Death Comes To The Matx

Gigabyte GA-Z87M-D3H LGA 1150 CrossFireX DVI/HDMI mATX
Intel Core i7-4770K Haswell 3.5GHz
Corsair CX500M PSU
G.Skill Sniper Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin SDRAM DDR3 2400 (PC3 19200)
GeForce GTX 760 (4GB 256-bit GDDR5)
SanDisk Extreme II 240 GB SATA 6.0Gb/s 2.5" SSD
Pioneer BDR-209DBK 16x Blu-Ray/CD/DVD Writer
Fractal Core 1000 mATX Case
Dell U2713HM ITS Display
Win7Pro x64 SP1

Packed my tower as safely as I could (short of complete disassembly and reassembly) inside a pelican case, drove it across the country, got in two minor accidents along the way, neither of which caused the vehicle to experience very great shocks or impacts, or so I thought...

Unpacked it today for the first time. Upon startup, I would only get a second or two of fan activity, then a single beep and instant shutdown, then the same thing a couple few seconds later, on and on until the PSU was switched off the cord unplugged. Once I started pulling components and re-tested, the beep went away, and it was just a -- fan start, fan stop, delay, repeat -- cycle. After performing "the paperclip test" on the PSU (which it passed), and then stripping down to nothing more than the PSU with both the 24-pin cable and 8- pin cable (labelled CPU) plugged into the motherboard, startup now results in 49 quick consecutive beeps before powering off, followed by a delay, and then repeating again. If the CPU 8-pin PSU cable is removed, we're back to fan startup and die with no beeps. At no point would the display, when attached, show anything indicating BIOS activity.

Completely out of ideas. No luck so far in finding beep code info to translate what 49 of them mean. Any and all help greatly appreciated. Happy to provide any additional information upon request.

Distressingly Yours,

-newmy51

 

got it all working. no idea what i did other than unseat and reseat everything, a few times. please delete thread.

 

Reseating the RAM was kind of important.

 

Before something similar happens, check your PC's BIOS brand.
Here is a list if BIOS beep codes.
https://kb.iu.edu/d/afzy

 

When transporting a PC, I always recommend removing the CPU's heatsink fan (HSF) assembly first. This is especially true if the computer will be transported in the tower (vertical) orientation where the weight of the heavy cooler will be "hanging" off the vertically oriented motherboard. Accidents aside, pot holes and going airborne over railroad tracks, "bouncing" the computer can really put some excessive force on the CPU socket and motherboard. That might be what happened here. Or perhaps it was something much less extreme, like a loose cable connection.

In the future, before transporting, remove the heatsink or at the very least, ensure the case and motherboard are sitting on the seat or trunk floor in the horizontal position where the heavy HSF assembly is sitting on top of the CPU, instead of hanging off the motherboard.

 

maybe a loose screw under motherboard