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Maximus IX Hero - 1 long 3 short beeps randomly

KuraiShidosha
Level 10
As title says, randomly I boot my comp and get these beeps. The white LED next to VGA shows up on my board at the top right corner. Thing is, this used to happen with the integrated GPU because when my monitor is turned off but still plugged in, the system doesn't detect it unlike Nvidia GPUs which should still detect it with the display off but still connected. I figured once I got my STRIX GPU that the problem would go away. Wrong. It still happens. And it happens the most when my monitor is off but it has happened with it on too.

Once I'm past the BIOS, Windows boots just fine and everything works as expected. I'm at a loss for what could be happening. Any ideas? Is it really just as simple as the board not detecting a display and deciding to beep at me? I don't want to have to RMA anything if I don't have to. I just want to know if anyone else has experience with these beeps.
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Chino
Level 15

That's the weird thing. It DOES detect it just fine, and I get into Windows and use it no problem, even on the same boot as when it beeped. Further, this was happening on the Integrated GPU too. I like to think there are no connectivity problems with the internal GPU on the CPU die, right? 😉

I'm pretty confident that it's caused by the motherboard's display detection algorithm. If my monitor is powered off, the Intel GPU would act like it was completely disconnected. If I was in Windows, you'd hear the hardware removed beep, just from pressing the power button on my display. That doesn't happen on my Nvidia card because it physically knows it's connected and is always there. But I think the same mechanism (hardware disconnect upon monitor power off) is triggering the BIOS to assume I have no display connected to the computer at all, just because the monitor is powered off.

Is there any way we can get a BIOS update that allows me to ignore having no displays connected? Kind of like I have a CPU fan plugged into the fan controller but the motherboard freaks out, until you specifically ignore the missing fan header. That would be nice and stop it from beeping at me because it booted up before the monitor did.

Do u have AOC monitor?
I have find that all haswell asus motherboards with a gtx 970 with combatibility mudule disabled cant start with aoc monitor.

you must go in to bios enable the combatibility module cms enabled
boot addon uefi+legacy


And tell me if this fix the problem.

more here:
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=415039

I have the exact same problem with my Maximus IX Hero and nvidia 1070.

I made a thread about this a few months ago:
https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?93172-Maximus-IX-Hero-Q-LED(VGA)&p=649971

I originally thought it was to do with the G-Sync monitor I had at the time, but I sent the monitor back and I have been using my old Benq monitor and randomly I get the same problem.

It is very odd as the system boots fine even with the white Q LED on, it is only until I restart the system that the LED will turn off. It happened a lot more with the ASUS G-Sync monitor I had, but with my old monitor it is more random.

I have tried reseating the GPU but it does not fix the problem. I am guessing it might be a bug with the current BIOS.

KuraiShidosha
Level 10
I have an update to this.

I was originally using an old DVI based LCD screen from 10 years ago. I have since upgraded to an ASUS PG279Q. This time I'm using DisplayPort. Good news: it was the monitor/cable. When I tried to boot my computer with the old monitor connected and monitor not turned on it would result in the 3 beeps and VGA error LED.

Now I can leave my monitor off and boot and get a clean boot cycle with no beep errors. It would seem something about the way my old monitor sent signals to the GPU while powered off made it appear like it wasn't plugged in at all. The new monitor is able to let the GPU know it's plugged in so all is happy.

Just another side note about why it happened even when the screen was on: the old monitor was SLOW to wake up from a signal. If the computer caught the monitor in its wake up phase and it missed the signal, the computer thought there was no monitor hooked up, like a DVI cable plugged into the GPU but leaving at a dead end no connection.

Now on the new monitor, it accepts the signal and turns the screen on instantly. I'm able to see the pre-BIOS screen with the "_" symbol which is pushed by the GPU. I never once saw this on my old Acer, that's how slow to accept a signal that display was.

So all is well. If you have an old monitor, especially a DVI one, and are getting beep errors on your system when your monitor is turned off, this is why.