# Motherboard sounding the buzzer, how do I determine what it means? Imminent danger?



## aab1 (Apr 1, 2008)

I started a new thread because in the other one everyone insisted the buzzing was from the fans even though I was quite sure it was the buzzer, anyway now I confirmed I was right and it was the buzzer, not the fans.

Anyway now that I confirmed that it is my buzzer beeping, how do I determine what it means? I had one motherboard years ago that would do this is the CPU was overheating. How do I determine if this is the case? I took out my mobo's (Gigabyte 890FXA-UD5) manual and don't see any references to the meaning of buzzes.

If it's trying to tell me the CPU is overheating I'd like to know this ASAP.

So how can I know what the motherboard is trying to tell me? I can only assume the computer's life is in imminent danger if it's regularly sounding an alarm like this.

Thanks


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

That's Award Bios on your board > Award BIOS Beep Codes - BIOS Central

Check in the Bios for the CPU temp on the hardware health page and see what the CPU warning temp is set to I believe the default is 60c on that board.

What CPU are you running, if an x2 are the other cores unlocked?


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## aab1 (Apr 1, 2008)

I'm running an AMD Phenom II X4 B55 3.20 GHz, it was a 2 core that's unlocked, does that make overheating more likely?

I'll reboot soon and check the CPU temp.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

No not more likely, but when you unlock the cores you lose the temp sensor in the CPU the board may simply be misreading the temp, in which case you'll need to turn off the alarm in the bios.


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## aab1 (Apr 1, 2008)

Why would unlocking the cores disable the temp sensor? In BIOS the CPU temp was listed properly.

I did notice I had my CPU alarm on the lowest setting (60*C), should it be set higher? The heatsink is slightly caked in renovation dust but not too much but I need to go buy compressed air cans to clean it out.

Also the alarm only sounds very rarely, it was the 2nd time in 6 months, and last time dusting the computer with compressed air got the alarm to stop, but I had no idea it was the overheating alarm at that point, it's stupidly made to sound like electronic interference or something so I was sure it was an electrical problem or failure, why can it not just sound regular "beeps" instead of sounding like a bad AM radio signal or something. I was sure the computer was about to explode with that weird sound it was making.


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## dai (Jul 2, 2004)

the continuous sound is to draw your attention to the problem 

to try and stop you from putting it on the backburner and checking it out later


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## aab1 (Apr 1, 2008)

It is not at all continuous which is why I thought it was an electrical defect or short. It goes like "buzzzzzzzzzz...buz...buzzzzzzzzzzzz...buz...buz...buz...buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

What was the temp reading in the bios?


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## TheCyberMan (Jun 25, 2011)

aab1 said:


> It is not at all continuous which is why I thought it was an electrical defect or short. It goes like "buzzzzzzzzzz...buz...buzzzzzzzzzzzz...buz...buz...buz...buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"


Some mobo's have a continuos buzz or hum others do not you could always download speedfan or open hardware monitor in windows which will give you a more accurate reading of temps when you are running apps which are cpu and memory intensive and you may find that the temps are a lot higher than the 60 Degree alarm sound of the motherboard which would need addressing.

If you close down the apps running the temps may well stay high and go down slowly then go up again.

60 degree warning in the bios is a setting i would keep as it gives you the earliest possible warning of a temp problem.

Blowing out the case and fans will help as cleaning old thermal paste of the cpu and heatsink and re-applying will also help. Checking the cpu fan and case fans startup immediately and don't have large speed dips in rpms continually where the fans are running slow causing the system and cpu to heat up.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

Software programs will not the CPU temp on unlocked CPU's
HW Monitor will give you the motherboard side on some boards as TMPIN1 but it's not supported on all boards/chipsets.

More reading > No temp reading on unlocked Phenom II - Google Search


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## aab1 (Apr 1, 2008)

wrench97 said:


> What was the temp reading in the bios?


It was 37C I think but the computer had been off several minutes as I took the opportunity of having it open to remove an old hard drive from it that was no longer in use, actually to my surprise I had 2 old unused hard drives in it and only one in use (the 2 others were disabled from device manager).

I'll get a can of compressed air, that's what got the alarm to stop when it started several months ago, but it started again recently. I prefer not to have even more running programs than I already have especially now that I know what the buzzing means.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

Temp reading software is something that you would only open to check not leave running all the time.


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