Power Surge Then 3 Beeps

[Surfer_Gurl]

My son leaves his computer on all the time, and he came home the other day, to find that the power in his house had been off. He talked to an IT guy in the neighborhood and found that there had been a power surge... no, he has no UPS, or voltage conditioner, straight to the wall... I think he has learned now...

Turned computer on, and drives spin up, but nothing else, video does not come on. Took out sound, network cards, extra drives, etc.; has to leave in video card, because can not find vid port on mobo. F1... F1... F1... nothing.

Last time he turned it on before he went to work this morning, the drive spin up, and he heard three loud beeps, that he said sounded like they came from the hard drive.

When he gets off of work, he is going to tell me the model of the mobo, cpu, etc., but do you have any ideas until then?

[shanenin]

Three steady beeps(assuming it is not coming from the harddrive) may indicate a bad video card. Depending on the bios of your computer, the beeps could indicate different things.

You may want to take a look at the capacitors of both the motherboard and video card. If they are bulged or leaking, it may show you the problem.

[Surfer_Gurl]

You may want to take a look at the capacitors of both the motherboard and video card. If they are bulged or leaking, it may show you the problem.

Thanks, Shanenin... will check the caps first thing when he gets home from work!

[Pete_C]

http://www.computerhope.com/beep.htm

Dated, but a phoenix award or AMI is most common

http://www.helpwithpcs.com/upgrading/post-beep-codes.htm

So I would go with damaged RAM or Video card.

That you get fans spinning means power supply survived.

That you get POST beeps would tend to indicate the motherboard and CPU survived.

Simple test is to unplug and open case and remove all ram.

Plug in and power on. Are the beeps the same?

Shut off, unplug and put in one stick . Plug in repeat.

Now do it for the video card.

If the beep stays the same with either RAM or Video card removed, but changes when the other is removed; then you know the culprit.

Of course it could still be a problem with the CPU or Motherboard memory controller; but keep a positive attitude that it may be just a bad stick of RAM .

Edited May 26, 2008 by Pete_C

[Surfer_Gurl]

Thanks, Pete. My son's busy all weekend (he works at a music store & he's a musician), so I'll follow up as soon as I find out what's up.

Thanks again!

[Rich]

3 beeps and nothing that points to the first 64k of RAM most of the time... Try taking out ALL the RAM modules and replacing one at a time and powering up at each step and if he gets the beeps on just one module he will need to replace that one..

[Surfer_Gurl]

Thanks, all for your advise. My son has been too busy to get back to me, so I'll let this thread rest, until or unless I have any updates, but I think you all have gotten up on the right track. Thanks again for your expertise.