Broken Motherboard

[DUBSTEP]

My pc has been freezing under load recently when either gaming or prime95 small fft testing. When it posts i get a 2 short beeps then a lower pitched 1 straight after.

According to the beep code list on this site,

http://www.bioscentral.com/beepcodes/phoenixbeep.htm

the motherboard has an undetermined fault and should be replaced. I had my CPU overclocked to 3ghz when it did this but have set it back to stock since but still get the freezes. Never had anything else overclocked. Have tested if it was the psu but concluded it isnt because i used my friends brand new hx650w corsair and had the same problems except this time it didn't freeze until the second i stopped the prime95 test. Could it be the CPU? i wouldn't have thought it would work at all if it was. My pc works fine for normal internet and music but thats it. Any suggestions?

Specs

E4500 @ stock (was at 3ghz)
2x1gb kingston 667mhz ram
MSI P31 Neo V2
8800GTS 640mb
2x HDD and 1x ODD
500watt generic PSU

 

[o1die]

I wouldn't rule out the video card overheating. You can also apply new paste to the cpu, but do it sparingly. I clean both the heatsink and cpu with alcohol, then apply a single drop to the heatsink. You can spread it with a razor blade or old credit card, or simply apply the heatsink. You can rule out the video card by using the onboard video for awhile. For overclocking, I have an msi g31 board and I use the 1:1.66 ram ratio in manual mode with 240 for the cpu fsb. It's a safe overclock that requires no additional cpu voltage.

 

[knght990]

I have had issues like this with both my laptop and desktop. It has always turned out to be RAM.