No Post... need help with beep codes

scott

I am trying to get a new folder up and running and can't get it to post.
Mobo Asus A7V8X-X

I have tried 2 brand new sticks of pc 3200 and 1 stick of new pc 2100 all one at a time in all three slots

I have tried 2 different video cards 1 pci and 1 agp

I have tried 2 different power supplies

The board is on the bench ( Not shorting to the case )

Have tried with and with out hdd

Have tried swapping out the cmos battery , and clearing cmos in between all tries.

Have tried with a new 2500+ XP Mobile and an old 800 duron ( Good heatsink contact confirmed )

In all cases , no post. Beep code is appox. 1sec on 1sec off repeat
I could not find a beep code list. does anyone know what the code represents?

As Stated the board is on the bench. Could this board "need" to be bolted to a case for grounding reasons ?



Help


Scott

Straight_Man

Possible it needs ground points or jumper wires to grounding points, yes. I would try mounting it on a backplane, then grounding the backplane with a ground wire with clip to grounding plane. IF it still will not post, check and make sure the CMOS has been cleared and then the jumper\shunt\block returned to "normal" pinout with power off.

IF this is a single tone beep, it sounds unlikely this is a thermal alarm, but folks have sometimes gottne boards that give a two-tone high-low every second and normally this is a thermal alarm if you get a high-low two tone beep.

Other things to check:

RAM seating, some of these new boards are really stiff seating RAM the first few times sticks are PRESSED in with a thumb. I had one board from ASUS, took three reseats and then an audible CLICK occured when I pressed real hard on the stick and it seated right. ABITs and Intel boards can also do this. I know you said confirmed good seating, I swore the first two tries on one board that seating was good and guess what-- it was NOT good enough. On that board, the AGP card was not quite fully seated either (about 1\32" NOT seated)....

Results, single beep one second apart. No RAM at low end, stick not QUITE seated, no VIDEO either, this is basicly the BIOS saying-- I can't even load into RAM much less give shared RAM to video device, if I could FIND one!! A corrupted CMOS stack can do this, essentially if a distributor ships the board with CMOS ENABLED (in Normal jumper position) the battery can almost die on the shelf also, or a slight tiny bit of static can give the CMOS a jolt that randomizes that stack-like settings table in part or in whole-- so reset the CMOS please, and if need be stick a new battery in (with all power off), then reset it again and THEN try to POST again.

scott

Thanks John

I have reset the cmos many times with the power off ( psu switched off, standby light on board out ) I have also replaced the battery with a new one that I checked with a vom. And I have tried reseating and reseating the ram. Many different attempts with 3 different sticks in 3 different slots.


I will try sticking it in a case and see if it needed those ground traces tied.



Scott

Straight_Man

IF you have done MANY resets of CMOS, try changing out the CMOS battery, OK????

But, best of luck with the mounting and grounding.

scott

OK I reread the manual rechecked all jumper settings
Put it in a case
Found another stick of pc2100

Still no post.

checked the battery with the vom 3.12 volts ( It was new a few hours ago ) still looks fine.

Just for fun and out of desperation , I tried booting with no ram. I got the same beep code. So I am guessing the code is for memory problems.

I am out of ideas

anybody got any others ?


Scott

JChretien

I looked at asus's site, and confirmed that the a7v8x-x uses an Award BIOS, and checked into the bios beep codes for it..

{
1 Long Beep: Memory problem

Explanation: There is a failure of some sort related to the system memory.

Diagnosis: The first bank of memory probably has a failure of some sort; this is usually just a physical problem such as an incorrectly inserted module, but may also mean a bad memory chip in a module. It is possible that there is a failure related to the motherboard or a system device as well.
}

http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/sys/beep/award.htm

or
Repeating (endless loop) Memory error Check for improperly seated or missing memory.

http://www.bioscentral.com/beepcodes/awardbeep.htm

so i think your thinking it is a memory problem was the correct diagnosis, now shove those rams in HARD!! (dont break them tho... they just have to click... i know, cause i have the A7N8x-e dlx, just another flavour of your board =D)

scott

Thanks JC
I looked all over the asus site and knowledge base, couldn't find anything. Never thought about looking at the Award site ...duh.

That pretty much confirms it is a memory problem. I am thinking that the board is DOA. I am sure that the ram was seated. And with the number of sticks and sockets I tried it had to work at least once. The OCZ ram I tried has heat spreaders on it and they were bottomed out on the socket. I would say that the effort required to seat the ram was "Normal" I have seen much worse.
I think I am going to give up on this board and send it back.

Thanks for everyones help.

Short-Media rules !

I guess it will be another week before the farm grows another 2.5 ghz

Scott

edcentric

http://bioscentral.com/
This is the source for beep code info, they have it for almost every mobo that has been made.