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BIOS POST - 3 long beeps?


Naki

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BIOS is Award. I have not been able to Google up anything useful yet.

PC specs:

* Motherboard: DFI AK-74 EC

* 900 MHZ Athlon CPU @ 855 MHZ.

* Via KT133 chipset.

* 512 MB of RAM (changing RAM doesn’t help)

* Tried 2 different AGP cards and one PCI, doesn’t help. AGP cards are GF2 MX and GF4 Ti4200. PCI card is Voodoo 3 2000.

Any idea what this means - when we turn it on, the PC sounds 3 long beeps, then turns off. Usually, after we turn it on for 20ish times, it turns on OK. A simple reboot produces the problem again.

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BIOS is Award.

Any idea what this means - when we turn it on, the PC sounds 3 long beeps, then turns off. Usually, after we turn it on for 20ish times, it turns on OK. A simple reboot produces the problem again.

http://www.wimsbios.com/index.jsp

http://web.archive.org/web/20020203070933/...rror_codes.html

jaclaz

I don't think it is RAM as mentioned in the second link. Because we tried different RAM sticks in different slots (motherboard has 3 RAM slots).

The first link leads here

http://www.wimsbios.com/faq/biospostbeepcodes.jsp

and the AWARD link is dead, as is the Eric's codes link.

Edited by Naki
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If I remember correctly, most AWARD post beep codes were video or RAM related. Anything that was 1 beep then another set of beeps was keyboard, video, etc - long beep codes were always motherboard or RAM issues. If you've swapped out video cards and used known-good RAM in here and it still won't POST, the motherboard is probably bad (specifically the memory controller is suspect).

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The first link leads here

http://www.wimsbios.com/faq/biospostbeepcodes.jsp

and the AWARD link is dead, as is the Eric's codes link.

Sure, that's why I "translated" the link into a working archive.org cached page.

You asked if anyone had an idea to what the long beeps meant, I provided you a link to the not-so-easy-to-find- original page of the maker of the BIOS. Case closed.

You are free to think that they were lying or wrong, of course.

jaclaz

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I don't think it is RAM as mentioned in the second link. Because we tried different RAM sticks in different slots (motherboard has 3 RAM slots).
Well, if you tried the RAM and it had no effect, than your motherboard is dead enough; It would not see the RAM any more. I´m not surprised as it´s already a 9 year old system.
The first link leads here

You asked if anyone had an idea to what the long beeps meant, I provided you a link to the not-so-easy-to-find- original page of the maker of the BIOS. Case closed.

You are right, just don´t finish him off ;).
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Well, it seems it is a motherboard problem.

We put the two HDDs and videocard into another PC (NForce 2 chipset, Athlon XP 3000+, 2 GB of RAM).

We had to edit the system.ini file (VCache) and leave just 1 GB of RAM in order for the system to boot, because it is running Win98 SE. It is good that Win98 doesn't have the HDD Controller issues that WinXP Pro has when moving HDD to a new system.

Seems to be working fine now. Same PC has major problems with booting WinXP (motherboard damage problem it seems), but it boots Win98 SE fine. Some quirks AFTER booting into Windows, I will have to work them out...

Edited by Naki
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You are right, just don´t finish him off ;).

Naah, it would be cruel :ph34r: it must be a shock to post the same question on different boards :whistle: :

http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?&showtopic=711206

http://www.sudhian.com/index.php?/forums/viewthread/105091/

and get everywhere the same bad news about the motherboard being somewhat fried.

jaclaz

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Funny that I don´t know the last forum, but the guy there also says:

I’d check the capacitors on the mobo

EDIT: And teh guys at Neowin come up with this indeed:

sounds like a memory problem. that thing is old, lol

Funny... :lol:

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PC is not mine, it's my mother's.

Hmm, both boards are DFI, both have issues...

The currently used mobo boots into Win2K and Win98 fine, but boots only one of about 10 times into WinXP, the other times it freezes on the logo screen. Once it boots, it seems to work fine.

(My mother uses Win98, thus avoiding the WinXP issue.)

There is also a problem with the ATA HDDs DMA (random, seems to work for long periods fine) and also problem with built-in LAN (so using PCI LAN card).

Maybe I should avoid DFI as a mobo brand. My own PC current mobo is Elitegroup (not the best of brands, I know...).

Edited by Naki
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Maybe I should avoid DFI as a mobo brand.
Well, they are just not made to work that long, nor are other brands. Remember that a computer-life is about 3 to 4 years, sure it still works after that but there is no warrantee it will work well...
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Remember that a computer-life is about 3 to 4 years, sure it still works after that but there is no warrantee it will work well...

Really? :w00t:

Do you have any source for this?:unsure:

If you do, please keep it for yourself. :angry:

I have a number of PC's working 24/7 since 2003 that know nothing about this fact and are still going strong...... :whistle:

@Naki

The symptoms you describe being intermittent, it is also possible that one or more solderings on the board have "cracked" and thus they don't make a good contact or the contact is on/off depending on "sheer luck", temperature, amount of current/voltage going through them.

In these cases, if you have LOTS of time and patience, an accurate inspection of the board with a mgnifying glass may reveal which ones have to be "re-flowed".

jaclaz

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Jaclaz, it's called MTBF, or mean time before failure, and all computer parts have a rating for this. Basically, you can expect most destkop-grade consumer parts to last for 3 - 5 years before they start to fail. Some parts fail before this, and some fail LONG after this. However, the expected useful life of most desktop consumer-grade computer parts (including parts ON the motherboard, for instance) is between ~5,000 and ~10,000 hours, depending on the vendor, the quality of the components, and how many subcomponents a part has (each of those would factor into the MTBF equation of the overall device as well). I've seen vendors claim 50,000, 100,000, even 1,000,000 MTBF hours for a component, but in reality about 8,000 hours is as long as most computer equipment (especially ones on for longer than 8 hours a day) should be expected to last.

Again, MTBF doesn't guarantee a part will last as long as it's MTBF number, and it also doesn't guarantee it'll fail anywhere near it if it lasts longer either (remember, it's an average, not a hard line in the sand). I choose to replace my main machines every 2 - 3 years or so, and yes I have some machines that are on year 5 or 6 of running, but I don't rely on these machines for anything critical because they are technically running longer than the manufacturer likely envisioned, and are out of warranty on pretty much everything as well.

Buying good quality components usually assures you of a long life (5 years+), but it's not a guarantee. Also, buying cheaper components (or getting components from a vendor that barely met QC) is usually a recipie for failure on or before a device's MTBF.

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