Problem with desktop PC involving continuous beep

[Ivo]

Hi all,

I thought I had posted about this before but I couldn't find the thread.

My desktop PC has been having some issues, and it is stressing me out. When I turn it on sometimes it makes a loud, continuous beep sound which I can't stand so I hard reset / turn it off. I think it doesn't boot when it does this but I'm not sure. I will try to pay more attention next time but it is so alarming I usually just react to and switch off ASAP thinking the components are in danger.

It also sometimes freezes up with Win 7 already running - giving a glitched screen that, if I unplug and plug the screen cable (VGA cable) the screen appears correct but the PC remains frozen (unresponsive mouse / keyboard and I need to do a hard reset).
Most recently when this freeze up / glitch screen happened, it also beeped loudly as it does sometimes when I turn it on (see above) so I now think the two issues are related.

All this started back in September or so after I moved. To move it I disassembled the parts and case and reassembled the PC again, and possibly I didn't do it properly. I already inspected the cables though and everything seems ok, and most times it boots up without issue (for a while I thought the culprit had been the PC speaker not being plugged well into the motherboard, but the problems keep happening randomly).

Can anyone help? Could the power supply be randomly underpowering it? I don't see a relation with the problems happening under load though, which I would imagine would indicate power supply underperforming... Most times the problem arises as soon as I switch on.

EDIT:
My BIOS is American Megatrends (AMI) and I looked up beep codes and AMI continuous beep code is for video / RAM problems which seems to add up with the freeze ups having glitched screen?

[noiseredux]

what model is your motherboard? You should be able to look up the boot error codes ("long continuous beep" in this case) and figure out what's causing the failure.

[fastbilly1]

Likely a dying GPU.

Edit, I see your error code said that.

[Anapan]

Certainly could be the PSU. I just replaced one yesterday with the same problems, tho no beep codes.
It could also be a heat dissipation problem. In that case, you might be able to fix it by replacing the heat sync compound and re-seating the heat sink. Could even just be the fan failing or dust buildup in the heat sink, tho you probably already checked for that.

[Hobie-wan]

Can also reseat the items in question in case you didn't quite get something in nicely. Is the fan working on the graphics card to keep it cool?

[noiseredux]

assuming you are using a GPU, you might try taking it out and seeing if you get any problems when running video from on-board mobo. If not, you've likely found yr problem.

[Ivo]

It is an on-board GPU on a mini ATX mobo (brand is Zotac). The case has loads of empty space and it looks like the fans are all working so I don't think it is overheating (it often happens on starting it up, and I'm in a cool climate in winter time and there is thermometer which displays the temperature on lit panel on the case itself).

Additionally there is a blu-ray drive which I don't remember using at all (came with the machine), a wi-fi antenna on the wireless card that is also on-board, and a 3.5'' 1TB hard drive.

I'll try checking if the RAM is well slotted, disassemble it and reassemble it and hope it works. As it is a random problem I won't be sure for a while.

Thanks for the help.

[Anapan]

Starting to sound more like a PSU problem. You could burn a bootable ram diagnostic utility disc to try and eliminate a faulty ram stick as the problem. The program itself would be loaded only into conventional memory.

[Ziggy]

Starting to sound more like a PSU problem. You could burn a bootable ram diagnostic utility disc to try and eliminate a faulty ram stick as the problem. The program itself would be loaded only into conventional memory.

http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

Download the bootable ISO (.zip) and burn it to a CD. Check the boot order in your BIOS and make sure it's set to boot the CD drive before any HDDs. Memtest86+ will load and start testing right away. The longer you let it run, the better (unless errors pop up).