My pc just died....

[paul m]

Hi

Was working a normal session on my pc yesterday and everything was fine.

Turned on this afternoon and all i get is this constant 'beeping' and strange vertical coloured lines, then a freeze.... very worried.

it has booted as far as windows xp (only a couple of times) so i can see that the contents of my audio drive are intact ... but then i get the beeping,lines and freeze again.

can anyone help??? i am guessing there is either a problem with the mobo or maybe my system drive.

my system is
win xp sp1a
ptle 6.4
intel 3.02 p4
gigabyte mobo ga-8simlh
20 gig system
80 gig audio
3/4 of a gig of 333

any help would be greatly appreciated!!!!!!!!

thanks

paul

[JustMe]

hi

if this happened to me, i would turn off the computer, turn off the power switch in back and

disconnect the power cable. then i would open up the case, and making sure i touched an unpainted

metal surface on the computer to dissipate any static, i would re-seat all the pci cards and the

agp card. also i would disconnect and re-connect the monitor and the keyboard and mouse.

if after doing this and the same problem occurred, i would re-seat the memory.


give it a try.

[paul m]

hi..

thanks for your post.... good advice.

however.. i actually did this before i posted!

thanks again!

paul m

[SeanDempsey]

FIRST, get your stuff backed up. What drive are your files on? Always have files on a seperate drive, and have then backing up to an external. External Firewire drives are dirt cheap. Get those files protected first.

Check all fans, with eyes and ears. Make sure it is not a heating problem (beeping can sometimes mean a heat alarm). Make sure a stray cord or cable isn't slowing or stopping a fan.

Take out all cards but the video cards, and all ram sticks but 1. See what happens when you boot up. Then, switch ram sticks, so you test each ram stick individually.

See if you can get a friend to let you try their video card in your system.

If you do all that, report back what happened.

[paul m]

thanks for your reply...

well it wont boot at all now. it goes straight to the beeping and lines etc....
all my audio is on a second hd... i have removed this drive from the pc.

i dont have a video card.

i have tried both sticks of ram in slot 1... still get the beeps.

my fans seem to be working fine.

will try to get another video card.

any other ideas??

thanks sean

paul

[madrock]

on the vast majority of systems, this means one of two things - long beep in contiuous loop: no DRAM installed. check that the CPU fan hasn't blown a thick layer of dust onto the RAM and re-seat.

hi pitched beep: system overheated. check functionality of CPU and other fans.

also, try clearing the CMOS RTC. refer to motherboard manual for instructions on how to do this or leave the CMOS battery out for an hour or so.

[paul m]

hi madrock

the beeping i am getting is not constant its like - - - - - - - - - - - - and not a high pitch.

the problem i have is the beeping comes with a mad vertical line visual and a system freeze.... this makes it imposible to make any system alterations.

i just got it to boot as far as windows disk check on both sticks of ram and just my system drive then a freeze.

both cpu and system fan are running fine.

both sticks of ram have been re-seated (and been tried one stick at a time)

will try to remove the battery.....

thanks for your input!!!

paul m

[paul m]

ok the beeping is also joined with a blinking LED on my mobo.... my manual informs me this is the DIMM LED

could it be that both ram sticks have died??

cheers

paul m

[madrock]

do you get the same beeps with no RAM in the system?

[vinark]

could it be that both ram sticks have died??

More likely the mobo chipset/memory controler. Most computershops will check your ram for you if you explain the stuation. If you take out the video card and boot does it beep the same (should be something like 3 beeps for no videocard) If it does the same, it´s not the videocard, if it does three or four beeps it might be the videocard.
Good luck
Vincent