Ghost in the Shell...

[isthan]

Greetings, First time poster. I'm quite concerned about some recent developments in my computer.

I built my first computer about two years ago and it was my first experiment with many things such as modular powersources and SLI setup. I've been quite proud of its performance and reliability and overall a great first experience. Here is what i'm working with:

ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard:Newegg.com - ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe AM2 NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI MCP ATX AMD Motherboard - AMD Motherboards

2GB Corsair ddr2800 RAM

2x EVGA Nvidia 7600GT

SunBeam 550 Watt PS: Newegg.com - Sunbeam NUUO SUNNU550-US-BK 550W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready Modular Power Supply - Power Supplies

Power On ATX case( Note has some touch sensitive illuminated buttons, mentioned later ):Power Up Black ATX Mid-Tower Case with Front USB and Audio Ports and Touch-Sensitive Controls TC3G-5018 at TigerDirect.com


Today my roommate calls me at work to tell me that my computer is beeping and wonders if he should turn it off because he noticed the front panel lights were acting peculiar. I ask him in further detail and it sounds like my computer is having some kind of hardware malfunction because it is currently on the bios page with:

*Warning: System BOOT Fail*
Your system last boot fail or POST interrupted
Please enter setup to load default and reboot again.
F1 to continue
DEL to enter Setup

when before I left work the computer was idle in vista. I asked my roommate to hit f1 and it would attempt to start windows error recovery displaying safe mode options but then it would shut off and the "restart" and "shutdown" touch panel buttons on my case flash in unison in a pattern opposite of the "lock" button on my case. The lock button traditionally does not flash for any reason, and I've never seen the power and restart flash in unison.

I asked my roommate to leave it until I got home from work when it stayed in the screen displaying options for safe mode after luckily getting it to that stage. When I got home I saw that it could boot into windows normally and that it did not seem to be a problem with my hard disks. I restarted it and then i'm back to the error message in boot.

After seeing all of this in person I also noted that it constantly beeps. Whenever it beeps, the lock button lights up on the case. Again i've never seen the lock button turn on except when pressing it to lock (stays solid) and unlock (off) the panel.

I decided to clean it out for fear of some dust shorting (which it was dusty) or something over heating which may justify constant beeping. When I plugged it back in, the case lit up normally to show it has power. Whats really strange is I waited a few moments and I noticed the power and reset lights beginning to flash in unison and the case seemed to power on by itself. It was not a successful power-on by any means. There wasnt any display on the monitor but the HDD access light lit up and the case power on sound was made. Now i'm a little hesitant to plug it back in.

With all of these quirky facts laid out, does anyone have any suggestions for troubleshooting? Power supply seems like an obvious choice, but I dont have a secondary PS to test it. Thanks for your help!

 

[Alvin.C]

Hello,

When your motherboard beeps, is there a certain beep pattern? If so, you should be able to check your motherboard manual / BIOS beep reference (online) to find out what kind of error the beeps are reporting. If you know the beep pattern, post it up here. It should be made of one or several consecutive short and long beeps.

Have you tried resetting the BIOS? Once you've done that, make sure that the BIOS settings are properly re-configured afterwards.

For troubleshooting purposes, remove one of your graphics cards, and extra RAM modules (if you have more than one installed), then try to power up. Also, try alternating between graphics cards and RAM modules.

If all of that fails, then the only other thing to try which I can think of is testing another PSU in your system.

 

[Luke]

have you overclocked any?

 

[isthan]

Thanks for your responses. The motherboard actually is not beeping. My case which has the touch sensitive buttons makes a small beep when its buttons are pushed. The sound i'm hearing is a consistent beep with a frequency of about 1-2 seconds. Again when I hear this sound, the "lock" button flashes with the sound. So in essence, its the case that seems to be beeping.

I have tried OC'ing back when I first got it, but opted for reliability. It is currently running at its intended clock speed of about 2.5 GHz.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

What type of case do you have? Could be a latch that is causing the motherboard or another device that senses if the case is open to beep... I know most motherboards have the headers for a set of wires that goes to this type of switch.

 

[isthan]

What type of case do you have?

See the original post for the case details. I dont believe it has such a feature though.

I tried looking around for a manual either that I might have gotten originally or online but both with no luck. I wanted to see if the pattern of case beeping i'm witnessing is an error message of some sort that could be interpreted. If nothing else I can make a video of the problem. Thanks for the responses!

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

One of them buttons could be messed up causing it... Have you tried to remove power from those buttons and such on the case? BTW there IS a speaker on most cases that hooks up to the motherboard, that is how the motherboard yells at you.... So if you could give us any beep patterns of any sort when it gives that error message, we could probably help you better.

I just have a feeling power was lost and you haven't gone into the bios to redo your settings if they was lost.

 

[isthan]

I have done some additional troubleshooting today. I tested the power supply with a tester and verified that it is operating normally. The problem at this point is that the system will power itself on. When the PSU is switched on, after about 6 seconds the power and reset light/button flashes with a "beep" and the lock light flashes with a beep about a second later. These beep patterns are actually not in any pattern. I am familiar with beep codes and this does not even sound like a "morse code" signal, its merely a consistent beep and flash combination.

If you didnt catch it, the system powers itself on. The beep pattern happens 1 or 2 times and the system powers on. During this time I decided to see how far it would go. I let it boot into vista and all things looked normal all the while this beep pattern continues without change. It was not long into this that I saw the vista "shutting down" screen and vista conducted a graceful shutdown. I believe it was a power or restart button press signal being sent to the computer. I am led to believe that the problem is the touch sensitive power buttons. They have worked well the last two years, but perhaps are beginning to fail. What really seems to confirm this is that the system will exhibit the same beep/flash pattern with the case power switch connection to the mobo disconnected but will not power on by itself. It does appear to "attempt" to in just the same fashion.

I'm strongly considering buying a new case in light of these recent experiments.