Hardware PC Won't Boot

[Trolly]

Eurgh, I've had my computer for half a year, and it's been completely fine until now.

It crashed completely out of the blue, and now it won't turn on. Instead, the fans go to full capacity (it's pretty loud) straight away, and I get two beeps in quick succession followed by 7 evenly spaced beeps. I've been Googling away, and it seems the error could be a whole host of things, but it's likely it's a hardware failure of some sort. I don't know the name of my BIOS, so I can't look for the error code specifically, and as far as I know, opening up my PC will void my warranty (I'm reluctant to send it off, as it will likely take a month at least).
If anyone could shed some light on this it would be great.

Really irritated, as I now can't play Fallout 3 or Prince of Persia. I'm confined to Animal Crossing on my Wii aha.

 

[kobykaan]

Eurgh, I've had my computer for half a year, and it's been completely fine until now.

It crashed completely out of the blue, and now it won't turn on. Instead, the fans go to full capacity (it's pretty loud) straight away, and I get two beeps in quick succession followed by 7 evenly spaced beeps. I've been Googling away, and it seems the error could be a whole host of things, but it's likely it's a hardware failure of some sort. I don't know the name of my BIOS, so I can't look for the error code specifically, and as far as I know, opening up my PC will void my warranty (I'm reluctant to send it off, as it will likely take a month at least).
If anyone could shed some light on this it would be great.

Really irritated, as I now can't play Fallout 3 or Prince of Persia. I'm confined to Animal Crossing on my Wii aha.

EDIT just read the part about warrenty ... It shouldnt do mate PC's are supposed to be self upgradable you should be ok to have a look inside at least

initial thoughts is DEAD CPU ....

2 usually means bad ram with 7 its a processor issue ..beep codes vary from board to board so look for codes specific to your board it will say on the board what make it is

most probable cause to check first is overheating take the side off and blow (don't use a vacuum cleaner it causes chip damaging static!) all the dust and dirt out of any fans including the psu fan and the processor fan and any case fans so they can turn freely and that the board is not covered in dust and dirt too

do you get anything a bios bootup screen or anything at all like a post boot or nothing at all?

can you get to bios usually F2 or delete when booting to get to bios?

if it powers the fans then its likely that the PSU is maby not dead (although cannot discount it without replacing it)..

do a little self diagnostics ...


disconnect the power cable any cdroms and see if it powers up....

do you have more than 1 hard drive in there? if you know which is your boot drive then disconnect any others and test again..

how many sticks of ram? more than one then first check that when you carefully touch the pcb of the ram does it feel VERY hot ? ....

Hot ram could indicate a memory issue then remove one and check again see if it boots then switch for the other check again for bootup

does the board have its own graphics card or is it inbuilt?

again if it has a board then check its seated correctly and if it has a fan that its turning freely and again check its not hot (they do get hot but not everywhere on the entire board generally only where the heatsink and fan is) if it is faulty the whole pcb can heat up!

check any other boards make sure they are seated right like soundcards,pci usb,tv cards,nic cards etc etc!

if there's still nothing happening and still not getting any post screen up then its possibly either the board or the CPU or BOTH!

as your still gettin bios beeps then I don't think its the board that's dead

bit of a long winded reply mate but without doing the job for you there's a lot to check

edit 2 here's a link for nearly all beep codes ....

here down the right hand side is listed loads of different boards maby one is yours!?

 

[OSW]

Check that your ram is inserted properly? (take it out and put it back in)

 

[Trolly]

Well, I have a bit of a Catch-22 situation. Opening the PC will likely void my warranty, so I can't check to see if it's something simple.
I've also had problems pinpointing my BIOS, as I don't know what BIOS my Asus M3A came with. Any help there?

I've been searching around though, and it seems that the Asus M3A is an unreliable model. It has a tendency of dying, and at times has taken out people's CPUs. The error code could also mean a problem with the CMOS.

So yeah, like you said kobykaan, it could be a lot of stuff :\.

EDIT: Arrrr, w*nkstain. The provider says there should be a sticker with a serial on my PC, and if it's broken or removed, I don't get my warranty. It's missing, and I reckon I removed it thinking it was just a barcode put on to identify during the building process

.
Might as well get the help of my dad to open it up and check a few things.

 

[kobykaan]

Well, I have a bit of a Catch-22 situation. Opening the PC will likely void my warranty, so I can't check to see if it's something simple.
I've also had problems pinpointing my BIOS, as I don't know what BIOS my Asus M3A came with. Any help there?

I've been searching around though, and it seems that the Asus M3A is an unreliable model. It has a tendency of dying, and at times has taken out people's CPUs. The error code could also mean a problem with the CMOS.

So yeah, like you said kobykaan, it could be a lot of stuff :\.

EDIT: Arrrr, w*nkstain. The provider says there should be a sticker with a serial on my PC, and if it's broken or removed, I don't get my warranty. It's missing, and I reckon I removed it thinking it was just a barcode put on to identify during the building process

.
Might as well get the help of my dad to open it up and check a few things.

What does your home insurance cover Dave if you have any.. !? accidental damage? anything in there for misc items!? check if it does mine covers my pc

just incase I erm drop it down the stairs etc lol

just earth yourself before you start rub the casing down with your hands and arms before you open it or touch a metallic radiator to discharge any static you may of built up on your body .. or be posh like me and buy an earthing strap that I connect to the casing or metal nearby lol!

disconnect any power cables before starting...... or live life on the edge and work on it plugged in like I do .... though I've done it for years so know ....

a) It bites you if your clumsy and b) not to touch that part again whilst its live!

as above don't use a vacuum the end of it gains static with the airflow over and into the vacuum cleaner so dangerous to chips!

blow the dirt out of any/all fans (you can buy compressed air cans cheaply but cheaper to blow it out lol!)

make sure the boards not caked in dirt and crap and the fan on the psu is clear along with its vents

report back any progress

 

[Scorpei]

There should be no difference in error codes reported over different BIOS versions, the only thing that determines the difference is the brand of the BIOS.

http://www.bioscentral.com/
A great site when it comes to beepcodes, though they can be mistaken

.

In case you have an AMI megatrends bios (which I think you have hearing from the amount of beepcodes

), the POST error seems to be CPU (& RAM. Now both of them failing at the same time, when you aren't doing ANYTHING strange sounds like the motherboard crapped out (possibly taking things with it)).

As long as you have the receipt though, you should be able to get warrenty ESPECIALLY if you haven't broken any seals. Granted though with the missing barcode I can see why Asus would be rather lame on you

. Also not sure about how your law works so.......^^

EDIT: Just saw kobykaan's link, cudos

.

 

[kobykaan]

There should be no difference in error codes reported over different BIOS versions, the only thing that determines the difference is the brand of the BIOS.

http://www.bioscentral.com/
A great site when it comes to beepcodes, though they can be mistaken

.

In case you have an AMI megatrends bios (which I think you have hearing from the amount of beepcodes

), the POST error seems to be CPU (& RAM. Now both of them failing at the same time, when you aren't doing ANYTHING strange sounds like the motherboard crapped out (possibly taking things with it)).

As long as you have the receipt though, you should be able to get warrenty ESPECIALLY if you haven't broken any seals. Granted though with the missing barcode I can see why Asus would be rather lame on you

. Also not sure about how your law works so.......^^

EDIT: Just saw kobykaan's link, cudos

.

lol you stalking me on tech support questions Scorpei

even without looking at beep codes lists I had said ram/cpu but as you have said also its difficult to decide/confirm as you will probably know too that some beep codes can be judged on pitch and even pauses between them

lets see how Dave gets on after poking around with a big metallic stick with his feet in a bowl water ...... oh wait don't do that Dave thats dangerous mate i was just kidding bud!

keep us informed on progress Dave

 

[juggernaut911]

To see what BIOS you have, google your computer model/motherboard model or try looking at the BIOS chip, it may have the version on there