PC no POST...beep w/o RAM, no beeps otherwise

[leehinkleman]

All cards, floppy and IDE cables have been removed from a Pentium PC which power up all drives and fans, including the CPU fan, but with no beeps and no video display. I tried a known-to-be-working PCI video card, with no improvement. When the single stick DIMM RAM was removed, a single beep with a periodicity of ~2 seconds was made by the case speaker.
The mainboard is out of the case now, has only the single RAM DIMM, CPU, CPU fan, system speaker and power supply connected and, when started by shorting the power switch jumper pins, the result is the same: no beeps...when the RAM module is removed, the repeating single ~2 second beep.
Please help me diagnose this friend's PC. Thanks.

 

[TekTippy4U]

Try adjusting any onboard display setting in BIOS.
Replace the RAM, possibly bad, even though it stops the beep from being inserted, doesn't make it good. Just means it's not missing. Try a diff video card. With the RAM in, you should get diff beeps to let you know Video card is missing.

TT4U

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These are just my thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions.
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[TekTippy4U]

oh yeh...possibly after BIOS settings changes..(disabling onboard display) "Reset" the ESCD setting in there. Clear it basically. Save Changes

TT4U

Notification:
These are just my thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions.
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[Lemon13]

your cpu might be gone, check seating/verify its working

 

[G0AOZ]

First off, if the CPU had gone you'd get no beeps at all.

Try clearing CMOS. There's usually a jumper to clear it, and this should be done with the mobo powered off. You could also try completely removing the CMOS battery and then shorting the battery holder terminals on the mobo to discharge any residual voltage.

After that, if replacing the RAM module doesn't solve it, I'd say the mobo's gone bad - only option is a replacement...


ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[leehinkleman]

Thanks for your answers. A known-good RAM module was tried in a DIMM slot, and I removed the TI5TT mainboard battery, and shorted across its terminals(I couldn't find the jumper pin pair to clear CMOS). The BUS speed seems to be set at 60mhz and the CPU clock multiplier at 2x, so I think that means this was an old Pentium 120. I may try a known-good Pentium 200MMX CPU, from an Asus mainboard, just to make sure that this TI5TT mainboard is defective. Two nights ago, the Asus mainboard PC had almost identical symptoms: all fans and drives ran, but no error beeps for a missing video card. After removing and re-seating the 200MMX for the third time, 'BEEEEEEEEEEEEP...BEEP,BEEP,BEEP(error code for no video). The Asus MMX box had stopped POSTing after trying it in the same house where the TI5TT box had become mute. I'm afraid to take more PCs back into that house.

 

[HippyWarlock]

agp cards are notorious for poorly seating, any travel can unseat them hence the no video POST code.

Could try measuring the mains supply to the house.

HTH

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