[FUState]

Computer beeps, almost like an alarm while it is on right from the moment you hit the power button until it shuts down completely. I'm sorry, but I really don't know what else to mention because it did this coming out of standby only two days after I reseated the graphics card. The display is working fine, so I'm thinking unrelated (who knows though...)

I tried to troubleshoot like bios beeps, but this is continuos and the computer works, so I'm thinking that would be useless and couldn't find anything relevant in google.

I tried device manager to look for some troubled item, I did not expect to find anything in there and no surprise.

I'm sure it must be a hardware issue as it starts right from the beginning, but I'm just not sure how to troubleshoot this one to figure out the cause.

Please advice.

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Sometimes motherboards have safety functions that does this if say your CPU fan stops running. I would reset your BIOS to the default settings and see if that works.

If you have intergrated graphics on your motherboard then try running the computer without the video card.

[Titan8990]

Sometimes motherboards have safety functions that does this if say your CPU fan stops running. I would reset your BIOS to the default settings and see if that works.

If you have intergrated graphics on your motherboard then try running the computer without the video card.

[FUState]

I decided to start up the computer with the case open and checked all the fans, all were spinning except for the fan on the Graphics Card. How can I check if this is the cause or wether it only spins if it needs to?

I did not reset the BIOS as the CPU fan was still spinning, if you still think I should then I will.

Also, not sure if this is relevant, but there is a "display" on the motherboard that shows numbers when on, booting was too fast to read them all. The numbers I did get were (in order from earliest caught to last) 86, FF, 48.

Please advice.

[shard92]

Well it's possible that video fan only spins when it is suppose to.. with the computer off does the fan turn easily? Can you see where the fan plugs in? IF so is it 2 wire or 3 wire? If only 2 than I'd tend to think it should be on.... as it wouldn't have a speed monitor then... Also could it be that there is a key stuck???

Also maybe the computer isn't generating enough power to run that video card... ( which might be why dell says it is not compatible )

[FUState]

I'm not sure where you get that dell sais its not compatible (this is not a dell) The computer should be getting enough power although it's not too long ago that I switched battery backups, it has run with this setup for at least a month maybe even two and I have had the system since August of 2006.

The fan does spin easily and is a 2 wire that is sottered onto the card itself. Seems to me it would be a fairly intelligent driver if the system knew that the Graphics Card's fan wasn't spinning, but I have been surprised before.

There should not be a key stuck, as the only sign that something is wrong as far as the computer's operations go is the alarm/beeping or whatever; in my experience with keys being stuck, the keyboard doesn't do anything and I have full use of it.

[shard92]

sorry the dell reference must have been from another post I was making... From my experience the only times you get a constant beeping is if there is a stuck key, or if there is a heat type issue. Maybe the computer isn't detecting that gpu fan isn't spinning but IS detecting that the overall heat in the system is building up. However you said something about a battery backup... is the beeping possibly coming from it?

[FUState]

No.

Computer beeps, almost like an alarm while it is on right from the moment you hit the power button until it shuts down completely.

[FUState]

Also, the beeping doesn't sound like bios beeps... it sounds more like an alarm.

The fact that it does this right from the moment I start it up makes me think it's not a heat issue... unless components overheat in 1 second... so I don't know what'd going on.

The sound comes from either where the floppy drive is... not sure why it has one, or where the hard drives are... it's hard to isolate the origin of this pitch completely.

[shard92]

The only other idea I have is a chassis intrusion alarm.... By the floppy..... Maybe a floppy clip came off and it's making noise? Sorry running out of ideas...

[FUState]

Alright... I just got the long, short and reseated my card to no avail... guess its time to buy a new card... hopefully it's not the moboard...

[Titan8990]

Does your board have intergrated graphics? If it does try running the computer without the video card. I would also unplug as many mechanical parts as possible such as extra HDDs, and CD drives. I would still reset the BIOS. It cant hurt anything.

[FUState]

Now I am wondering why I didn't listen to you in the first place. After restoring optimized bios settings it seems to be working fine... although my inner pessimist reminds me that this is the same feeling I had a few days ago when I reseated the card... we shall see how this treats her for the next little while.

Unfortunately my board does not have integrated graphics, it does however have integrated sound which makes me wonder if the it is the onboard sound that does not have a driver installed after all of this... because a multimedia sound controler is now a ? in the device manager.

Thank you for you advice.

[Titan8990]

Glad to hear you got it working for now .


Edit: It may be a good idea for you to check your video card temps if you can. You may have to replace the cooler. What type of graphics card do you have?

Edited by Titan8990, 06 September 2007 - 07:44 PM.

[FUState]

My card is an ATI Radeon 9600XT.

The thing that I found strange though is that it's a two wire... and it didn't spin, when I replaced the card temporarily... the replacement didn't spin either (although a three wire). I guess I could start some type of graphics app and see if it is a mono speed that spins only once it heats up to a certain temp. So maybe it's normal.

Anyway... the control panel for the card has a handy temperature monitor... it's consistant at 41... I tried to find an app that would use it... but there are no games on it... so that's good too I guess.

[Titan8990]

41C definatly isn't bad for a video card. It would be good to check the temperature after a hefty game session though.