EP45-DQ6 Based comp continually restarts, no post or screen?

[Buztafen]

Morning all,

My comp had been working fine for around 2 months. However since yesterday when i tried to turn it on it will only restart continually in a loop providing no boot screen.

The only beeps i noted where only the initial first boot. There where 4 or 5 sets of continual fast beeping. Each set of beeps lasted around 20 seconds.

After these inital beeps the comp just restarts in loop every 10 seconds now...no beeping....no post screen...no ability to get into BIOS?

Comp specs are as follows:-

Q6600 OC'd to 3.4ghz
GA-EP45-DQ6 with BIOS version F12(i think)
2 x 2gb G.Skill DDR2800
2 x 160gb HD's
8800GTX GPU
Tagan 600w PSU
1 x DVD-RW

Prior to the above fault the comp had been working flawlessly with the OC for weeks on XP. Around 2 weeks ago i installed Vista in an attempted dual boot (2 x 80gb partitions for each on 1 HD) but went wrong somewhere which meant i could only boot in Vista (even though XP is still all there in one partition on my HD). Vista had been working fine also and fully updated to SP1, played games fine etc. The day before the above failure i got a couple of BSOD "IRQ_LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL_TO" errors? a restarts seemed to sort them. Then after a normal shutdown....nothing.

Anyone any ideas, whats the best way to trouble shoot this? Its sounds hardware related to me.

Any help would be most appreciated, thanks for reading!!!

[Buztafen]

Re: EP45-DQ6 Based comp continually restarts, no post or screen?

Heres more info, during the 10 or so seconds the comp tries to boot. The Diagnostic LED labelled CPU_LED lights up blue for a second or so. No other Diagnostic LED's light up.

Am i correct in thinking this could mean the CPU's faulty? The processors only a couple of months old. Would the overclock i had set fry a cpu in such a short time?

BIOS settings i was using can be found here:-

http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69/new-build-memory-connundrum-please-help-28411/index4.html

Any help would be really appreciated...

[Buztafen]

Re: EP45-DQ6 Based comp continually restarts, no post or screen?

Ok, since clearing the CMOS via the method in lsd'd guide above i know get what appears to be 1 long beep and 2 short beeps when i start the comp up?

Anyone know what this means?

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: EP45-DQ6 Based comp continually restarts, no post or screen?

Have you tried it with only one stick of ram now that you have cleared the CMOS?

Can you test this ram one by one in another system?

You should also be testing your Graphics card in another system if you can

[Buztafen]

Re: EP45-DQ6 Based comp continually restarts, no post or screen?

Lsdmeasap, i reseated the graphics card and all seems ok. Reinstalled Xp as Vista was annoying me. The above problem has happened again once since, i just gave the graphics card a push and made sure all power connectors were full plugged in and it was fine again? Could this indicate a faulty PCI-E port or a graphics card on the way out?

Also since the initial crash when i had to reset CMOS the first LAN port on the mobo doesnt seem to be working any more. When a cable is plugged in to it, it complains of limited or no connectivity, though if i use LAN ports 2, 3 or 4 they work fine? Could something of blown on the mobo? Everything else seems to be working normally?

Cheers for your help.

[Prince iSO-1992]

Re: EP45-DQ6 Based comp continually restarts, no post or screen?

Also since the initial crash when i had to reset CMOS the first LAN port on the mobo doesnt seem to be working any more. When a cable is plugged in to it, it complains of limited or no connectivity, though if i use LAN ports 2, 3 or 4 they work fine? Could something of blown on the mobo? Everything else seems to be working normally?

Buztafen,
After clearing the CMOS, did you load optimized defaults in the BIOS's Main Menu?

In the 'Integrated Peripherals' section of the BIOS, is the 'Onboard H/W LAN' setting set to 'Disabled' or 'Enabled'?
This setting Disables/Enables the network interface chip (the Realtek RTL81xx chip) on the motherboard and if it's disabled, the LAN RJ45 ports on the back won't work and this may probably be the reason why the network interface chip's driver is giving you that error.
If it's disabled in BIOS, set it to "Enabled".

If there is still a problem after trying out the solution stated above, then the network interface chip on the motherboard may have died and you'll have to buy a network interface PCI or PCI-E card.

[Buztafen]

Re: EP45-DQ6 Based comp continually restarts, no post or screen?

Prince , the Onboard H/W Lan is enabled yeah, strangely im only having problems with Lan Port 1 (the EP45-DQ6 has 4 Gigabyte Ports on it). The other 3 work fine i.e i can use the internet/download/play online etc, but when i plug my router into port 1 it cannot connect? It comes up with limited connectivity/No connection but it knows the cables been plugged in....

Cheers.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: EP45-DQ6 Based comp continually restarts, no post or screen?

Hmm, about your card? It is heavy and maybe gets bumped loose?

[Buztafen]

Re: EP45-DQ6 Based comp continually restarts, no post or screen?

The card is certainly v heavy yeah, its a hoofin 8800GTX. Its a dual slot card though and is properly screwed in? Was thinking it might be on its way out because i got the card free from my work who had used it for Digital Terrain Mapping calculations 24/7 for around half a year. Apparently it started slowing down so they replaced it and i swiped it. Its worked fine so far tho. Games like Farcry 2, Fallout 3, Crysis etc are amazingly fast at almost always v high settings (damn you Crysis!!!!)....though i only play at 1360x768 which is the native resolution of my 50" panny plasma.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: EP45-DQ6 Based comp continually restarts, no post or screen?

Ahh, well that sounds like you are right then. The card may be on it's way out is why it sometimes fails for you then. Can you RMA it? Sometimes you can even if you are not the original owner, I'd check into that.

Maybe you can even get the receipt from your work and then act as if you are the original owner too?

[Buztafen]

Re: EP45-DQ6 Based comp continually restarts, no post or screen?

Hmmm, not sure if its possible. The card was in an Alienware comp (along with 3 other cards!) and apparently when purchased, having dealt with us before they know our usage is fairly intensive on GPU's. The usage is considered abnormal and voids any replacement warranty in their eyes??? We go through quite a lot of them....an embarrasing amount actually for Nvidia anyway considering these cards are supposed to last alot longer than a year!

Weve just upgraded to GTX295's lets see how long they last!!

Its a generic Nvidia branded card (Google Image Result for http://moss.csc.ncsu.edu/~mueller/cluster/nvidia/geforce_8800_gtx.jpg) so i dont know if i could just sendit back to them?