATE 2: It was working fine and then the computer froze again in XP. When I reset the computer, I didn't get ANY beeps and the screen didn't even light up! Any ideas?