Bios Error 3 LONG Beeps

artman40artman40
edited January 2007 in Hardware
My sons system will only give 3 LONG beeps, pause, 3 LONG beeps, repeat when turning the system on. No monitor picture. Hardrives, cd, cpu fan all turn on.
The system uses an AMI Bios. I have checked all over the internet and there is no bios error code of 3 LONG beeps for the AMI bios. the IBM bios says it is a keyboard issue. But this is not an IBM bios.
I have tried unplugging all drives, resetting CMOS, reseating the memory, replacing the memory, reseating the battery.

Does anyone know for sure what repeating 3 LONG beeps means?

There was one link I found that said VIA said it COULD be the power supply.
The system is:
Mercury KVM400-U MB
VIA SIS chipset
AMD Athlon 1.8
Patriot 1GB PC2700 memory

Thanks

Comments

  • ZuntarZuntar North Carolina Icrontian
    edited January 2007
    Do you have another video card to try out in that system?
    Do you have a meter to measure the voltage on the PSU?
  • artman40artman40
    edited January 2007
    I tried another video card. Same result. Tried another power supply. Same result.
  • erichblas2005erichblas2005 Your Native Texan Houston,Texas Member
    edited January 2007
    Remove the cmos battery.
  • budhisetiawanbudhisetiawan Mars Hill, NC Member
    edited January 2007
    Arent 3 long beeps usually a memory thing?...
  • budhisetiawanbudhisetiawan Mars Hill, NC Member
    edited January 2007
    Found this....

    3 short Base 64K RAM failure


    http://www.computerhope.com/beep.htm#04

    Gives all the AMI beep codes...
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited January 2007
    Regardless of what the beeps mean there is trouble shooting you can do. First if this is a machine that gets moved around or lot - or hasn't been moved in a very long time. I'd suggest you open up the case check to see how much dust is accumulated in it and if it's bad clean it out. Then remove all the cards and re-seat them. Also double check that any IDE cables haven't wiggled loose.

    Next if you have the parts sitting around try swapping the video card.
    Next if it's got multiple sticks of ram in it pull one of them out and try the other in various slots and see if that works and then try the other.

    That gets rid of the basic hardware issues.

    Oh one other thing. If after you've turned your computer on it won't shut off by just hitting the power button and you either have to hold it down for awhile or just pull the plug. Remove the cpu and power it up. Then shut it off put the cpu back in and try it again. This isn't so common a problem on mother boards that the cpu plugs directly into the cpu socket. But if your cpu is plugged into a daughter board first before plugging into the socket they often can get unseated frighteningly easy.
  • budhisetiawanbudhisetiawan Mars Hill, NC Member
    edited January 2007
    hey kryst...

    Question about what you said...I am having that problem u mentioned...Specifically last night...

    Take a look at my post and give me what you think....
Sign In or Register to comment.