Bought a second hand computer...

It was working fine at his house before I took it home. Now when I try to install windows it beeps continuously, which I took to mean it was overheating. I took the front off and it smells like it's overheating. It has one massive fan and three small ones and I don't understand why it's overheating at my house when it wasn't at his.

i can't speak to him about it because he has gone to Korea...

Any ideas at all what I should do?

thanks again for any help!!!

Hm...

Where are the fans? It should only have one fan on the CPU and one perhaps on the graphics card?

big on in the middle and small at the far side

Does it run with the lid off?

And are you in a very warm room?

Joe

Originally posted by mjlacey21
Bought a second hand computer...

It was working fine at his house before I took it home. Now when I try to install windows it beeps continuously, which I took to mean it was overheating. I took the front off and it smells like it's overheating. It has one massive fan and three small ones and I don't understand why it's overheating at my house when it wasn't at his.

i can't speak to him about it because he has gone to Korea...

Any ideas at all what I should do?

thanks again for any help!!!

Continuous beeping I usually find is RAM issues - maybe it's slipped out of its slots...

It was just a room temp room, but found a little screen on the front of it that says it's running at 170f, surely that can't be right???

It stops beeping when the cd drive is open....

Have you got the box mounted the same way as he did - i.e. if it's a 'desktop' you're not running itn on it's side?

Sometimes the airflow depends upon the box being oriented correctly.

He did have it flat and I have it on it's side, but I hought that would be ok.... do you think that could be the problem? It sounds so blissfully simple!

It CAN have an effect - I have an old desktop at home which will not run properly on it's side - the reason is that hot air rising from the chips can't find a way out of the box without flowing over and heating up another board in teh machine.

So running the PC in the correct orientation is always a good idea, even if it seems pointless!

Joe

I really hope that's what it is....

Originally posted by kentboy119
Continuous beeping I usually find is RAM issues - maybe it's slipped out of its slots...

Or could mean IDE controller failuer, GFX card failure etc.



Sounds like a POST failure of some description, however, without knowing the BIOS details & "beep" sequence I am unable to proceed with a comprehensive answer;).

If you did see it working there and not now, it seems likely that a card or memory has got unseated on the journey back to yours.

Give the case a gentle rattle to make sure no loose screws have got in contact with the motherboard.

Managed to get hold of the guy I got it off last night - it appears he has not left the country yet and he said that it hadn't happened before and to press the button that said 'set' on the case for thirty second and raise the temperature. Does that make sense????

Trying to find some guide for the case... anyone have any idea what it might be called as on the asus website they don't appear to use the word case, it's all far more techy and I can't find the product.

Look for some numbers printed on the board itself. Or a model code.

Whats the beep pattern? is it lots of short beeps? Or a long then 2 short?

Joel

It's just constant short to medium beeps. I'm at work at the mo so can't check the board just have the serial number from the outside on me - which I presume is no help...

Obvious question but are the fans actually going? It's possible a loose power connector or wire may have jammed one of them while in transit.

Other than that, does the readout tell you where it's measuring the temperature? CPU, case, motherboard etc...

Well short to medium beeps are usually memory errors.

Joel

the fans are going and everything seems to be fine except for the beeping and overheating. I need to try and find instructions for the case cos the guy's exact words were' simply adjust thje setting on the side of the case to increase the temp'

I could be whatever fan monitoring stuff is mounted within the case (you mentioned a screen with temp readout) is just causing an alarm when the temperature reaches a certain amount (could be set to a rediculously low amount).

This would make sense with what he is telling you to do.

Originally posted by Joelc
Well short to medium beeps are usually memory errors.

Joel

I said that earlier - ;)

Download this: http://www.memtest86.com/memtest86-3.2.iso.zip

Burn it to a CD using Nero, then boot from the CD by setting the CD Drive to primary boot.

It should tell you if your memory has errors.

Originally posted by JoeP
Have you got the box mounted the same way as he did - i.e. if it's a 'desktop' you're not running itn on it's side?



Sorry, as it is not solving the problem, but ......

....can CD drives work OK if in a vertical postion??


And ......

..... another silly thought .... are we sure that this not a key sticking???

Yey!!!!! It's working!!! My techy housemate got back from holiday last night and took it apart and did something with a screwdriver and reset some stuff on the front and then successfully installed Windows! I am part of the modern world now!

thanks to everyone that helped me out xx