Continuous beep error - help appreciated

[freejon]

This computer has been working for some years, but has lately developed a continuous beep from within a couple of seconds of booting up.  It will run normally,for as long as I can stand the noise!
The MB is a GA-M57SLi-S4.  The manual says DRAM error for continuous long beeps - but does not give an option for a beep which doesn't stop at all.   I have replaced the CMOS battery just in case, and I have taken the DIMM modules out and reseated them.
Am I going down the wrong road, or can anyone suggest what I need to do next.
Thanks for your assistance
Jon

[Dark Mantis]

Hi Jon and welcome to the Gigabyte Forum.

It does sound initially like a memory problem. I would suggest running  Memtest86+ on each module one at a time. Follow these instructions exactly.

I would suggest that you download and run the latest version of  Memtest86+ to check your RAM first.

Memtest86+        http://www.memtest.org/

Insert one stick of memory in slot 1 and run Memtest on it for at least 10 complete loops/cycles and if there are no errors then swap it over with the next one and continue untill you have checked all  modules.
 
If you have any errors the module is faulty.

If you have any faulty modules you will have to return the whole kit as they are matched.

Post back when you have done that with the results.
 

[Ripshod]

Do as Mantis suggests, but to be honest if the beeping is the only symptom (no crashes/BSODs) I'd look elsewhere. Maybe a stalled system fan or a faulty 'sense' from any of the fans. Could also be a temp warning.

[Dark Mantis]

Yes good advice there from Ripshod. It could very easilly be a motherboard alarm. At least that is easy to pin down.

[freejon]

Thank you for these suggestions.   I should have mentioned that I had checked for temperature and for fan speeds which all look OK through the bios.   have been doing a few things since posting the question.   I ran memtest (but not memtest86) with all of the memory in place.   THat was running under Windows for over an hour and came up with no errors.  I also tried taking out the memory modules one by one, and swapping them over, but no change to the beeping. 
Tomorrow I will try the memtest on the modules separately, but I am inclined to suspect that the memory is not the problem.   How else can I check for fan sensing faults (do I need to) if the bios readouts look OK?   
Any other thoughts?

[Dark Mantis]

Yes the easy way to see if it is an alarm is to go into the BIOS and disable all the alarms there. They are all in one place so it is easy enough.

Running the old Memtest isn't going to help you must use Memtest86+.

The first thing i would want to check is the memory. Please follow these instructions exactly.

I would suggest that you download and run the latest version of  Memtest86+ to check your RAM first.

Memtest86+        http://www.memtest.org/

Insert one stick of memory in slot 1 and run Memtest on it for at least 10 complete loops/cycles and if there are no errors then swap it over with the next one and continue untill you have checked all  modules.
 
If you have any errors the module is faulty.

If you have any faulty modules you will have to return the whole kit as they are matched.

Post back when you have done that with the results.
 

[freejon]

Dark Mantis, Thank you so much for your help. 

I disabled the warnings one by one.  The beeping stopped when I disabled the system fan warning.
I have never had a system fan on this computer!
 
I have a CPU fan and a power unit fan.

So I am grateful, but seriously baffled.   I had certainly not made any changes to the setup of the machine for months, and none to the BIOS since its last rebuild- cant' even remember when, but over a year ago.

There are fairies at the bottom of my computer.

Jon

[Dark Mantis]

I expect that what has happened is that the Main BIOS has swapped with the Backup BIOS and has reverted to Optimised BIOS Default settings. This will enable all the alarms on your system by default.

[freejon]

Thanks again - that sort of explains it, except for Why?  Perhaps more importantly, can I stop it from happening again?
Maybe I am getting old, but "in my day" computers did not have minds of their own. They did what they were told.  It worries me when they do stuff spontaneously.   Have I got a Cylon in the house?

[Dark Mantis]

Oh, they are clever bastards now! You have to watch your back with them or they will be up to all sorts.

Seriously the Backup BIOS is there to rewrite the Main BIOS if it gets corrupted for any reason. It is all automatic and sometimes the "switch" is set a bit too sensetively. Therre eis nothing that you can really do apart form update your BIOSes and hope that it will be cured on the new version. Of course there could be some other issue with that. Don't you just love computers ? 

[Ripshod]

Good to see your issue is solved freejon. Sorry I haven't followed more closely, I have the knowledge gut not very good at imparting such. Thank you Dark Mantis for helping out m8

An afterthought. Given the age of the motherboard it may be worth a new bios battery (if you haven't already). That would rule the battery out as a cause of a corrupted bios.