z77 d3h/Windows 7/64bit PC hangs with continuous high-pitched beep

[acrookedsmile]

Hi, my z77 d3h computer with a PCI 2.1 Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum freezes up with a high-pitched beep coming from the speakers.

The error logs in Windows are empty.

Also I had a look in Checking the "Computer"->"Device Manager"->"PCI bus"->"Properties"->"Resources" revealing

"Conflicting device list:
Input/Output Range 0000 - 0CF7 used by: ACPI x64-based PC"

Could this be the issue and what do I do to remedy this?

System information:
Installed Physical Memory (RAM)   16.0 GB
Processor   Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770K CPU @ 3.50GHz, 3901 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date   American Megatrends Inc. F18, 21/08/2012

IRQ 18   Atheros AR8151 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (NDIS 6.20)
IRQ 18   Intel(R) 7 Series/C216 Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 7 - 1E1C
IRQ 18   Creative SB X-Fi

See here for further symptons:
http://forums.creative.com/showthread.php?t=699364

[absic]

Have you tried the latest BIOS for your motherboard which is F21 that you can download from TweakTown here: http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/28441-gigabyte-latest-beta-bios.html or from the Gigabyte Website here: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4140#bios

[acrookedsmile]

Hi,

I tried it this morning and now Windows 7 won't boot. The MB powers up fine and I can go into the BIOS menus and see things.

When Windows 7 starts loading, a blue screen suddenly appears and then I get the black screen offering me the options

1) Start again normally
2) System repair

I chose (2) and the problem appears to be something with the system files that are now invalid.

I chose (2) and did a system restore to a point on Tuesday. It did not help either.

Booting into Safe Mode also doesn't work. It starts loading bunches of driver and system files, then "please wait ..." and the blue screen appears again.

So ... what should I try next?

a) Flashing back into F18 bios and hoping that it helps,
b) reinstalling windows? (reinstalling all of my software on that thing is going to take hours)



PS It's not a complete disaster as I have my files backed up on an external drive. DS

[dmdilks]

What drive are you booting up on? Does it give a option like UEFI SSD or something like this?

[acrookedsmile]

It's an SSD drive.

I have the OS and programs installed on an SSD and I have "My Documents" for all users on a large-capacity hard drive.

I emailed the same question to the people I bought the PC from and they responded with this:

" This is likely to be because the “SATA Mode Selection” has defaulted back to IDE whereas it should probably be AHCI (or possibly RAID). Please try changing this setting in the BIOS setup “Peripherals” screen and see if Windows then boots."

So this is something I ought to try.

[acrookedsmile]

Setting the SATA mode selection to AHCI fixed the problem after reflashing to the F21 bios version, as suggested by my PC manufacturer quietpc.com :-)

[acrookedsmile]

Setting the SATA mode selection to AHCI fixed the problem after reflashing to the F21 bios version, as suggested by my PC manufacturer quietpc.com :-)

That is, it fixed the problem with Windows 7 not booting. It is too early to tell if this BIOS fixes the "PC hangs" problem ... but it hasn't happened since I reflashed.