Windows 7 BIOS Beeps

seekermeister

Honorable Member
I've had a couple of problems within the last few days, but even though they have similarities, they also had quite different aspects also, so I'm not certain whether they are related or not.

The first time I got a blue screen when I had Disk Management format a hard drive that had disappeared from view, and on restart the BIOS run was pretty much normal, but all I got after that was a black screen. After getting the same results after attempting to boot several times, I just waited a few hours, and it then booted like it should have.

The problem I had tonight occurred when I simply plugged my barcode reader into a USB port...everything just froze. After a forced reboot I got nothing but a black screen with some BIOS beeps. They sounded like two short ones, followed by eight long ones, but from the list that I found, I guess the two short ones didn't count, because they were not on the list. The closest I could find was as follows:

"8 Beeps
Eight beeps means that there has been an error with the display memory. This beep code is usually caused by a faulty video card. Replacing the video card usually clears this up."

This makes some sense, because I later found that the system did reach desktop, if I waited long enough (determined by audio output), but the screen remained black.

I then just shut it down for a hour or so, and decided to try once more. This time it went ahead and booted normally with full video and no BIOS beeps. That would suggest to me that the problem was heat related in some fashion, but looking at the temps in SpeedFan now doesn't indicate any temps above normal.

Would video memory be able to overheat, without being detected by SpeedFan?
 
SpeedFan (as with any hardware monitor) can only report on devices that have sensors that can be monitored through the OS. So, if your graphics card memory does not have a sensor, no monitoring program will be able to monitor it. And for the record, typically only the GPU is monitored on graphics cards-if monitoring is supported at all. Depends on the card.

This could be a heat issue but it could just be some driver corruption when you connected the reader, which was cleared during the reboot.

Is the case interior clean of heat trapping dust - this includes the graphics card and the GPU's heat sink and fan (if it has a fan)?

Is Windows fully updated?
 
SpeedFan (as with any hardware monitor) can only report on devices that have sensors that can be monitored through the OS. So, if your graphics card memory does not have a sensor, no monitoring program will be able to monitor it. And for the record, typically only the GPU is monitored on graphics cards-if monitoring is supported at all. Depends on the card.

Understood, but since my video card (EVGA 460GTX SC) is detected by SF, and it doesn't indicate any temp problem that I've found, I am wondering if a temp problem might still exist that is in an area of the card that is not included in the temp reported?
This could be a heat issue but it could just be some driver corruption when you connected the reader, which was cleared during the reboot.

Possible, but I doubt that is the case here, because simply rebooting didn't solve anything, only the the delay in booting did.
Is the case interior clean of heat trapping dust - this includes the graphics card and the GPU's heat sink and fan (if it has a fan)?

Is Windows fully updated?
Windows is up to date, but the computer is due for a cleaning, but that was postphoned because of a problem with my HTPC, but since I think that is now resolved, the cleaning chore on the desktop is next.

Actually, this is the my second attempt at responding to this thread, but just as I finished the first, the computer BSODed before I could submit it. I've not been having any problems with BSODs, other than the one I mentioned previously, and since this one occurred while doing nothing that I feel would be an explaination for the problem, it concerns me more.

I don't have my crash analyzer setup for reading the dump at the moment, and I've never been too good at understanding them anyway. I was going to attach a zip of the minidump, but for some reason I don't seem to be able to do so. Doesn't the forum permit uploading zip files?
 
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It is possible another component on your graphics card is struggling to deal with the heat. You might try blasting a desk fan into the open side and see what happens.

I would disconnect any extra devices not needed while troubleshooting.

As far as zip files, I think the site allows it.
 
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