A Peculiar PC problem - only for the brave.

[Ziame]

Hi

First, let's take the obvious out of the way

Spoiler

Windows Vista 64 Ultimate
AMD Phenom II X3 720
GA-MA770-UD3 <-Mainboard
4GB RAM Kingston 2x2GB
NVidia GeForce GTS 250
won't post HDDs cause they're irrelevant

So, my PC does this weird thing when I am playing games (ME3, BF3, ME2, ME, Magicka, sometimes Killing Floor, Team Fortress 2 etc etc)

It beeps.

You will probably say now: "Well, check what the BIOS is trying to tell you". I checked. The beeps are RANDOM.

It starts at random points in time when playing games - there are no performance issues, mind you, no graphical artifacts, no slowdown, no excessive heat, fans are working...!

It starts with a beep.
then it goes beeeeeep.
Then a series of random beeps that mean nothing (I checked).

And then the worst - long beeps. They go even for a minute at times.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP. 5 seconds of pause.
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.

Someone suggested it might be a RAM problem... but everything works fine, so... what problem? How do I check that?

Maybe you guys have other ideas?

thanks for staying so long D: beep

 

[SlaveNumber23]

Your computer is clearly a bomb, throw it out the window before it explodes!

Seriously though I have no idea what is going on with your computer. My first suggestion would be to get fresh installs of the latest versions of all your drivers, try the video card drivers first. So it only happens while you are playing games? I think that is an important clue, the issue may be with your video card. While you are running these games and the beeping occurs take a look at the memory and cpu usage perhaps?

Other than that I don't really have many ideas other than take it to a specialist.

 

[Ziame]

Your computer is clearly a bomb, throw it out the window before it explodes!

Seriously though I have no idea what is going on with your computer. My first suggestion would be to get fresh installs of the latest versions of all your drivers, try the video card drivers first. So it only happens while you are playing games? I think that is an important clue, the issue may be with your video card. While you are running these games and the beeping occurs take a look at the memory and cpu usage perhaps?

Other than that I don't really have many ideas other than take it to a specialist.

Thanks for the reply.

I did try to change drivers, but to no avail. I've been checking the usage and temperature but they say that everything is ok.

I've been thinking of taking it to my PC 'magician' but, knowing my luck, it won't beep there and i'll be $15 short

I also thought about plugging the damn speaker out, but then I'll have no info when something really happens.

 

[SlaveNumber23]

Thanks for the reply.

I did try to change drivers, but to no avail. I've been checking the usage and temperature but they say that everything is ok.

I've been thinking of taking it to my PC 'magician' but, knowing my luck, it won't beep there and i'll be $15 short

I also thought about plugging the damn speaker out, but then I'll have no info when something really happens.

Yeah definitely make taking it to a specialist your last line of defence.

I was thinking that possibly when you are running the games too much cpu or ram was being used but if it says everything is ok then I guess that possibility is ruled out. The real problem is how hard it is to isolate what component of your computer is producing the problem. I guess you could use this as a really petty excuse to buy yourself a shiny new computer?

When you first noticed the beeping had you recently made any changes to your computer? Installing new software or making registry edits? If not then I'm out of ideas.

 

[Keoul]

I am going to suggest something incredibly stupid due to my lack of PC knowledge.
Are you playing fullscreen and is sticky keys on?

 

[RoboGeek]

although it doesn't exactly solve the problem but most of the time the buzzer is an external component on the motherboard, you can just unplug it it looks like http://cdn.overclock.net/b/ba/ba4225be_speaker.jpeg

 

[Ziame]

I am going to suggest something incredibly stupid due to my lack of PC knowledge.
Are you playing fullscreen and is sticky keys on?

that's actually a pretty good suggestion, but it's not keyboard beeping. It happens during cutscenes as well as gameplay. And I disabled that piece of shit months ago, anyway.

Thanks for the idea.

although it doesn't exactly solve the problem but most of the time the buzzer is an external component on the motherboard, you can just unplug it it looks like http://cdn.overclock.net/b/ba/ba4225be_speaker.jpeg

I know, but as I said - when something really happens, i'd like to know

 

[RoboGeek]

Snip

oh sorry i kinda skimmed the previous post and didn't see that you had already thought of that, if what you believe is true then i guess it could be a virus of some sort, although I've never seen a virus do this its possible

 

[ohnoitsabear]

Maybe flashing the bios? It sounds like this may be an issue with the bios, and flashing the bios could fix it. I've never done it myself, and how you do it varies depending on the motherboard, so I couldn't tell you how to do it, but it might solve your problem.

 

[thesilentman]

Le snippus

Did you do all of the housekeeping computer tasks? I mean defragmenting the hard drive, cleaning the registry[footnote]Via CCleaner. Google and download if you don't have it, makes computer less prone to crashing by managing simple housekeeping tasks that Microsoft doesn't bother with, like registry cleaning. And seeing as you run Vista...[/footnote], and running Disk Cleanup? Those may be some ways to help you, if not, it might be a simple fix.

Also, is the sound coming out of the computer or the speakers? I had a similar problems, but it came out of my speakers instead. The problem was that my phone was causing some interference with the speakers. I had no clue how that worked, though.

 

[Doom972]

When did this problem begin? Did you always have this problem with your PC?

 

[mad825]

Few things that you can do:
1.reseat the RAM
2.reseat the GPU
3.BIOS flash (remove CMOS for 10 mins)
4.look-up your motherboard/BIOS manufacturer into the "meaning" of those series of beeps.
5.check for updates for your BIOS

You're probably encountering some fan/heating issues.Check for any enabled alarms within the BIOs settings, if there are and are willing to risk it try disabling them temporary to see if that's the main cause and which should underline issues.

 

[Your Fearless Captain]

Does it happen only during games? Or also other GPU/CPU intensive processes? Run a furmark torture test(http://www.ozone3d.net/benchmarks/fur/) and see if it still beeps. If not try a CPU benchmark like this one (http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft/) and see if it beeps. If not on both then run them both at the same time.

 

[Ziame]

Thanks for all the replies guys, turned out the RAM was dying.


And it did.

 

[Archangel768]

Great to hear. This problem was bugging me.