Hi All, I have a problem with my PC that has been really annoying me for the last month. My original system was: P4 2.8Gig 1 x 1Gig DDR 266Mhz RAM AGP GeForce 5200 128MB DDR RAM MSI 845PE MAX motherboard (onboard LAN and sound) HDD 20Gig master and 80Gig slave This worked fine for about 6 months. Then one day playing GTA3 the monitor went blank came back again for a split second and then the computer crashed. When I re-booted I got no signal to the monitor (and therefore no BIOS POST message) I just got 2 beeps followed quickly by another 8 beeps (10 beeps in all) and 10 or 15 seconds after the first 10 beeps I got another 2 beeps quickly followed by 1 more beep (3 beeps in all) then I got nothing else. I have tried lots of things to fix this. Firstly I booted up with only the video card and the RAM attached but I still got the same beeps. When I removed the RAM I got no beeps but I thought this was perhaps because AMI BIOS is unable to boot without any RAM present. Even if I booted without the video card and just the RAM attached I got the same beeps. I tried using an old PCI video card and I still got the no signal message on the monitor but the strange thing was when I turned the power off the monitor flashed black for a second and then returned to the no signal screen. Sometimes the monitor switches itself off completely after I turn the computer power off even though it says it is getting no signal. This was also the same for the AGP card after I re-checked with it. Next thing I did was replace the 250W PSU with a new 400W PSU just in case there was not enough power for the P4 system but I still got the beeps. I couldn¡¦t find any information on BIOS beeps sequence that has a 2 -8 beeps then a 10 second pause followed by 2-1 beeps, except that such strange beeps meant that the board was damaged. I tried to contact MSI support but 3 weeks later they still have not replied to my email to explain what the beeps might mean ¡K grrrrr!! ƒº So, I replaced the motherboard with a new MSI 845PE MAX2. And yes you have guessed it, it still gave these same feckin beeps. However, I didn¡¦t give up. I had earlier found some information on BIOS beeps but ignored it because it didn¡¦t refer exactly to the beeps I was getting but it said that 2 beeps followed by any other sequence of beeps means that the RAM is defective. So I went out and spent more of my hard-earned cash on 256MB of 333Mhz DDR RAM. I booted up the system and again all I got was these beeps with no video signal. I also tried booting with the motherboard outside of the case to see if any of the mounting screws was causing a problem. Also, the monitor works fine when connected to my laptop. I know the last thing to do is to test my CPU but I don¡¦t know anyone with a P4 system that I can try my CPU on to see if it is working correctly. I have already spent nearly $200 on this problem and don¡¦t want to spend more money on a new processor if it is not necessary. Does anyone out there have any other suggestions as to what I can try? Do you recognize the BIOS beeps I have described or can you tell something from the other information I have given? I appreciate any help.

I doubt there is anything wrong with the processor. The 2-8 beeps tell you that the POST code could not find the memory on the video card to test. So that sounds like a problem with the video card. However, the 2-1 error said it could not find the system board memory either. Oops. Your best bet is to try you video card and memory in another system if you can. Good bet that they will all work. So this points to a common FSB bus failure somewhere on the system board and it should be replaced. Unless you left some card plugged in during all this testing. The fact that you even get the beeps is a stong indication that the processor is running OK. So is access to the BIOS Flash chip, but there is a problem accessing memory or adapter cards.

I would come to a different conclusion. You changed the mainboard and the ram. You tried a different video card. Only the cpu is left unchecked from all of these checks. Replace the cpu

I agree with JackG that it's `probably' not the CPU. It would take a very strange CPU problem to have it be defective and still work good enough to put out the beep error code. I would strongly suspect the video cards. I'm curious to what beeps you get if you leave the video card out.

You say you tried an old pci video card, but got no signal. Did you get the beeps? Did you check your mobo manual to see if your mobo will automatically look for a pci vga card? there is a bios setting which determines where the monitor signal routes through AGP or PCI. I suggest trying to borrow a AGP graphics card from a freind before spending more money