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Unknown Problem

P

phldbr

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 11, 2004
Messages
204
My computer has a problem and I have no clue as to what it could be.
It boots up (most of the times) and after a while my monitor loses signal.
I thought it could be my ram... so I got memtest 86 and began testing.... after about 5 minutes of test the monitor lost the signal.
So, everytime I turn it on it will either get past the post and lose signal.. get to the loading xp part and lose signal... or I'm actually able to log on to windows but eventually the monitor will lose signal.
Any ideas???? Video Card maybe?

MSI P6N SLI Platinum MOBO
E6420 CPU
EVGA 8800GTS 320MB
OCZ Vista Upgrade 4GB (2 x 2GB) RAM
Western Digital 250GB HD
BFG 800W PSU

Any help is greatly appreciated!
 
I would personally suspect your PSU... might want to check your voltages....
 
You can pick up a cpu tester, they're cheap and easy to use... there are a few on this page, or a local Fry's or MicroCenter should have them as well....or use a multimeter.... but the easiest way to determine if your psu is the culprit is to swap it out with a spare if you have one.....
 
All right. I'll just go and buy a new PSU and swap it. If it's not it I'll just return it.
 
phldbr said:
All right. I'll just go and buy a new PSU and swap it. If it's not it I'll just return it.
Click to expand...

WAIT!!!

Fuck, sorry, but I just re-read your OP and if you only ran memtest for five minutes and it crapped out, that could definitely be a problem......did memtest give any errors while you were running it? If it did, then you problem is likely memory related....

You really need to get through 3-4 hours of memtest on each stick individually before you can be sure that your ram is ok.....but I still think the odds are your psu is on it's way out...
 
Yeah... So I actually was able to get one full test of memtest 86 in... about 30 minutes... and it gave me no errors at all
Either way.. before I read your last post I was buying a PSU ..lol
So now I'll just get it out of the way and try it. Hopefully you're right.

THanks
 
Hey man... Got that new PSU put it in... and SO far SO good.. ;)

Thanks for your help.
 
Ok, So after a day of working flawlessly... it started doing it again. Same thing!
What could it be?:confused:
 
And actually I'm getting 2 short beeps when I turn it on. So, I looked on the MSI website and it said that it is a "parity circuit failure"
What could it be?
 
Is this a new build, or has it been running a while? What are the temps on the GPU? Is the graphics card overheating? Is there a new BIOS for that board? Just some things to think about.
 
is the cable to your monitor connected properly and secured ? before buying a new psu ( edit: too late you already went and bought one out of someones stupid advice ), buy a new cable that attaches from the video card to your monitor, cheaper than buying a psu when you dont even know that its the psu thats at fault.

I personally would suspect 4 items and the psu isnt one of them.

1, Video card is dodgy ?
2, Cable to monitor is dodgy ?
3, Monitor itself is dodgy ?
4, DVI-VGA connector is dodgy ?

PSU would be down the list on things to check, especially if this just started happening and everything was ok for ages before that, ok it is possible that it could be the PSU, but I would buy a new cable and use a different dvi-vga connector if you are using one of them to start with.

If a new cable and a different dvi-vga connector doesnt work then you have only lost what, maybe $10, then test the video card in another pc or connected to another monitor, if thats ok then hook up the monitor itself to a different pc and see if it does it when connected to a totally different pc, if not then you have ruled out all the 4 items I listed above.

then you can start testing your ram/psu/mobo etc but personally I dont think its your psu thats the problem, i think its one of the four items I have listed.

the 2 beeps you are hearing is todo with your memory.
 
Yes so it probably is what I thought from the beginning.... my video card.
Because the monitor and cables are fine since I have a laptop and plugged the monitor to the laptop and it works perfectly.
The funny thing is my Video Card was never overheating or anything. And why is it that when I got a new PSU it worked fine for a whole day and I woke up this morning and it was back to not working?
 
phldbr said:
And why is it that when I got a new PSU it worked fine for a whole day and I woke up this morning and it was back to not working?
Click to expand...

Luck ???

Do you have another older video card to test with, if you do, take out your video card and try the older one, if it still continues to give no signal then look at the other components of your pc, the psu which you can now eliminate as you just bought a new one, but test the ram and also maybe its the mobo thats fuked up ?
 
All right. Yeah I guess I'll just try to test another video card and see what happens.
 
EVIL-SCOTSMAN said:
( edit: too late you already went and bought one out of someones stupid advice )
Click to expand...

That's fucked up right there..... why don't you go back and read the entire thread, you will see that nobody told the OP to replace his PSU..... rather recommended TESTING his PSU.... and when the OP asked how to go about doing so, the option of using a spare as a test was one option........never once did anyone directly advise the OP to go out and buy one... in fact he was later advised NOT to replace the PSU but rather run memtest for 3 to 4 hours.. instead he ran one pass and then decided to go buy a new PSU anyhow.....

And honestly, parity circuit failures are almost always caused by memory taking a shit...
 
Yeah, I went out and bought it from circuit city because I know I can just go return it and get my money back. SO everything is all good.
Problem still not solved though:(
But I will try a different video card.
 
digital_exhaust said:
That's fucked up right there..... why don't you go back and read the entire thread, you will see that nobody told the OP to replace his PSU..... rather recommended TESTING his PSU.... and when the OP asked how to go about doing so, the option of using a spare as a test was one option........never once did anyone directly advise the OP to go out and buy one... in fact he was later advised NOT to replace the PSU but rather run memtest for 3 to 4 hours.. instead he ran one pass and then decided to go buy a new PSU anyhow.....

And honestly, parity circuit failures are almost always caused by memory taking a shit...
Click to expand...

No, the thing thats fuked up is someone mentions a problem with his monitor giving no signal and you jumped to a PSU failure then later on changed your mind.

How can you possibly assume its his PSU straight away ? I have see this shit happen to often on this forum, lots of people post for help over a problem and 90% of the people answer, ah PSU is most likely cause when infact a PSU is one of things thats is most UNLIKELY to go tits up in a pc.

I know you NEVER told him to go buy a psu, but your first post however much it was posted with good intentions was a fuked up post which made the dude go out and buy a psu hoping to fix that problem as he came here for help and trusted the help he was getting thus costing him money on a psu that he "may" not even of needed.

Seriously, how can you immediately jump to the conclusion that it was his psu that was most likely the cause from his first post.

the steps that should of been taken are first Cable to the monitor, make sure its connected securely and also any dvi connectors that he may or may not be using are also connected securely, then test monitor on a different PC, then test video card in different pc then test ram etc etc, PSU should be one of the last things to check as most likely unless its a pile of shit psu and even then, a psu is one of the components least likely to fuk up in a pc, all the other components are more likely to die first, but your first post was and I quote:

" I would personally suspect your psu, might wanna check your voltages"

When people ask for help and you feel inclined to help them atleast try and diagnose the problem by going threw a thorough testing and eliminating procedure instead of pulling a suspect psu out of your arse.

However, it may very well of been a psu problem, but just guessing and not helping the dude to eliminate the working hardware from the broken hardware got him nowhere.

I have seen it far far to often on this forum when people just post shite without actually trying to diagnose the problem and in this case the person although he thought it was the video card, he trusted your first post and bought a psu in the hopes that it would fix his problem, even tho you did advise him in later posts not to and to test his ram which I give you more credit for that post than I do for the first one as you did try and give decent help their, but honestly your first post wasnt that helpful in all honesty.

I am not trying to flame you or anything, but next time try and diagnose the problem before suspecting anything unless you have personal first hand experience of X problem and know for sure its X piece of hardware thats the cause.

As I said, no harm or flaming was intended, it was a stupid first postyou made but you followed it up with a decent one about the ram, no harm intended.

As was said, the 2 beeps relate to ram parity errors, now this is where it gets shitty, that beeps mean that the circuitry is fuked and it could either mean a bust ram module or a bust motherboard, I would assume motherboard since I find it hard to believe that a bust memory module can give you a no signal on your monitor especially as newer mobos will still show a screen when no ram modules are inserted, but I suppose it can happen even though i personally havent experienced it, but by all means do what D-E suggestd and test your ram, preferably in another pc if you can, if they work in another pc and you have tested everything else then its probably your motherboard thats the cause, but eliminating good working hardware is the key.

You know that your monitor is fine, you know that your psu is fine, your gunna test your video card so you will find out if thats ok, if it is then move onto the ram, if thats good then you can clear your cmos and then reset your bios to default and see if that does the trick, if not then your looking at a dodgy motherboard "maybe" but please dont go out and buy a motherboard before checking everything in your pc is working ok.

Peace

Quote from a website regarding parity circuitry errors:

2 Beeps: Parity circuit failure
Explanation: The parity circuit is responsible for generating and checking the parity bit on the system memory when parity checking is used. This circuitry is not working properly.
Diagnosis: This code usually means a problem with either the system memory or the motherboard.
 
When you say "It boots up (most of the times) and after a while my monitor loses signal."
That "most of the time" would worry me.
And what do you mean by Monitor looses signal? Does the PC shut off or restart, or is it just like you unplugged the monitor from the PC & the PC is still running fine?
From what you've vaguely described, I'd check the ram 1st though.
 
tazman4 said:
When you say "It boots up (most of the times) and after a while my monitor loses signal."
That "most of the time" would worry me.
And what do you mean by Monitor looses signal? Does the PC shut off or restart, or is it just like you unplugged the monitor from the PC & the PC is still running fine?
From what you've vaguely described, I'd check the ram 1st though.
Click to expand...

Just like as if I unplugged the monitor from the video card. PC still running, no shut down.
 
At this point I would try to take the memory to a friend and see if you can memtest on their PC. Run it through a good 5-6 times. If that is not possible, try calling up a local PC shop and see if they will help out. Take the memory there. If the memory is good, we all know what it is. The Mobo. I have only ever had one mobo crap out on me. Odds are against it, but it is very possible. RAM usually dies first, atleast in my experience.
 
THis is starting to be a pain. It worked fine for a whole week and now it started doing it again. I have a new PSU and a new video card. While it was working so great I took the chance to run memtest for a couple of hours and ram is perfect... no errors.
So what could it be? Another bad video card or the MOBO?
 
well if you ruled out PSU, Ram and Video card I would look into the Motherboard. Since it works some of the time I would not be the CPU, do you have a spare motherboard you could try? or a friend with one that you can try your components in?
 
Before you go and replace your mobo, try this.... pull your memory and try and post, make sure your speaker is working (edit because I'm a dumbass.. of course it does or you wouldn't have heard the beeps earlier...) and listen for beeps, and then do the same with your video card... check the beep codes and see if they are correct... if there are none or they are wrong, then your mobo might be the problem...
 
No, unfortunately I don't have a spare one.
But I will try and listen to the beeps and will let you guys know what happens.
Thanks
 
All right, I tried the beep thing.
Pulled the ram out and got one long solid beep.
Pulled the video card out got no beeps... as if everything was fine.
 
Okay, that may indicate that your mobo is fucked up.. maybe..

nevermind on that last part there...what I meant to say is make sure you have the latest bios installed.. which I'm sure you do.. Google or dig through your mobo manual and see if there should be a beep code if there is no video card present... I think there should be...
 
Yeah I do have the latest bios installed. And yeah there should be a beep (according to the msi website) but I heard none... so yeah I think it's probably the mobo.
The funny thing is since I pulled out the video card and now I put it back it started working fine again... :confused: I'm on it right now as I'm typing this.
 
I might have the solution.
Parity checking on memory is only turned on when using Parity Ram.
9 bits per byte is required so each memory module has an extra 1/8 memory on it, you can usually see an extra chip.

Its been a long time since a home PC motherboard has needed parity ram so this error shouldnt occur.
On some motherboards there is a setting to turn Ram Parity on/off. Maybe this has been changed?
Its possible that there is no setting in the CMOS but the code still exists in the BIOS chip.
The code could be activating wrongly because of another error or the CMOS has corrupted, somehow enabling the Ram Parity setting which will give errors with non parity ram.

Try resetting the CMOS if you cant find the Check Parity Ram type of setting.
 
All right. I will try that. Hopefully i'll be able to find that setting in bios
 
I looked everywhere on the bios for any parity settings and found none.
Anything else?
 
Was the video card seated properly? I have seen that when people install vid cards, they slide the card in fine, but when they put the screw in to secure it to the case they tighten it to much. This can cause the card to seat crooked. That may be your problem since you said the computer boots fine with no video card. It sounds like you may be shorting a few pins together in the video card slot. I have seen this happen. Just be careful when installing the video card.
 
bigredcat said:
Was the video card seated properly? I have seen that when people install vid cards, they slide the card in fine, but when they put the screw in to secure it to the case they tighten it to much. This can cause the card to seat crooked. That may be your problem since you said the computer boots fine with no video card. It sounds like you may be shorting a few pins together in the video card slot. I have seen this happen. Just be careful when installing the video card.
Click to expand...

Yeah I'm pretty sure it's seated properly. I'm always really careful when putting in ram, cpu and the video card. I always make sure they are snug... and it just started doing this after like 6 months of use... so I don't think it could be the video card seated badly.
 
I had to bring this thread back up :(
My computer started doing the same things again a couple weeks ago; Not booting or if it does boot crashing after a while with looping sound.
I had already replaced the video card and PSU. Since it began doing it again I replaced the MSI P6n Platinum for a gigabyte p35 board and it's still doing it. Now, what could it be? RAM... but the funny thing about the ram is that I ran memtest and got no errors.
Any thought will be greatly appreciated. It's making me nuts.:confused:
 
The problem looks to at least be related to heat or degrading power output as you always have no problem immediately and then the problem manifests.
I suspect Mobo or Ram.
Mobo because it can fail in too many ways to go through quickly.
Ram because you have been getting a memory related error.

Can you do a simple test for me, declock everything a lot. ie knock 25% off the bus speeds.
If this works, we know that your PC can function stably and we can work from there.

From all the posts previous, it looks like there is a problem with the PC so trying another monitor shouldnt help but given the lack of success so far, I'd give it a shot if the above doesnt help.
I've seen weirder things :)
 
did you check your RAM timings in the bios? default should be at 1.8 but it's possible that you have higher timings RAM (mine was 2.1).
 
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