Since some time my PC gives (3 beeps, pause, 3 beeps, reboot) repeatedly on boot. Nothing on the screen. Googling for this beep code gave me no meaningful results (it's certainly not a keyboard problem). After many (around 30) tries of booting, it sometimes gets through and then I can use my PC for days (without powering down) without a problem. But once a few days my screens are black, keyboard lights frozen. After restarting my PC, I'm again faced with the boot issue.
My first though was that it is a GPU problem, as I could boot when I removed my GPU and used my motherboard video. However, that seems to have been a fluke.
Today removing the GPU didn't help as well and I started investigating further. I removed all devices attached to my PC. I unplugged all SATA cables (I don't have an M.2 SSD), removed my GPU, used a different PSU and removed 2 of the 3RAM sticks, changing which one of the 3 I used. I did a CMOS reset and used a new CMOS battery. I still couldn't boot, with the same beep code.
I plugged everything in again and started the boot loop. After about 20 minutes the PC finally booted successfuly. After confirming the UEFI default settings, and a rather long boot, Windows started without problems.
So... that's the current situation. I can use my PC but I'm afraid of rebooting it or powering down for any reason.
I guess it must be something related to the motherboard or CPU as I ruled out virtually everything else.
I can just buy a new motherboard and CPU (and probably RAM, because this one is still DDR3), but it would be nice to know what happened.
Any ideas?
My hardware:
Summary Operating System Windows 10 Home 64-bit CPU Intel Core i7 4770 @ 3.40GHz 41 °C Haswell 22nm Technology RAM 24.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 790MHz (10-10-10-30) Motherboard ASRock H87M Pro4 (CPUSocket) 34 °C Graphics IPS235 (1920x1080@60Hz) D2343 (1920x1080@60Hz) DELL P2412H (1920x1080@60Hz) 2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 (ASUStek Computer Inc) 34 °C Storage 232GB Samsung SSD 840 EVO 250GB (SATA (SSD)) 31 °C 931GB Seagate ST1000DM003-1ER162 (SATA ) 29 °C 931GB Samsung SSD 850 EVO 1TB (SATA (SSD)) 30 °C Optical Drives No optical disk drives detected Audio NVIDIA Virtual Audio Device (Wave Extensible) (WDM)1 Answer
From the text dispersed here and there, I'd guess the culprit is on the motherboard, seems to work as the MoBo warms up a bit... so a broken PCB-trace, possibly. One might need quite advanced tools to find (=locate) the actual problem.
One step further, and a possible problem removal step:
- It isn't just the RAM modules: The RAM needs to have working communication via the databus and memory access/control lines (RW, CS, and all that), from RAM to CPU and vice versa.
- Use a pencil eraser - lightly - to erase the oxide (air oxygen induced "contamination") on the RAM module contacts.
- Get some "contact spray" from an electronics supplier (note: nothing else than that!) and spray it on the CPU-socket and RAM module connectors (on MoBo and modules)
... you might solve the problem by those two steps.
I have removed strange effects on old computers by very similar methods. Old oxidized connectors will not allow current to flow as freely as required for correct function.
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