Hi Guys.

I have a problem cold booting my PC.

I get the first beep from the bios which happens as soon as the power goes on but then the system either stops booting and does nothing no sound video etc, or sometimes the bios beeps with a never ending repetitive even beeping noise which after some research some sites say a memory error.

I have 2x256 mb ddr 2100 ram sticks in my pc, I have tried running with just one of these and have swapped and changed them around with no change in the problwms booting. I have removed the processor cooler and re fitted it with new thermal paste.

The only way I can get the pc to fully load up is to let it sit beeping for 10 minutes or so and then turn it on and off, and eventually it will boot fully.

When the pc boots it runs perfectly, does not overheat and can be left on downloading from newsgroups all day and night with no complaints.

I don't know what else to try to stop my booting problems so any suggestions greatly appreciated.

My system is as follows

Asus an7266N m/b
400w Power
Athlon XP 2.2
512 ddr 2100 ram
80 GB HD
XP Pro

and has only developed these problems over the last week or so and has been running sweetly till then.

Have you tried clearing the CMOS with the PSU power cord unplugged from wall? You may also need to relax the memory timing a bit.

Hi Van m8. Do you mean clean the cmos battery? If so no I haven't.

It is something I can try though.

How would I relax the memory timing, is it a bios setting?

Thanks for help so far.

Yep, m8! First try clearing the CMOS by the jumper. If it doesn't help, try going to the BIOS then set the memory frequency and SDRAM CAS to either Auto or SPD first. Save the BIOS settings then reboot the system. If this doesn't fix the problem, we'll need to set the memory timing manually to see what will work with your system.

From the beep code you described, I believe it's RAM related, too.

Cheers m8 I'll give it a whirl.

Originally posted by booboy2
Hi Van m8. Do you mean clean the cmos battery? If so no I haven't.


Nope! Clearing CMOS doesn't mean cleaning the CMOS battery. There is a jumper close to the CMOS battery holder used to clear the CMOS. Refer to your mobo manual for more details.

Sorry Van need an eyetest! lol.

I have set the SDRAM to [user defined] and then changed the SDRAM CAS from [AUTO NORMAL] to [AUTO TURBO] as a guess but there are 6 different ones to try if this doesn't help.

By the way I have been doing some research on the net (now I finally have booted up my system) and this Asus board I have seems to be plagued with problems, from incorrect instructions in the manual for the jumper settings to warm/cold booting probs to resetting systems to RAM compatability probs etc etc but I think we are on the right lines now. I'll post back how it goes from a cold start tomorow.

Thanks for the help, very much appreciated

Just thought I'd place an update post incase anybody else has the same symptons.

It turned out the AMD AThlon 2.2 was at fault, now that has been changed all is well.