[bunga_aj]

Morning all, I'm new to the forums and am sorry to say that my first post is one of technical difficulty! and I'm not hugely technical!

On Monday night I shut down my PC and went to bed - everything was fine during operation that evening yet when I wake up in the morning and attempt to boot it up, I get a series of beeps followed by nothing coming up on my monitor. The fans stay spinning/the power stays on, I can hear hard-drive chatter when the computer normally loads the windows logon screen. I can even type in my login password and hear the windows logon sound through my headphones but don't have anything on my display! So the computer is booting but there is something inbetween power on and windows actually loading thats failed overnight?

Given that the most glaring problem appears to be a display issue, I would assume logically that there is something wrong with my graphics card?

I don't know the beep pattern and I couldn't tell you exactly how many there are as they all seem to run together somewhat? It's definitely not one long continuous beep, more like a series of beeps that all make up one scary noise that lasts about 2-3 seconds during POST and doesn't repeat.

For the past month or so there has been the odd beep from the computer whilst in operation but as it didn't happen with any massive regularity or repeat itself for a period of time, I didn't think that much of it. I simply checked the cpu/gpu temperatures (which were both well within normal limits) and carried on.

So far I have tried the following;

- Reseating RAM & graphics card
- Trying to boot up using just one of my sticks of RAM
- Removed as much dust as possible from inside the case and checked connections (everything looks as normal?)
- Using a different plug socket
- Tried using a different monitor (tried my other DVI port also)

I am completely bamboozled now and I can only think a piece of hardware has fried but the problem is I can't identify with any certainty at all what it might be. My computer specs are as follows:

Intel Core2Duo e6600 @ 3.3ghz (voltages are at default)
EVGA nforce 680i SLi mobo
BFG Nvidia 8800GTX (comes overclocked as standard)
2GB Corsair Dominator PC6400 800mhz RAM
Raptor X 150GB Hard-Drive
Enermax 850w PSU
Creative X-fi Fatal1ty Sound-Card
Windows XP SP3

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[rosiesdad]

Can you borrow a graphics/video card to try? Or have a friend try yours on a different system. Seems that could be an issue, or perhaps the power supply went geeky on ya.
Those would be my guesses.
The beep code means something, maybe a MOBO (system) fault code? You could google the manufacturer of the MOBO and see if they have a fault code list.

 

[dai]

you need to write down the beep sequence and then check it here

http://www.computerhope.com/beep.htm

try using another 12v line to the video card and or the the aux power to the m/board if it has a second aux plug

 

[bunga_aj]

I unfortunately don't have anyone to borrow a card off. I recently moved country and the only person I know here is my brother who has an AGP card instead of PCI-e.

I consulted my MOBO manual yesterday (can be found online @ http://www.evga.com/support/manuals/122-CK-NF68.pdf) and after reading online that it actually displays codes during operation on the board using LED's, I opened the case up and had a look at what it was saying.

Anyway, a lot of different numbers came up during the boot sequence but at the time of the beeping, it hits "25" for VBIOS then stopped and stayed on "26" which from the mobo manual referred to some kind of system clock/sensor. It then runs some other processes listed in the manual and proceeds to go to "FF" which is simply described as "Boot" by the manual.

The manual does not specify what any of this means however so I'm still scratching my head as to a) whether its relevant and b) if it is, what to do? what does it mean?

Dai, I honestly can't determine exactly how many beeps there are, could be 4or 5 but they run into eachother in very, very quick succession. I will try switching out the power connectors to my GFX card/mobo though.

 

[JimE]

FF typically means the motherboard successfully posted and is ready to boot the OS. In other words, if no other code is displayed, the board should always display FF.

As you've already tried a different monitor AND you aren't even seeing the POST information, I'd suspect you have a bad video card. If it's under warranty, contact the manufacturer for assistance, otherwise, replace it.