[Problem] - Beep sequence after faulty PC power up

[Pidgeon]

Hi everyone, for many years I've never had problems with my desktop PC. This morning, after having left it on for the entire night, as I always did, I noticed that there was no video signal, so I decided to proceed with a forced reboot through the power switch.

Few seconds after having turned it on, still there was no video signal, but I heard a sequence of beeps of this kind (1s = 1 second):

1) Beep-1s

2) Silence-1s

3) Beep-1s

4) Silence-1s

5) Beep-1s

6) Silence-3s

and so on, by repeating the cycle of 3 beeps followed by a pause. I forcefully rebooted the PC (still through the power switch), but the situation didn't change. I still heard the beeps and the video signal wasn't there.

My motherboard BIOS is AMI. By reading here:

http://www.bioscentral.com/beepcodes/amibeep.htm

it would seem that this problem is due to RAM.

Particularly, in my PC there are 2 RAM modules of 1 GB each (let's call them R1, R2) and 2 RAM slots (S1, S2). I removed every RAM module from the slots, and I verified them one by one, through the following combinations:

- R1 in S1

- R1 in S2

- R2 in S1

- R2 in S2

In two of the above combinations, I heard the beep sequence I previously described, while in the remaining two combinations no beep was produced (I only noticed the front red status led of my PC case, which remained turned on for about 10s, and then it turned off). No matter the combination I used, still there was no video signal.

My PC configuration, is the following:

- Motherboard MSI KT6V (Bios AMI)

- AMD Athlon XP 3000+ 2.162 GHz

- RAM 2x1 GB

- Sapphire Radeon 9600 Atlantis 256 MB RAM

- Creative Sb Live! 5.1

- HD Maxtor 6Y120L0 120 GB

- DVD Reader DVD JLMS XJ-HD166S

- DVD Writer DVD LG GSA-H42N

- Microsoft Window XP Home Edition SP3

In your opinion, what could have happened? Do you think that it would be worth to purchase a diagnostic PCI card like this?:

I hope that there aren't short circuits. Thanks to those who will be willing to help me.

[Alan2273]

Before you spend your money, can you access the BIOS and do you have access to another computer or laptop.

If so, download this program, http://www.memtest86.com/download.htm, burn it to a CD and alter your BIOS boot to CD/DVD and run the program.

The free version is the one you want.