Powering up, is this normal?.

chief barker · 4 Feb 2010 at 16:39

After tinkering with my new build over the past 5 days I have finally discovered why I sometimes get 1 long beep followed by 3 short indicating (by the mobo manual) that there is no VGA connected.

It happens when I plug the power into the wall and switch the p.c on straight away, If I just plug it in and wait 30 seconds it boots up fine!

Is it because the motherboard capacitors are charging up or what?

I am glad i've got to the bottom of the problem though. Running lovely at 3.8.

i7 920 D0
Asus P6TD Deluxe
HD 5970
6 GB XMS3 Corsair Cas 8
Corsair HX850W

Jason1973 · 4 Feb 2010 at 21:03

Hi chief, you shouldnt have to wait for anyhting to charge.
Faulty/dodgy cable or connection perhaps?

ajf · 4 Feb 2010 at 21:07

Do you use a surge protection lead or anything similar?
I have noticed this very occassionally when using the Belkin surge protected 6 or 7 way extension leads.

chief barker · 4 Feb 2010 at 21:42

ajf said:
Do you use a surge protection lead or anything similar?
I have noticed this very occassionally when using the Belkin surge protected 6 or 7 way extension leads.

Yes I have a single socket Belkin surge protector with the p.c plugged into it.

Thanks for the advice I will try it without the surge protector.

Ricardox1 · 4 Feb 2010 at 21:44

chief barker said:
Yes I have a single socket Belkin surge protector with the p.c plugged into it.

Thanks for the advice I will try it without the surge protector.

Should work without it, let us know how you get on, good luck

chief barker · 4 Feb 2010 at 21:52

Your'e a STAR!

It works first time without the surge protector, funny thing is it's supposed to protect against surges but introduces other problems which can be more problematic.

Many thanks mate

chief barker · 4 Feb 2010 at 22:35

Windows 7 boots faster now

arknor · 4 Feb 2010 at 22:39

ive never used a surge protector and never had a problem in 10 years of pc's.

your probably more likely to be ran over by spies ferrari

Jason1973 · 5 Feb 2010 at 09:34

Glad its sorted chief, never knew that with surge protectors.

@arknor, I use a UPS as I think surge protectors are useless. Not had a problem in 2 years and yesterday 2 power cuts in 4 hours. PC remained unaffected

You never know when a problem will strike, best to be prepared

arknor · 5 Feb 2010 at 12:36

Jason1973 said:
Glad its sorted chief, never knew that with surge protectors.

@arknor, I use a UPS as I think surge protectors are useless. Not had a problem in 2 years and yesterday 2 power cuts in 4 hours. PC remained unaffected

You never know when a problem will strike, best to be prepared

maybe if you live in mainland europe where the power is up and down a lot or america its worth it but for the uk we seem stable enough anyway

Ch3m1c4L · 5 Feb 2010 at 14:22

we are very stable, and i dont care for UPS's as ill jsut use my laptop then

But i do bother with surge protectors, yes i know they dont protect against a huge amount, and the warrenties dont cover everything youd expect, but they arent much mroe expensive than normal extension leads, and the belkin ones have cool spinny sockets and come in black with audio visual and phone line connectors/splitters so i like them

Dont know if theyve actually saved anything though, since ive been using them since the first time i ever built a pc 8 or 9 years ago.

westom · 6 Apr 2010 at 21:23

You have only cured a symptom. Using only observation, your conclusion is invalid.

You describe a problem typically between the power supply and power supply controller. Your BIOS error code could never happen if that coummunication was correct. A problem what can only be identified with a multimeter.