ASUS A7V133 Boot Fail (long, short, short beep code)

After running for more than 3 years without a problem, my PC now fails to
boot with a long, short, short POST beep codes (which indicates a video card
or motherboard problem). After one or more (some times many more) power
offs and on, the system will start in the "safe" mode of the BIOS setup. If
I set the FSB from 1000 back to 950, I can now start and run the PC, until
the next time I power off the system. Then the cycle repeats. I am running
the following hardware:

ASUS A7V133 Motherboard with 256M 133 ram
Athlon 1 GHz CPU
ATI All-In-Wonder Pro (Rage Fury) Video Card

I have run the ASUS Probe and ATI Diagnostic software and they report no
problems. I also replaced the BIOS on-board battery. Also, I noted shortly
before the boot issues, that I had some very faint diagonal lines on the
video display, so this may be related. The problem is probably in the
motherboard, video card, or power supply, but I don't want to run out and
buy one piece, only to find it does not fix the problem, then buy another
new piece, only to find it also fails to fix the problem. Can anyone offer
some suggestions to try and isolate the problem component. If not, I will
probably use this as an excuse to upgrade the motherboard, CPU, RAM, video
card and case/powersupply.

TIA,
Brent

 

You mentioned changing the CMOS battery but did you also clear the CMOS
according to your manual? I've had some of these same symptoms solved
by clearing a corrupted CMOS.

Rob

 

Does your BIOS have a hardware monitor page ? That is the one that
shows the power supply voltages. Check to see if the voltages are off.
The normal allowed range is about +/-5% or so, but a larger variation
can be tolerated without crashing. If one of the voltages is way off,
then a new power supply is in order.

HTH,
Paul

 

Thanks for the tip Paul. According to ASUS probe my +12V is at 12.8V and my
+3.3V is at 3.536, both a little high, so it looks like I will be in the
market for a new power supply.

 

Hi

I would not be so sure about the PSU failure.
Look at the mobo at VIO jumper setting - it's probably set to give 3,5V
(default) instead of standard 3,33V.
12V should range from 11.4-12.6V but check it with some low current
multimeter (instead of software) from 4pin power connector (like for hdd and
cd-rom).
Although, if your PSU is really old, weak or not-good-quality try a new
appropriate PSU.

 

I was thinking if the voltages were on the low side, that might be
causing the lines on the video. Since there is plenty of voltage
there (or at least the voltage monitor chip thinks there is), I would
try swapping the video card first (as you mentioned the lines on it).

HTH,
Paul