Has my board died?

Empyrion · 24 Sep 2009 at 22:17

Hi everyone,

Switched my computer on today (DFI ICFX3200 T2R/G board) and was greeted with a series of continuous long beeps with absolutly no signs of life from the machine (fans spun up, but no POST.) Am I right in thinking that this means dead motherboard? If so, has anyone got any ideas on the best board for an old Intel QX6800 (budget of around £100 inc delivery.) Will be ordering within the next 2-3 days, as I can't have that machine offline for long!

UKDTweak · 24 Sep 2009 at 22:23

Long beeps, either vga failure or ram failure normally, are all the beeps the same tone and length?

Empyrion · 24 Sep 2009 at 23:02

Yes, all same tone and length, also continuous rather than a normal beep code.

Coldzero · 25 Sep 2009 at 08:29

Try clearing the cmos.

Empyrion · 25 Sep 2009 at 12:59

I've tried clearing cmos, still get the same continuous, never ending sequence of long beeps.

UKDTweak · 26 Sep 2009 at 12:32

Do you have another system to test the ram and vga card in?
Not sure, but from memory... long continuous beeps means faulty ram!

Empyrion · 27 Sep 2009 at 15:52

I might be able to test the ram and graphics in another machine, hopefully it is the ram, as I can then continue with my upgrade plans (I'll get 8Gb of the £50 patriot kits.) If it's not the RAM or VGA, would a P5Q Pro Turbo be a good choice for the following other componetns (will test the sound too):

Intel QX6800 /w Corsair H50 cooling
ATi X1950XT (to be upgraded to 5870 eventually)
X-Fi Elite Pro
4 x HDD (no raid)
2 x Optical Drives
FDD
4GB cheap OCZ RAM

Also, anyone know if a 5870 will fix in a first-gen Stacker 830?

Zenduri · 27 Sep 2009 at 16:18

I'ld bet £10 on your ram. Ive had 2 different pc's (housemates) give me the flurry of beeps, after pulling the memory out and trying 1 stick at a time it worked and concluded the memory was nackered.
P.s i think the 5870 is 11 inches long if that helps

Empyrion · 28 Sep 2009 at 12:22

That's a bet you'd win. After trying one stick at a time (something which I thought had been done by my father when he was supposed to be trying to fix it) it turns out one of them has died on me.

I do have another problem with this machine, anyone know why it might shut down and then immediatly restart itself. It goes shut down -> 0.5 second pause -> switch back on. It's not a power fluctuation problem as it's all plugged into a 2200VA APC UPS and that's not reporting anything wrong with the supply. The computers PSU is a Silverstone Olympia 1kW supply.