Computer refuses to boot

[realchamp]

Hello!

I have an old PC, usually it works just fine. No problem at all.

But today I wanted to set in some new harddisks, it had a capacity of 60GB before and now it has ~ 400GB space. But when I boot my PC I get 3 beeps with short period of time between them. I was also dismounting my ram and putting them into my other PC, to test if they would work. When I did that, my other PC refused start. Now when I mounted them back in, I get these beeps all the DAMN time. I am not sure if I eventually broke them, I'm pretty sure they are probably installed. My worries are that my newer PC burned them off, like overloaded them with voltage.

Please help me ASAP :)
- realchamp.

[crunchie]

Try removing the motherboard battery (after turning the supply power off) for a couple of minutes.
Boot up and see how it is.
Make sure the extra HDD's are set as slaves (unless they are SATA).

[realchamp]

Try removing the motherboard battery (after turning the supply power off) for a couple of minutes.
Boot up and see how it is.
Make sure the extra HDD's are set as slaves (unless they are SATA).

Motherboard battery? What's that? Where do I find that?

[crunchie]

It's on the motherboard. Same board that you install your RAM.
Look for a round, shiny object. Make sure you install it back the same way.

[realchamp]

It's on the motherboard. Same board that you install your RAM.
Look for a round, shiny object. Make sure you install it back the same way.

Okay found something shiny, it looks like a battery for a watch. I removed and I'll wait for like 10minutes before pluggin it in agian. I am not sure if my harddisk's are SATA or whatever that is.

[crunchie]

SATA drives have the small data cable, not the wide, ribbon style of the IDE drives.

[realchamp]

I still get beeps :(

Okay I have those really wide cables.

[crunchie]

Ok. You have the IDE HDD's. You will need to make sure you have only one set as 'Master' and the other(s) as slaves.
Hopefully you never zapped anything with static electricity when you were moving things around.

[realchamp]

Ok. You have the IDE HDD's. You will need to make sure you have only one set as 'Master' and the other(s) as slaves.
Hopefully you never zapped anything with static electricity when you were moving things around.

I vaccum cleaned the PC while mounting the new disks, but I had a pastic cover on, so it did not have contact with the bare metal.

I will try taking out all the new harddisk and set in the old one. How do I set a hdd disk to the "master"?

Okay I removed all the other hdd's and replaced them with the old one. I still get those annoying beeps :(

[crunchie]

Where you connect the ribbon and power leads, you should also see a row of pins with a jumper on one pair of them. There will be 8 pins in total, one above the other in pairs. The jumper connects the top pin with the bottom pin, creating a circuit.
There should be a diagram on the hard drive showing the relationship of each 'pair.'

http://freepctech.com/pc/001/installing_ide_devices.shtml

http://www.pchell.com/hardware/masterslaveorcableselect.shtml

[realchamp]

Where you connect the ribbon and power leads, you should also see a row of pins with a jumper on one pair of them. There will be 8 pins in total, one above the other in pairs. The jumper connects the top pin with the bottom pin, creating a circuit.
There should be a diagram on the hard drive showing the relationship of each 'pair.'

http://freepctech.com/pc/001/installing_ide_devices.shtml

http://www.pchell.com/hardware/masterslaveorcableselect.shtml

Okay followed both links, I still get beeps. I guess my RAM got burned off :(

[crunchie]

Try putting one stick of RAM in, in the closest dimm to the processor. Remove the battery again for a couple of minutes. Try again. No good? Take that stick out and try another.

[realchamp]

Try putting one stick of RAM in, in the closest dimm to the processor. Remove the battery again for a couple of minutes. Try again. No good? Take that stick out and try another.

Same problem :(

Any other ideas? Or eventually a conclusion of what's wrong?

[crunchie]

Go back to how it was before you started changing things. When you have done that, do the battery out thing (called a cmos reset) and try again.
If it still does not work, there is a good chance static electricity got something.

What brand of motherboard is it? The manufacturer should have a 'beep' code chart giving the meaning of different beep codes.

[realchamp]

Already did that. I will try to look it up, but it is OLD. I'm worried about that part of static electricity :(

I will let you know in a minute, looking up: via vt8235 ( k7vm4)

[crunchie]

Do you know what bios is installed on the motherboard?

If it is AMI bios; http://www.pchell.com/hardware/beepcodes.shtml

2 Short Beeps Your computer has memory problems. First check video. If video is working, you'll see an error message. If not, you have a parity error in your first 64K of memory. First check your SIMM's. Reseat them and reboot. If this doesn't do it, the memory chips may be bad. You can try switching the first and second banks memory chips. First banks are the memory banks that your CPU finds its first 64K of base memory in. You'll need to consult your manual to see which bank is first. If all your memory tests good, you probably need to buy another motherboard.

3 Short Beeps Basically the same thing as 2 beeps. Follow that diagnosis above.

[realchamp]

Do you know what bios is installed on the motherboard?

If it is AMI bios; http://www.pchell.com/hardware/beepcodes.shtml

2 Short Beeps Your computer has memory problems. First check video. If video is working, you'll see an error message. If not, you have a parity error in your first 64K of memory. First check your SIMM's. Reseat them and reboot. If this doesn't do it, the memory chips may be bad. You can try switching the first and second banks memory chips. First banks are the memory banks that your CPU finds its first 64K of base memory in. You'll need to consult your manual to see which bank is first. If all your memory tests good, you probably need to buy another motherboard.

3 Short Beeps Basically the same thing as 2 beeps. Follow that diagnosis above.

I have no clue about my bios.

But I will try that.

[realchamp]

http://download.asrock.com/manual/P4VX4.pdf

Looks like my mortherboard, page 7.

Where is "SIMM"? I cannot find it.

[crunchie]

SIMM is your memory stick, or RAM stick. Single Individual Memory Module.

[crunchie]

Are you sure about the mobo? You put k7vm4 in brackets above, which is for an AMD processor.

[realchamp]

SIMM is your memory stick, or RAM stick. Single Individual Memory Module.

So that would be my RAM blocks, I have two each of 256MB ram(133MHz). I try to boot without, with one and with both, I still get BEEP BEEP BEEP

[crunchie]

Only way you may find the problem is to disconnect everything bar the essentials. eg; disconnect all HDD's, optical drives etc. May be that there is some serious damage there.

[realchamp]

My processor is an AMD Altlon(TM).

I'm getting some new hardware supplies tomorrow and I have already tired to remove all disk, including my diskdrive.

[teson]

Three beeps most probably means memory problem.

1. Disconnect all harddrives (to pin down problem).
2. Cold-boot. Still three beeps?
3. Unmount RAM and clean DIMMS and connector
(Hoover + anything contaning ammoniak works ok like window cleaning fluid)
4. Remount RAM. Boot.
5. Bad = replace ram. Good = remount HDD:s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-on_self-test

[sparkax]

If the BIOS is AMI,then 3 beeps indicates a RAM fault.
Remove and clean all memory modules , then replace only the first module
restart-if no problem then replace any others one by one.
You may ,by this means,be able to determine which module is faulty.
If the BIOS is IBM, then the keyboard is malfunctioning.

[realchamp]

Thanks for posting.

Problem solved. I changed the RAM with some new and then it worked :P

[RonRay]

I'm glad to see you solved your problem. But if you have 'THIS' problem again, clean your CPU (Central Processing Unit). It will be the square thing in the center of the motherboard with a small fan attached to the top of it. (Most have fans... :-/)
Remove the fan and cooling grid by (gently) releasing two clips on the sides of the "TOP" of that assembly. {DO NOT REMOVE THE CPU "chip" itself!} Vacuum out all the dust from under the fan and inside and around the CPU and the cooling grid.
A dirty CPU will give the same symptoms as you described, because it will cause overheating, which your Motherboard can sense. When overheating occurs, it stores that info in the memory and will refuse to boot next time.
The RAM sticks might have been your problem, ... and then you might have indirectly cleaned a little dust from the CPU while trying everything else. If it happens again soon, then try this.
:idea:

[realchamp]

I'm glad to see you solved your problem. But if you have 'THIS' problem again, clean your CPU (Central Processing Unit). It will be the square thing in the center of the motherboard with a small fan attached to the top of it. (Most have fans... :-/)
Remove the fan and cooling grid by (gently) releasing two clips on the sides of the "TOP" of that assembly. {DO NOT REMOVE THE CPU "chip" itself!} Vacuum out all the dust from under the fan and inside and around the CPU and the cooling grid.
A dirty CPU will give the same symptoms as you described, because it will cause overheating, which your Motherboard can sense. When overheating occurs, it stores that info in the memory and will refuse to boot next time.
The RAM sticks might have been your problem, ... and then you might have indirectly cleaned a little dust from the CPU while trying everything else. If it happens again soon, then try this.
:idea:

I cleaned my entire motherboard(including hdd's and CPU).

Damn alot of dust :P

But thanks for the tip.