very quiet beeping, not POST.

Ch3m1c4L · 17 Jun 2009 at 09:51

Got a problem ive not encountered before, the story goes as follows.

PC was spec of an E4500, AsRock Dual Sata2 (skt 775), 2gb corsair ddr400, 7950gt (agp), corsair modular 520w. Worked fine etc no weird issues.
I have now replaced the RAM with some Patriot (i think) DDR2 800 (running slower @ 667) and an 8800gtx (PCI-E) and put in a edimax gbit network card.

Formatted and everything works, Prime 95, games etc everything is nice and stable. But, when its on it makes a very very quiet beeping noise. One long, then 7 alternate ones (they change pitch every other one). This then repeats after a few seconds. It is not POST beeps, and no where near as loud, and i dont have a PC Speaker connected to the board. Its not the GPU since i had a faulty 8800gts in there for a day and it still did it.

I havent had time to try diferent ram or taking the network card out yet. I'm more curious as to what it might be, I know i need to take the side of the case off and identify the component etc but because its not cap squeal, and i dont have the speaker connected, I am unsure how it is even making this noise. Anyone encountered this sort of this before?

Ch3m1c4L · 17 Jun 2009 at 16:27

anyone got any idea at all?

OrphanBoy · 17 Jun 2009 at 16:52

Could it be related to you hard disk in some way? My laptop hard disk makes weird clicking every now and then. Not quite beeping though...

Ch3m1c4L · 18 Jun 2009 at 08:58

shouldnt be, its not a clicking noise and it sounds like its from the mobo area, also didnt do it before the rebuild and they are the same drives

Plec · 18 Jun 2009 at 09:26

Ch3m1c4L said:
Formatted and everything works, Prime 95, games etc everything is nice and stable. But, when its on it makes a very very quiet beeping noise. One long, then 7 alternate ones (they change pitch every other one). This then repeats after a few seconds. It is not POST beeps, and no where near as loud, and i dont have a PC Speaker connected to the board. Its not the GPU since i had a faulty 8800gts in there for a day and it still did it.

It could still possibly be a post beep from the mobo even though you don’t have a speaker - it could be making itself heard through interfernce which is why it's so faint.

Plus 1 long beeb and 7-8 short beebs is the IBM code for 'Display/Retrace test failed' or 'video adapter error' on an AMI BIOS and continuous beebs is usually a sign of 'memory or PSU failure'. The video adapter error seems the most likely candiate from your posts. Its usally 1 long and 8 short - but as it's so faint/inaudible it may be that you're not hearing one of the beeps.

The fact that the beebs are regular and in keeping with post beeps errors i would be inclined to look further into what these sequence of beebs might signify for your particular motherboard.

Ch3m1c4L · 18 Jun 2009 at 15:18

ok, ill give it a quick google for the board. it could well be 8 but i couldnt ever tell if i was imagining it lol. I might try and find where i put the pc speaker and see if it makes it louder.

Id be inclined to say it isnt a video error though, yes the 8800gts i put it had dodgy lines, but it also does in another system. I have also tried 2 different cards in it (including one that was in it before when it didnt make a noise, and without one at all) and it still does it. It could well be the RAM, since it was running ddr1 before, and it now running DDR2 and i havent set the timings/voltage manually as ive only just found them out.

I'll give an update tonight/tomorrow morning.