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Boot up beeps [FIXEDish]

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First post, by cookertron

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Beep, pause, beep, beep, pause, beep, beep, pause, beep, beep, beep

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486 boot up.mp3
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236.33 KiB
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34 downloads
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)

Back story & investigation...
That's what I'm getting from my 486 after swapping the PSU. There's activity on the HDD but there's no nothing coming through the VGA. The fault is intermittent with active VGA output but the fault occurs more often than not.
I've check the voltages coming from the P8 and P9 connectors and all are good except one of the 12v lines which is running at 11v.
Another point of interest is that the old PSU had a ground wire running up alongside the power switch cables and was anchor to the case, the new PSU doesn't have that.

I've emailed Viglen for documentation but I doubt they still have it.

Potential questions...
Why did I swap the PSU? The old one rattled
Have you swapped back to the old one to see if the problem persists? No but I will in the morning.
Have you disconnected all hardware a part from the motherboard, ram and CPU? no, not yet. Another thing for the morning.
Have you tried turning it off and on again? 🤣

Specs:
PC Model: Viglen Contender Professional (4SX25)
AMD AM80486DX2-66
8mb FPM RAM
ALI M1429G chipset
Phoenix DragonBIOS 486 ISA (1993)
342mb IBM-H3342-A4 HDD
Netgear EA201 network card

Software:
DOS 6.22
Windows 3.11

Last edited by cookertron on 2020-02-26, 08:48. Edited 1 time in total.

Asus P5A v1.06, Gigabyte GA-6BXDS, Soyo SY-5EMA (faulty), Viglen 486, Asus SP97-V

Reply 1 of 5, by barleyguy

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The recurring beeps are usually either "video error" or "RAM error". It varies by motherboard, and might be in the motherboard manual if you can find a PDF of it.

I would try a different video card, and then try different RAM, and see if either one fixes it. Also try reseating the ram, and check the ram socket for anything that shouldn't be there. Could also be a bad slot, either the slot the video card is in or the slot the ram is in.

Reply 2 of 5, by cookertron

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barleyguy wrote on 2020-02-25, 21:25:

I would try a different video card

Thanks for your input barleyguy. The video circuitry is built into the mother board. I've also given the ram a little wiggle and cleaned the contacts. Sadly I don't have a replacement ram module to test if it's faulty.

Since the original post I've disconnected all hardware except the CPU, ram and motherboard (couldn't wait until morning) and fired it up, still the beeps.

I'm going to try the old PSU and report back!

Asus P5A v1.06, Gigabyte GA-6BXDS, Soyo SY-5EMA (faulty), Viglen 486, Asus SP97-V

Reply 3 of 5, by cookertron

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OK, I've put the old PSU back in and it starts up fine. Looking at the new PSU it's basically an ATX with an AT P8 & P9 adapter on it. The AMPs on the new PSU are higher too.

I'm concluding the higher AMPs to be the problem.

New PSU:

20200225_213935.jpg
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20200225_213935.jpg
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1.12 MiB
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Old PSU:

20200225_213949.jpg
Filename
20200225_213949.jpg
File size
1.2 MiB
Views
357 views
File license
Public domain

Asus P5A v1.06, Gigabyte GA-6BXDS, Soyo SY-5EMA (faulty), Viglen 486, Asus SP97-V

Reply 5 of 5, by cookertron

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I've fixed the problem by swapping out the fans from the new PSU to old one. Required a bit of soldering but it works fine. Quiet too!

I think there's a lesson to be learnt here. Not sure what it is yet but I need to find because that was an expensive fan replacement 🤣

Asus P5A v1.06, Gigabyte GA-6BXDS, Soyo SY-5EMA (faulty), Viglen 486, Asus SP97-V

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