3 beeps at startup

Sad Professor

I've had this problem ever since updating to 10.5.3. In fact it happened on the first restart after installing. And now every time I restart I get a grey screen and 3 beeps. According to Apple this means a RAM problem. However each time I've been able to fix it by disconnecting my 2 firewire external hds. Afterwards it boots up fine, no crashes, nothing, until the next restart when the same thing happens again. System is fine otherwise.

I've got a iMac C2D with 3GB of RAM.

Any ideas?

kevteljeur

Reset the PMU and/or the PRAM? You've probably tried that though.

Sad Professor

I did a hardware test and got a 4MEM/1/40000000 5ECF6400 error. :eek: So it's a RAM problem after all. I'm still able to boot up and everything seems fine but Rember/Memtest practically has a heart attack when I run it.

Now I'm just hoping it's a bad chip and not a bad slot or else I'm f**ked.

Sad Professor

Well after much testing it seems to be a bad chip, a 2GB I got from Crucial several months back. They claim to offer a lifetime guarantee so I'll see if I can get it replaced (they're pretty cheap now anyway). Thankfully I still had an old 1GB chip left around. I'm just relieved it's not the slot that was the problem.

kevteljeur

Sad Professor wrote: »

Well after much testing it seems to be a bad chip, a 2GB I got from Crucial several months back. They claim to offer a lifetime guarantee so I'll see if I can get it replaced (they're pretty cheap now anyway). Thankfully I still had an old 1GB chip left around. I'm just relieved it's not the slot that was the problem.

I'd say that was a heart-stopper alright. I think the more recent Mac OSs have been increasingly pernickety about the quality of the RAM chips; so the chip might not even be bad, for an earlier OS...

Say, can this stuff be affected by heat? I've had increasing effects on my MacBook Pro from overheating (the well-known screen lock-ups, the odd shutdown, etc) and I've been wondering can these be caused by 'cooking' the RAM? IE, I should maybe get new RAM chips.

Sad Professor

kevteljeur wrote: »

Say, can this stuff be affected by heat? I've had increasing effects on my MacBook Pro from overheating (the well-known screen lock-ups, the odd shutdown, etc) and I've been wondering can these be caused by 'cooking' the RAM? IE, I should maybe get new RAM chips.

If RAM was the cause there'd probably be some evidence of it in the logs. Keep an eye on the Console app. And try running Rember.

I ran several tests when I got the 2GB chip back in January and it was fine. But I guess some faults don't show themselves at first.

babypink

Posted via Mobile Device
at least you should be able to get it sorted SP! At least it wasn't the car crash you heard at boot!!!!!!

440Hz

At least you have narrowed down, thats usually the most frustrating part! Best of luck with it SP.

Sad Professor

Everything is okay since I removed the 2GB module. And Hardware test and Memtest don't report any problems.

Strange that it only caused difficulty at startup, I would have thought bad RAM would cause kernel panics or other system problems, that's been my experience in the past. But I rarely ever shutdown or restart my imac which is why the problem went unnoticed.

Anyway I've requested an RMA from Crucial, just waiting for them to get back to me.

440Hz

babypink wrote: »

Posted via Mobile Device
at least you should be able to get it sorted SP! At least it wasn't the car crash you heard at boot!!!!!!

Posted via Mobile Device
well would ya look at that! I never noticed that prefixer before!

babypink

Posted via Mobile Device
hehe....yeah I discovered the mobile version of boards today....sweet

440Hz

i knew there was a mobile version, been using it but didnt realise there was that prefixer, never looked back at the posts I had made.

Sad Professor

Did you not see it in the reply box when you went to post, 440Hz? You can delete it if you wish.

But yeah mobile boards is great. I used to sometimes use Opera Mini to log-in at lunchtime but it's so much easier now.

440Hz

Sad Professor wrote: »

Did you not see it in the reply box when you went to post, 440Hz? You can delete it if you wish.

I should have... but I didn't

Sad Professor

I got this problem sorted anyway. Sent away the old module on Monday and got the replacement today. Everything seems fine so far.

I'm pretty impressed with Crucial's service.