Dead machine, one long beep, three short

Hello Geeks,

Oh, my computer is sad. I returned home from a weekend trip to find it still idling but with no internet connection. The cat had tread on the power strip to the modem and turned it off. No big deal, turned it back on but still had no connection to the internet. So I rebooted.

And that was the last time I ever saw my poor PC function. Now I get nothing except one long beep followed by three short beeps and spinning fans. From what I'd read that indicated either a RAM issue or a Video issue, depending on the bios. I am fairly certain I have AWARD bios, so I assumed it was the video. But since I didn't want to think my newish, expensive video card was toast, I removed, cleaned, and reseated everything first.

No dice. So I ordered up a new video card. Still no dice. Grrr. Well, now I'm plus one 500 dollar video card and minus one working computer. All the fans/internal lights were working, so I figured the power supply was still good. Does that mean the Motherboard slot is toast? Should I try a newer PSU? Replace the MOBO?

The video card is enormous and wont really fit into the secondary video slot, and I'm not sure that'd work anyway, though I tried wedging it past the other connections. Couldn't really seat it without risking breaking something else, so I didn't. Not sure how to proceed. Any advice is appreciated.

OS: Vista Pro, current service pack
Mobo: ASUS Crosshair.
CPU: AMD Athlon dual core. Really can't remember the speed, had it for a couple of years at least.
Video: Radeon HD 5870 (now times two. :cry)

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

Most Asus boards use AMI bios

I would check your memory. One long and three short should indicate a memory issue for Asus boards.

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20081019121328781&board_id=1&model=P5N-E SLI&SLanguage=en-us

 

Thanks, I saw that as well and checked the RAM before buying the video card. I've pulled all but one stick (I have four, 1 Gig sticks) and rotated them all between the two primary slots. No matter what stick is in which slot, I still get the beeps.

Since I've already tried the video card, should I bother with a new RAM stick? Or would this indicate that the slots/board is/are toast and I just need to replace the MOBO?

Also, here is where I "confirmed" that I had the Award BIOS:

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/asus_crosshair_mobo/5.html

 

I would try it with just one stick of your existing memory, trying each stick, one at a time. Maybe just one or two sticks are bad, and this would tell you which one(s).

When you cleaned your vid card, you also cleaned your memory? There's a very recent thread in this Hardware forum about cleaning a motherboard that contains some helpful hints.

 

I actually did just that, I guess I didn't phrase it well in the previous post. I just popped one RAM stick at a time into each of the two "main" RAM slots and tried firing up the comp. All four sticks produced the same beeps regardless of slot. I assume it's fairly unlikely that all four simultaneously failed after functioning for the past couple of years without a hitch.

I've pulled, cleaned, and re-seated everything on the board, including the CPU. The post beeps haven't changed and still indicate a video issue, but I can't see any way to correct it other than try another motherboard. I'm kind of at a loss, it's really frustrating to get nothing but those stupid beeps to troubleshoot with.

 

It's possible the mobo died.

I woudnt' think it's a ram issue as well.

 

I'm thinking that as well. Well, thanks for the input. I think I'll set myself up a new rig and make use of these two video cards I have now.