MotherBoard keeps beeping during POST! 1

[HollyVally]

I am using a Gigabyte RZ series motherboard 8VM533M-RZ VIA P4M266A/P4M533 chipset. I also use a PC2300 512MB DDR DIMM RAM. The processor used is P4 Celeron 2.6GHz.

Although it was runnign 'sort of' OK, yesterday suddenly it died with a long(7sec.) beep then 5sec. mute and repeating until shut off.

The mobo manual doesn't give any beepcode that I can possibly match with in order to troubleshoot.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[Lemon13]

beep codes at

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1223

 

[HollyVally]

Thanks for the beepcode link.

According to the link the repeated long beep means Memory error. After checking the memstick, it was not the case.

In the mean time I have reassembled the computer from scratch!

I found lots of dust in the heatsink. While cleaning that it got my attention that there are lots of dust in the close proximity of the CPU itself.

Understanding that this may have created a heat-insulation instead of heatsink(!) I took the whole mobo out of the casing and gave a proper and thorough cleaning.

When I put together all of it again, I happily found the computer is running without any visble trouble so far.

My conclusion in it : Keep the system dust free.

But in a soho it can be sometimes troublesome. Even than regular interior cleaning is probably the best maintenance one can do to a computer!

There is an FAQ, and all the links in it, that can be a good read :

http://tek-tips.com/faqs.cfm?fid=2213

Hope this helps all who need.

 

[firewolfrl]

I use an aircompressor set @ 120 psi with an inline airdryer.
its amazing how much crap comes out. especially when it is a smokers computer

that and I have washed components in the dishwasher... LOL it's all good considering the parts would have been scraped anyways...

 

[LawnBoy]

Good point. Water (in and of itself) does not damage circuit boards or electronics. Applying power while they're wet does indeed damage stuff, so make sure things are completely dry before re-assembly.