desktop died \o/

[SirDumpling]

incoming cool story:
so i was watching dbz the other morning starting at 5:30 am, and at about 7:30, my comp decides to do a hard freeze (can't ctrl shift esc or ctrl alt del out of it), so i hold down the power switch to turn it off. when i turn it back on, it lets out 3 beeps (first long, 2nd very short, 3rd relatively short) just like it did when my old video card crapped out on me.
So i unplug the gpu, put it back in, try to turn the comp back on to no avail. this time the fan on my gpu doesn't even start spinning. same 3 beeps take place.
so i return my gpu which was currently under warranty, got a new one, plugged it in, turned my comp on, and nothing beeped (usually it beeps once when starting up), yet all the fans turned on (including my new graphics card). So i pull out my sticks of ram, set them back in snugly, and again, the 3 beeps. I unplug everything from the psu, plug it all back in, again, 3 beeps.

setup:
EVGA nForce 650i Ultra
Zotac nVidia GT 220
Intel e4400 @ 2GHz
Coolermaster Extreme Power Plus 550w
1x 2gb Kingston ddr2 667
1x 1gb Crucial DDR2-667
2x 1gb Samsung DDR2-555

i know, it's a really shitty build. got it from a friend for pretty cheap. probably going to build a good one this upcoming summer
what should i do? i've tested the video card on another comp and it worked perfectly fine. the psu is pretty new, so i don't think anything is wrong with it. i've also replaced the bios/cmos battery recently, so i don't think that's it either.
I'm guessing the motherboard crapped out, but if it did, would all the fans keep working?

ps: the HDD was spinning/getting warm when i turned it on each time. so it's not that either.

[Molimo]

Award Beep Codes

Error A) 1 long, followed by 2 short beeps indicate either a Video adapter error indicating the card may not be properly seated in the slot. Try removing the card and reseating it. Also double check the cable connecting the monitor and any 6/8 pin power connectors are firmly connected.

Error B) 1 long followed by 3 short beeps indicates no video card is recognized. Follow the steps above. If that doesn't work you will want to test another graphics card to ensure the PCIe slot is working. If you get the same error with 2 seperate cards it is likely either the PCIe slot or PSU are not functioning. You will want to swap out the PSU. If you get the same result chances are its the slot. If the problem dissapates the problem was with the PSU.


So with all this said (1 Long, 2 Short) it's possible the POST is not detecting the error properly. Since the Video Card did work in another PC. Here are the 2 problems I'm leaning on.

1) PCI-E Slot is Fried on the Mobo, And yes it's possible for fans to boot up even though this is the problem.
2) The 6/8 Pin (If connected) as no Power. Means some part of the PSU is fried.

Honestly I think it's #1, and only a part of the PCI Slot is fried(Clock, Power, etc...) hence why your getting the Error A instead of B.

[hulkvsspawn]

Good post Molimo. Yeah those beep codes are standardize to mean different errors. One long and two short is usually video card. I'd tell you to try onboard video as a test but that board doesn't have any.
You could try unplugging everything except cpu & memory & video card, take out all extra cards if you have any and see if it posts, but I doubt it will. You can also try swapping out all your memory sticks except one and try and post. If you do have a bad stick of memory, that's an easy way to tell.

[SirDumpling]

Yeah, it was the PCI-E slot.
I got a new motherboard today http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku= ... omoid=1223 old + fairly shitty I know, just needed something.

Plugged everything in, took off old thermal paste and applied new stuff to the processor, etc etc. So far so good. So I start up the comp for the first time, it does the "loading windows" thing with the 4 spinning balls that then form the windows logo, and about 3/4 of the way through, the comp crashes and restarts. I go into BIOS, everything looks decent, try to start windows normally, but this time I get a blue screen before the crash.
It starts up again, goes into system repairs, restarts, again a blue screen, and again back to startup repair. I do a system restore bback to September 7th, and still, blue screens.
I take out my ram sticks (only 2 slots), and try each slot with all 4 of my sticks, one at a time. Still blue screening. Put memtest86+ on a flash drive, run it, my RAM passes the test. Still blue screening.
Take out the processor. blast it with air can to make sure there's no dust or anything. Put it back in, put heatsink back on, put everything back in snugly, still blue screening.

At this point I have no idea what to do. I really don't want to format my harddrive, as I have important files on there that haven't been backed up, but I don't know what else I could possibly do either.

Any help or tips would be greatly appreciated.

Oh, and it is only beeping once like it normally did. Using my video card output successfully.

[Molimo]

I know you said you didn't want to do this, but I'm pretty sure you need to format your PC and Reinstall Windows. Windows is trying to boot your PC with the old hardware config, and if the Hardware change is major, it will give alot of errors and in most cases crash the PC (Blue Screen).

You can try to Reinstall Windows without a format, this might work, but in most cases it doesn't.

Find a Friend with a PC, Bring your HDD and Copy the files you want off of it. Only Thing I can consider doing to save your data.

[SirDumpling]

Great news, I was building my cousin a desktop, and I thought he was going to take it today, but he didn't. I copied my Program Files and the Users folder onto an external, formatted my hdd, and reinstalled windows. Currently installing drivers and other programs.
Thank you very much Molimo and Hulk!