Um.. what gen is this board? Mention the chipset at least?

I still refuse to get any newer than X58/5520 myself. That said I really like my ASUS Rampage II GENE which came with a little LCD POSTER, and onboard START & RESET buttons! How the latter are not the feature of every board I don't know.

The situation that you said would definitely be in favor of the OEM or at least paid technicians who would have an analyzer card ready in their toolbag. Less DIY features (and spirit) for the mainstream systems/boards. 🙁

Not that many people can figure out the beep codes anyway. You are better off with a PCI or PCIE post card with a readable English LCD screen that costs a couple bucks.

archsan wrote:

Um.. what gen is this board? Mention the chipset at least?

I'm 99% sure it's a GA-F2A78M-HD2 (http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4909), as I write the type of hardware I use in a notebook (paper notebook) along with driver information, and I think that's the one.

Unknown_K wrote:

Not that many people can figure out the beep codes anyway. You are better off with a PCI or PCIE post card with a readable English LCD screen that costs a couple bucks.

But that's more trouble, even if the expense itself is as negligable as you say. Yes, the number of beeps per error code was never standardised across the industry, and yes, many PC users are clueless regarding the beeps, but for those of us who build or upgrade PCs then they are a simple and ever present help when diagnosing why a PC won't boot. Saying "Buy x and use that" doesn't explain why the companies have chosen to get rid of this feature.

This is the first I've heard of this. Even without knowing the meaning of the beep codes, just the fact that it beeps at all narrows down the possible issues considerably. I would think it's a negligible cost to implement and they'd get a few less RMAs with the feature intact. If most of today's DIY builders have become clueless about beep codes then they should resume explaining it in their manuals.
It's when dealing with novices that beeps are the most effective IMO because it will get their attention. They hear the weird beeps and then look in the manual for an explanation.

The problem I've run into with a POST card is that newer motherboards typically don't send a clock signal to any slot that it thinks isn't occupied, and since the POST card doesn't look like a "real" PCI card, it effectively makes the POST card not show anything. Maybe there are more sophisticated POST cards that don't have this problem, but mine was already something like $20-$30 as I recall (was bought several years ago though). For quite a while I thought my POST card had died until I learned what was going on with newer boards.

I worked with a P4 Supermicro board that reported POST errors with a voice through the onboard sound. It was kind of silly but I wonder if just sending simple beeps through that path would be any cheaper than the traditional method. 2 pins certainly don't cost anything but I don't know what it takes to drive them.