Long beep repeated and no boot.

[jollyjohn]

Hi and G'day
My old Acer with XP on it won't boot, it beeps several seconds long, stops and beeps again and again. Long beeps. I disconnected mouse and keyboard, removed HDDs, RAM and video card, did not make a difference, then I try a different PSU with only the motherboard connected, It kept beeping. The fans are working fine.

Guys I need help with this problem. This is a spare PC with good CAD software I need to run.

The MB doesn't seem to have bulging or leaked capacitors. This PC has been stored for a few months, I thought it was moisture and put the MB under the sun for a few hours, hoping it would come good, but it won't fixed it.

I cannot run the HDD on my other PCs as they are SATA not IDE.

Thank you for any help.

John

[jan5678]

Beeps usually comes with bad ram or video card.
Try to swap both with a known to be working one, one at a time and see if it will boot.

If not possibly the motherboard is broken or the cpu

There are IDE to SATA adapters available, Search ebay for ide to sata

[godai]

you can do reset , moving jumper inside of tower , in the motheroard.
i try a lot of branded pcs and that usually works, branded pcs are very picky

what an irony you cant imagine how many computers i throw away and how many people throw it too, when are old.

[redwudz]

You really need to know the BIOS manufacturer to look up the correct beep codes. You could try Acer here for the manufacturer: http://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/support

Often a long beep means a RAM problem. Try substituting RAM. Just removing RAM will likely give the same beep code, so that's not a good test.

[jagabo]

If you have multiple sticks of RAM try booting with only one or two sticks.

[jollyjohn]

G'day all

Thank you for the answers.

I tried everything without no success. So I disassembled everything, got the MB and washed with dishwasher detergent, as it was really dirty. After some scrubbing hosed it down and let to dry in the hot sun for a few days, cleaned the slots and contacts for the RAM and Video Card, tested the MB with only the monitor, KB, and mouse connected. It fired up OK. Finished assembling. Started up and it stopped on the ACER screen, the first one. Disconnected the optical and HDDs and it started fine but asked for booting disk, connected the master HDD and it booted very fast and snappy. Connected the slave HDD and booted well too, tried the optical Drives again and stopped on the first screen. My thought is the ribbon 40 wire cable to the optical drives may be faulty, (I do prefer 80 wire cable as I have on the HDDs), however, the machine worked fine last time I used it last year.

Any ideas what could be happening there?

I'm very grateful to you guys for your help and tips. I'm still learning every day something new, and I'm not 25 anymore, multiply that by 3.

Regards John

[Nelson37]

Disconnect all drives. Always step one in a no boot situation.

Move the IDE cable from the hard drive to the optical. Test. If it works, the problem is the current optical drive cable. If not, the problem is the current optical drive. Double check the master/slave jumper, but for $20, just buy a new one.

You have checked there is no disk in the optical drive, right?

[jollyjohn]

Hi Nelson, good to here from you.

No, I have not checked for disk in the drives (2 of them).

I'll try what you say.

Thanks

John

[jan5678]

got the MB and washed with dishwasher detergent, as it was really dirty. After some scrubbing hosed it down and let to dry in the hot sun for a few days,

offtopic:
Did you seriously washed the motherboard with water and a detergent?

If so you are very,very lucky it worked again haha

[vhelp]

I have this exact same problem on my desktop pc, that long beep-pause-beep, and it won't boot up. I have to disconnect the ribbon cable and reinsert it again, sometimes several times before it finally boots up into windows xp. And I'm pretty sure its the ribbon cable to my IDE drive. But this happens every year during winter when its cold because my apt is all electric so to cut costs I turn off the heat before i leave for work in the morning and turn it on in the evenings to 50. So, basically, the chases, wires and cables become stiff and brittle and causes inconsistent connections to some electronics on the computer. during the warmer spring and summer, the pc boots up fine. Eventually I will get another ribbon cable, but i'm mostly on my laptop so there's no rush. my pc is from 2006. Anyway, your's is probably the ribbon cable and/or the connection points on the device.

[jollyjohn]

got the MB and washed with dishwasher detergent, as it was really dirty. After some scrubbing hosed it down and let to dry in the hot sun for a few days,

offtopic:
Did you seriously washed the motherboard with water and a detergent?

If so you are very,very lucky it worked again haha

Yes, jan5678. I have always done it, with al sort of circuit boards. Computer MBs could be very filthy with dust, lint, cooking grease in the air absorbed by the cooling fans and built up inside the PC. I have done it from remote controls to any circuit board, car computers, car electric window switch boards. You have to be sure it dries out completely before you re assemble it. Use a soft brush.

Nelson37
Re: Long beep repeated and no boot.

Disconnect all drives. Always step one in a no boot situation.

Move the IDE cable from the hard drive to the optical. Test. If it works, the problem is the current optical drive cable. If not, the problem is the current optical drive. Double check the master/slave jumper, but for $20, just buy a new one.

You have checked there is no disk in the optical drive, right?

Success at last.

Thanks Nelson for your suggestions. I had a new cable I had never used. Swapped master and slave drive jumpers and connected the new data cable. It took longer to complete boot the first time as it had to detect the new drives.

Please see attachments

[Keyser]

got the MB and washed with dishwasher detergent, as it was really dirty. After some scrubbing hosed it down and let to dry in the hot sun for a few days,

offtopic:
Did you seriously washed the motherboard with water and a detergent?

If so you are very,very lucky it worked again haha

Actually not that strange! Most electric and electronic devices can very well be washed with water and even submerged in it. You just have to make sure they are extremely well dried before being powered up again.

[jagabo]

Cleaning with water is commonly the last step for PCB manufacture. Use distilled water for the final few rinses.

[aedipuss]

it's not water that is the killer of electronics, it's the impurities in it. in pure h20 a device can run submersed forever. but in tap water it's instant death.

[jollyjohn]

Thanks.