Problem I have not had before

My desktop is a P5 & that's all I can tell you wihtout it running. Home built running XP Pro SP2. Problem started the other night. My daughter informed me her desktop would not start. She was running XP home on a HP desktop. She says it started looping the start up screen after a update....from where i am not sure. What I do know is she had some files on a thumb drive from school she loaded on her desktop. That appears to be the start of the problem on hers. I came home the other night & she asked me to print the Office 2007 files on my desktop for her. They were on this thumb drive. I could not do what she wanted so I shut my pc down & went to bed. The next morning I tried to start my desktop & that is where I am now. It will not load. I turn it on & get 2 beeps from the pc & nothing on the display. I have tried a win 98 boot floppy as I put a floppy drive in when i built it & that does not load. I have tried the XP boot CD in here & nothing with it either. All my attempts seem to go no where. I am dumbfounded. I know it is not hardware related as the link seems to be what ever was on the thumb drive. Did I metion my business files are on my desktop? Any ideas? Thanks

The two beeps are a BIOS beep code telling you an error that occured during the POST process. You need to open the case and find one of two things. Either the motherboard maker which is written on the board somewhere and model number or the BIOS manufacturer. It should be right on the chip something like AMI, Award, or Phoenix. You can then go to whatever site and find out what the error is. If you like you can post that information here and I would be glad to help you.

I get one short beep on start up then a couple of seconds later another short beep then nothing. Nothing on the screen, drives are spinning, green light on the mother baord. Can't seem to find an answer for the beep errors.

The two beeps are a BIOS beep code telling you an error that occured during the POST process. You need to open the case and find one of two things. Either the motherboard maker which is written on the board somewhere and model number or the BIOS manufacturer. It should be right on the chip something like AMI, Award, or Phoenix. You can then go to whatever site and find out what the error is. If you like you can post that information here and I would be glad to help you.

ASUS P5N32SLI Deluxe mother board
ATI X800GT Video card
4 Gig Kingston ram
4 x WD 2000 Serial ATA drives

As regards saving your data (business files), this has worked for many.

You might try booting with a Linux Live CD to see if you can still read the disk.

If so, you can copy what you want, onto a flash / external drive
and work on fixing the hard disk afterwards, with help from others here.

A Linux disk enables you to boot, without interference from Windows;
program runs from the CD, no need to install.

It's about a 700MB download of the ISO, which you need to burn to a CD,
using an appropriate ISO burning program, (so that you create a bootable disk,
not merely copy the ISO to CD):

(Linux Mint is a popular distribution, also Ubuntu, Knoppix, etc).

Read all the info first, if you're dubious.

http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

Freeware burning programs: (ImgBurn is popular):

http://iso.snoekonline.com/iso.htm

I think that MB uses an Award BIOS, but the beeps you describe I cannot find exactly, but anything more than one short beep is generally a problem - probably hardware.

I would, power off, unplug the power cord, open the case, touch a metal part of the chassis to discharge any static electricity and just reseat everything that is not difficult to remove. That would be any extra I/O cards, RAM and cables. Unplug it, plug it all back in one by one so you don't get mixed up. If it comes loose without much trouble, reseat it. You may need a #2 phillips screwdriver.

Remove and reinstall the video card, remove and reinstall each stick of RAM, remove and reinstall any other cards that you may have added, put it all back together (no cover yet) and fire it up and see what happens. Any on screen messages would help figure it out.

If you can boot or it at least tries now, test your RAM as follows. You may have to try to install one RAM at a time to isolate a faulty stick. Try one, try another one, etc. different ones each.

Run a test of your RAM with memtest86+ (I know it is boring and will cost you a CD).

Memtest86+ is a more up to date version of the old memtest program and they are not the same.

The memtest86+ will not run under Windows, so you will need to download the ISO file and create a bootable CD, boot on that and then run the memtest86+ program.

If even a single error is reported that is a failure and should make you suspicious of your RAM.

If you have multiple sticks of RAM you may need to run the test on them one at a time and change them out to isolate the failure to a particular single stick. Always keep at least the first bank of RAM occupied so the test will find something to do and there is enough to boot your system.

Sometimes, reseating the RAM in the slots will relieve the error but any failure is still cause for suspicion.

The file and instructions are here:

http://www.memtest.org/

Edited by joseibarra, 14 February 2010 - 09:50 AM.

Thanks it is actually one long beep & two short beeps. I did unseat the memory & the video card with the same result. I think it is the video card & I am going to replace it this morning. I'll let you know what happens.

Then read here:

http://www.bioscentral.com/

On the right, are the Award BIOS beep codes:

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

Sounds like you are on the right track. Can you move the card to another slot?

OK I purchased a ATI Raideon HD 4650 Video card. I installed it & fired up the pc. For a brief second the LCD monitor which has been displaying NO SIGNAL showed a blue screen& displayed changed to DIGITAL. Then back to black & no signal again. Still no boot. I now get one beep on start up then one beep a couple of seconds later. Gone are the two beeps. What now? Thanks

I burned the .iso memeory test but it won't load either. On each try to start the display does change from "No Signal" to "Digital" for a second, then back to "No Signal". I'm stumped.

If I am thinking logically, the pc won't read a floppy or a cd/dvd, so it is not loading the drivers for them. What could be stopping that or wiped that out?

I tried Ubantu Live but that won't boot up either.

Hmmm... I would say monitor or motherboard (not much else left).

Do you have another monitor your can try?

Have you moved the video card to another slot?

Have you unplugged your monitor from power completely?

Is there a way to reset your monitor with the buttons or try to get it into some kind of setup mode? Seems like you should see something somehow even it it is not getting a video signal - at least mine will go into setup mode.

What kind of monitor and we can look for a manual.

Smells like hardware somehow. Are you comfortable reseating everything you can find?

Edited by joseibarra, 14 February 2010 - 06:12 PM.

WHAWHOO I am happy to report that switching to my old monitor an NEC LCD my PC loaded ok with no ill affects. The one I was using is about 2 years old Septre. I will be checking it next. But thanks to all as all is good. Thanks again. I will put this one in my life experience book.

Back to the store for a refund on your new card!

What is the afflicted monitor? I will make some note about it.