PC disaster - urgent help needed (resolved)

I bought a brand new motherboard (Asus A8N-E, nVidia nForce4 Ultra chipset), brand new CPU (AMD Athlon64 "Winchester" 3000+, brand new videocard (nVidia GeForce 6600GT), brand new SATA hard drive (120GB Maxtor).

I spent two and a half hours putting it all together, I turn it on, and all it gives me when I boot is a never ending series of long beeps. Whenever it beeps, the CPU fan momentarily stops. The screen never comes up. I can however hear the hard drives and DVD drives initializing.

The memory in this system is two 512MB DDR333 chips, both of which worked fine in the old system. I tried it with both chips, with only one chip (either one), and with no chips, and this did not change the result. It just keeps beeping.

When I remove the CPU, it doesn't beep at all, it just does nothing.

The other component it might be is much harder to test: the video card. I might try removing it too, but I certainly don't have any spare PCI-E video cards lying around.

Needless to say I'm not happy. Does anyone have a clue as to what happened, and how I can fix it?

can you give a more precise description of the beeps eg long short long etc

Just one long beep, over and over.

I should have read the post more thoroughly

Looking up the manual for that board on the Asus site...

At a first guess, it sounds like the classic AMD PSU issue.  The machine refuses to boot unless it gets a "clean" voltage of 1.5V.

Let me have a look around for more details...

There's nothing in the manual, I've got it right here.

Pulling vid card would be the next step.

If you know it needs CPU to beep you want to unplug everything but power to the motherboard, and then start reconnecting.

If it changes when you remove the video card you know it has to do with the video card.  The reasons I say this is if the beep were say "Bad memory beep" then removing the video card should not change the fact that the memory is still bad.

See if you can dig up an old PCI video card if it changes just to be 100% sure.  Problem is then you still don't know if its compatibility, bad vid card or bad motherbaord.

DVD and HDD will start up with just power connected.  Same with activity lights, so thats no help.  Disconnect them anyway when trying to find this problem.

Be sure you plug your power straight into the wall with nothing else in the outlet. 

Good luck.  Don't feel like your giving us too much information in your replies.

http://www.computerhope.com/beep.htm#4

AWARD BIOS BEEP CODES

The following are Award BIOS Beep Codes that can occur. However because of the wide variety of different computer manufacturers with this BIOS the beep codes may vary.

Beep Code Description
1 long, 2 short Indicates a video error has occurred and the BIOS cannot initialize the video screen to display any additional information
Any other beep(s) RAM problem.

take that with a pinch of salt seeing as im assuming that info is a) upto date b) that board has an award bios

On the asus site the latest BIOS is 1003 which lists improved compatablity with memory modules.

What do the ones youve got say on them? any manufacturer/part numbers?

Shaded wrote:

Be sure you plug your power straight into the wall with nothing else in the outlet.

What, you're expecting me to do it in the dark?

I don't have that many outlets, half my room is on this particular one. It was never a problem on the P4. I will try anyway.

My PSU is 350W, maybe it's not powerful enough for this mobo, CPU, video card combo + 3 hard drives and two DVD drives?

davidp wrote:

What do the ones youve got say on them? any manufacturer/part numbers?

One's Kingston ValueRam, the other is brand X, it says EMPAQ on the sticker. Yes, I know using two different memory modules is not recommended, but since it also exhibits the problem with just one module I don't think that's the problem here.

I've removed and disconnected everything except the CPU and memory, and it beeps just the same.

So, memory is looking more and more likely. But how can two perfectly good memory modules fail to work on a new motherboard?

I'd love to try that BIOS upgrade, but I'd first need the machine to boot!

My AMD64 machine does exactly the same. Plug it in and turn on the power and it'll just beep. Give it five minutes or so and then turn it on. If it beeps, give it a little longer then repeat.

Chances are it'll kick in and start after a while. As Cider says, I think it has something to do with not quite getting a clean supply during power up, particularly if you've got a bunch of other peripherals (printer, scanner etc) that are drawing current from the same source when you switch the mains on.

Sven Groot wrote:

I've removed and disconnected everything except the CPU and memory, and it beeps just the same.

So, memory is looking more and more likely. But how can two perfectly good memory modules fail to work on a new motherboard?

I'd love to try that BIOS upgrade, but I'd first need the machine to boot!

I still say your PSU - can you get into the BIOS at all to post your voltages?

Sounds like a faulty motherboard.  What if you leave out the memory?

Maurits wrote:

Sounds like a faulty motherboard.  What if you leave out the memory?

I already posted that, the result is the same.

I cannot get into the bios. I can do exactly nothing, so I can give no additional info from anything that requires the PC to do something.

You mean leave it beeping for five minutes, or turn it off for five minutes then try again? I've tried again so many times now, I don't expect that's it.

Currently the only things connected to the motherboard are:
ATX 24-pin power cable
ATX12V 4-pin power cable
CPU
CPU fan power
One (Kingston) DDR333 DIMM
Chipset fan power
Speaker (can't beep without it)
Power switch

It still gives the exact same response as above.

It could be the PSU. This is a 20 pin PSU, so I'm using a 20->24 pin convertor plug. Could that be the problem?

Beer28 wrote:

Also a MB with no RAM will automatically beep, so you have to make sure you have the ram installed before you test.

Yes, I got that the first time you said it.

It's a 350W power supply, it has caused me no trouble in the old setup (Asus P4S8X-X, Pentium 4 2667MHz).

Now the question is, where do I find another power supply?

Looks like I'm going to have to remove the board from the system and take it to a shop tomorrow to have it tested.

Sven Groot wrote:

You mean leave it beeping for five minutes, or turn it off for five minutes then try again? I've tried again so many times now, I don't expect that's it.

I know it sounds bizarre and inexplicable but this is completely reproducible on my PC (and I've known others describe a similar situation with AMD machines)

My machine is plugged into a 4-way, surge protected mains adapter along with the monitor/printer/scanner. If I ever unplug that or switch it off, I have to wait around five minutes after turning the mains on - to give time for the printer/monitor etc to start up and the voltages to stabilize.

Once everything has settled I can turn the machine on and off at will without issue. But if I unplug that mains adapter...