what are these bios beep codes?

K

konsole

Member
Here is what I have:

Asus A8VE-SE (I guess with the award bios)
AMD Opteron 165 dual core
2 gb corsair ram
His Hitech radeon x850xt

My computer was running fine until this morning. I tried starting it up and the computer wouldnt get through the post and would also not display anything on the screen. I'm a little stumped with the beep codes I heard though. The beep codes were this:

2 beeps about 1/10th of a second apart and about 1/4 second each, followed by 3 more beeps about 1/4 second each and 1/2 second apart.

Those first 2 beeps could be confused as 1 beep though since they are so close together I dunno, thats what has me a little confused. So its gotta be either 4 or 5 beeps depending on what those first 2 are. The beep codes seem to lean more towards a cpu problem or possibly a video card problem.

I took it down the BestBuy and talked it over with the Geek Squad and they seemed lean more towards the cpu being the problem even though its only about 1 year old and properly maintained. I didnt have the mobo with me so they didnt have the beeps to here. I had the cpu, ps, ram, and vcard with me when I went down there so they could hook them up to just see if they were all working but they were going to charge $60 to get into the testing.

There seems to be alot of conflicting information around the web about what the different beeps mean I guess for different bios versions or whatever. So even if I can determine if it is 4 or 5 beeps I still have to deal with all that conflicting info.

Any ideas?
are those first 2 rapid beeps really just suppose to be 1 beep?
 
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ya I've been to a bunch of different websites that list the beep codes but before I even go there I need to know if those first 2 fast and really close together beeps are really suppose to be 1 longer beep or really are 2 seperate beeps. If those first 2 quick beeps are really just suppose to be 1 longer beep then that makes sense because that is a valid beep code, but ya need to know exactly the number of beeps and wether they are short or long because if you dont it can mean the video card gets replaced but is working fine while the cpu is dead but I end up keeping it because of misread beeps.

I may just buy a new video card and cpu and then return whichever one I ended up not needing.
 
I just removed the 2 sticks of ram and now the beep code is 1 long - 2 short, indicating a video card problem, so looks like it is a video card problem.
 
little more progress on this. with the ram removed I'm getting the 1 long - 2 short saying theres something wrong with the video card but with the ram still installed its still saying the 2 short beeps close together followed by 3 short beeps a bit more spread apart. Bah this stinks
 
another update here. I removed the cpu heatsink and cpu fan to feel if the cpu was heating up. Started up the computer and the cpu went from cool-to-the-touch to untouchably hot in 10 seconds. Now does that mean there is nothing wrong with the cpu or could there still be something wrong even though it seems to be running?

Right now I'm learning more towards the video card is the problem and those first 2 quick beeps are more likely suppose to be 1 longer beep making it 1 long beep and 3 short beeps indicating video card problem.
 
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You shouldn't even be trying to run the system without the hsf inplace! You could easily pop the cpu since it will get hot without cooling to start with. The whole idea of a heat sink is to draw the heat off of the cpu itself.

An ill seated cpu will sound off alarms on some systems if the temps are high even with the hsf on. The overheat protection is coming in there. But the news of one long two short suggests borrowing another card to see if all this clears up rather then rushing to buy new. This way you could rule out two out of three things.
 
I know you shouldnt run the computer with the cpu heatsink and fan off. I only had the computer on long enough to see if the cpu was actually doing something and heating up to see if maybe that would tell me if the cpu was still working.

the cpu, video card, and mobo are all about 1 1/2 years old and I take good care of my computer cleaning it frequently.

If the cpu is creating heat does that mean the cpu is fine or could there be some other hidden problem with it?
 
konsole said:
another update here. I removed the cpu heatsink and cpu fan to feel if the cpu was heating up. Started up the computer and the cpu went from cool-to-the-touch to untouchably hot in 10 seconds.
Click to expand...


OOOOHHHH NO:eek:

Reapply TIM (thermal grease) and put your CPU cooling device back on and do not take it off while the system is powered up ever again;)

Here are some links for you to look at. They are all from the Asus webs

Your motherboard stuff - http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

Your motherboard forum - http://vip.asus.com/forum/topic.aspx?board_id=1&model=A8V-E+SE&SLanguage=en-us
 
A cpu is a heat sensitive item to start with! Just that short amount of time can easily reach the maximum threshold temp and pop goes the cpu! Now you will have to again allow for the breakin time for the thermal paste applied as well as trying to isolate the actual problem.

When you hear what seems like two beeps instead of one long does that sound like a hi then low beep hi-low-hi-low BEEP beep BEEP beep BEEEP beep...? That would point to a failing or overheated cpu. A contimuous high beeping is overheated cpu while a steady low beeping points at memory.

If you are simply ending up hearing the one long or seemingly one long followed by two short the card is suspect. Since the build is going on 2yrs. at this point you may actually be seeing two things as a further thought. Try running with each dimm separately if you are able to borrow another card to see if things clear up.
 
well I just purchased a new cpu and video card, the cpu being a moderate upgrade and the video card being a huge upgrade. I can just install the new components and whichever one fixes the problem I can return the other component.

The only reason why the cpu heatsink and fan were off is because I wanted to feel the cpu and see if it was doing anything (heating up). Yes the cpu does heat up immediately on starting the computer and I was hoping for an answer on if that means the cpu is performing properly or if there could be something else wrong with it.

All the beeps I have heard are the same tone just different lengths or different distances between beeps. Every setup I tried wether it was with all components installed or just the cpu removed or the video card removed, they all gave the 2 short beeps very close together followed by 3 short beeps a bit more spread out. The only setup that yielded a different beep code was when the memory was removed. Removing the memory gave me 1 long beep with 2 short beeps apparently indicating a video card problem.

If it matters, I was playing Serious Sam 2 the night before the problem and the game was freezing up completely until I had to ctrl+alt+del out. The computer was running fine after that though and later on when playing the game it was fine. I never experiences that problem with the game before.
 
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You'll always see games lock at times no matter game it is on whatever system even when no hardware problems exist. It's simply when a software driver tries to load sideways like into a system reserved memory address and the game stalls. But it's still software.

Other problems seen on an old build where the system would restart when running a game or large app as well as seeing high cpu temps turned out to be a weak battery on the board itself. But no beep codes were heard. The constant beeping and definite one long two short only in certain configurations could be indication of a bad dimm.

One thing you can test now is each dimm separately with memtest once you have the system running in a somewhat normal fashion again. Testing each dimm by itself will show if there's any problem with even just one of them.

As far as simply seeing if the cpu will heat won't show that the cpu is on the way out by that alone. In fact allowing it to heat up without any cooling inplace can easily exceed the limit and cook the cpu itself real fast!

Fortunately as well as seeing a new cpu on the way you didn't damage the board along with the cpu. When upgrading a cpu on an build that actually saw 3 tried out the first went on the next person's build probably from neglect to monitor temps and took the board along with it! What was worse was the fact that person then sold the dead cpu to a 3rd person who saw a second board ruined!
 
I got on that Asus forum and am seeing what they have to say.

One thing I forgot to mention and didnt really think much of it before was that the monitor wont respond when itself and the computer is turned on. It just sits there with the black screen and blinking light. Monitor seems fine though because it detects when its detached from the video card. Seems like the monitor isnt receiving any information from the computer when the computer is turned on. Wether this means the video card is the problem or simply that the computer is not getting to the point were info is sent to the monitor I don't know.

any thought on that?
 
The combo you had with the one long followed by two short points right at a bad card. This is why I suggested seeing if you could at least borrow a card to see if you then saw everything run normally isolating that as the cause. Two followed by three separate beeps however doesn't point to anything specific. A constant steady beeping does point at the cpu however by Award's code chart.
 
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