Another Beep question

[sievebrain]

This is my first post here so hope it's in the right forum.
I have a Gigabyte M52L-S3P board with 2x2 g ram.

When I start the PC from cold i.e. first thing after being switched off all night I get a single beep followed by a continuous beep.
The post goes ok and Win XP SP2 starts up.
If I turn on the power and then start up say half an hour later I usually don't get the continuous beep. During the day with the PC being warm I don't get it either.
There are some other issues with Win XP crashing which originally I thought were down to duff memory but having done a full memory check this seems now unlikely. Possible driver issues or an unknown hardware issue.

Another issue is the memory check during the post. The available memory reported is never the same. Sometimes 3.3+ or 4.1+ etc. If the memory checks out would this be a MB issue or something to do with XP sp2.

Thanks sievebrain

[absic]

Hi there,

From your description of the beeps I would guess that the system is posting normally (the short beep) then a system alarm is being triggered (long beep). This could be due to the CPU Fan not starting up straight away, especially if you have the Cool & Quiet option enabled. Check BIOS settings to confirm if this is the case.

The memory not being reported properly during POST is down to the motherboard, BIOS, RAM Modules or combination of these items. The Windows OS has no bearing on things until after this stage.

Without more details of your hardware it is impossible to say what may be causing the BSOD's. If you could post back with Motherboard Revision, BIOS version, CPU, RAM Modules, Hard drives, GPU, PSU and other hardware it could help with tracing the problem. Of course, the BSOD's could be caused by the Software environment and, if it is due to this, it may be almost impossible to track down.

[sievebrain]

Hi there,

From your description of the beeps I would guess that the system is posting normally (the short beep) then a system alarm is being triggered (long beep). This could be due to the CPU Fan not starting up straight away, especially if you have the Cool & Quiet option enabled. Check BIOS settings to confirm if this is the case.

The memory not being reported properly during POST is down to the motherboard, BIOS, RAM Modules or combination of these items. The Windows OS has no bearing on things until after this stage.

Without more details of your hardware it is impossible to say what may be causing the BSOD's. If you could post back with Motherboard Revision, BIOS version, CPU, RAM Modules, Hard drives, GPU, PSU and other hardware it could help with tracing the problem. Of course, the BSOD's could be caused by the Software environment and, if it is due to this, it may be almost impossible to track down.

I did read somewhere that the second continuous beep might be down to the fan. I'll check that tomorrow morning. currently I have cool & Quiet enabled+smart fan control+fan alarm so I'll disable the fan alarm and see what happens in the morning. I'll get back to you with full specs in the morning as well.
sievebrain

[sievebrain]

This morning all went well. The long beep is no more. So clearly there's a conflict in that the smart speed controller is a bit on the agressive side! I have to say that the CPU runs at quite a cool temperature currently 42c, the sytem board 35c and the GPU 60c.

The rest of my system info as requested:-
CPU AMD Athlon X2-250
MB M52L-S3P
BIOS Award V6.00PG F1
RAM 2x2GB DDR2 DIMM
HD Samsung 103SI capacity 1tb
PSU 500w
GPU NVidia GeForce 9600 GSO 512

The memory misreporting though seems to continue.
sievebrain

[absic]

Do you know the revision for your motherboard as there are 4 versions of it? If you are not sure look at the motherboard itself and the Rev No. should be printed on one of the edges and will look like: Rev.1.0. If you still can't find it then what colour are your RAM slots as this will help narrow the choice down.

If your BIOS version is F1 then updating to the latest version for your motherboard revision might solve the memory reporting issue.

[sievebrain]

Do you know the revision for your motherboard as there are 4 versions of it? If you are not sure look at the motherboard itself and the Rev No. should be printed on one of the edges and will look like: Rev.1.0. If you still can't find it then what colour are your RAM slots as this will help narrow the choice down.

If your BIOS version is F1 then updating to the latest version for your motherboard revision might solve the memory reporting issue.

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you.
It is in fact rev 1.0 So perhaps you could direct me to the download site for any updates. One thing to mention (strange but true) since I turned off the fan alarms the memory reporting has been consistent
Sievebrain

[absic]

You can get BIOS updates from here: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3008#bios

I would recommend using the Q-Flash utility to update the BIOS.

[sievebrain]

Many thanks
sievebrain

[sievebrain]

Unfortunately when I did a search for an update for my MB it came up zero.
Another interesting point as regards the memory displayed during the post. If I boot up from cold i.e. power switch off both at the computer and the mains the memory displayed is always a consistent 4.1+. If however I do a soft boot or turning off the PC switch but "not" the mains I always get a consistent 3.3+ !!!!!

The manuel says "Due to Windows/VistaXP 32-bit operating system limitation, when more than 4GB of physical memory is installed, the actual memory displayed wil be less then 4GB."

I have 4GB installed and XP sp2.

There is an adjustment I can make to boot.ini  to make XP aware of more than 2GB. But, I'm not sure that would actually make any difference.
sievebrain

[absic]

Did you use @BIOS for checking updates? If you did, this could be why no updates were shown and is why I said to download update from the link I provided above and to use the QFlash utility for updating the BIOS.

Even if you are currently running the F6A BIOS then reflashing shouldn't be a problem and it could help resolve issues, if there are any, with the BIOS.

[sievebrain]

Did you use @BIOS for checking updates? If you did, this could be why no updates were shown and is why I said to download update from the link I provided above and to use the QFlash utility for updating the BIOS.

Even if you are currently running the F6A BIOS then reflashing shouldn't be a problem and it could help resolve issues, if there are any, with the BIOS.

How do I use @bios? Sorry for the dimentia!
sievebrrain

[absic]

No, DO NOT use @BIOS!

Go to link I provided in previous post and download the F6A BIOS from there.

Then use QFlash to update/reflash the BIOS. If you are not sure about using QFlash check the FAQ here: http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php/topic,2441.0.html

[sievebrain]

No, DO NOT use @BIOS!

Go to link I provided in previous post and download the F6A BIOS from there.

Then use QFlash to update/reflash the BIOS. If you are not sure about using QFlash check the FAQ here: http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php/topic,2441.0.html

Many thanks I'll do that.
sievebrain