anyone know how to fix this?

CritikalMass wrote: For this kind of rainbow I'd expect it to be a problem with my RAM more than a shorted PCI port on the mobo. What are your thoughts? Is it likely I could have fried both sticks?

Wait, so now we are suddenly talking about "frying"?
Have you, perhaps, just shortly before the incident, tried to overclock something?

As I said, it is quite unlikely that a broken/corrupt RAM module would cause anything like the patterns you are seeing on your display. But the beep from your mobo is certainly trying to tell you something (look up inside the mobo manual).

You could always try to remove one of the RAM sticks, juggle them around in different slots, even try to turn in on without any modules inserted.. and if doing this has still no effect on the "rainbow", then you can be quite sure the sticks are not the major cause (they can still be dead, though).

And the shorted PCI-E slot was just an examle. There is a lot of other possible PCI-E related issues that could be causing the GFX to freeze like that, be it mobo or gfx side. But as I said, it is quite unlikely, and you won't know until you try exchanging each piece..

Does the pattern appear right after powering on, or is there some other text/screen appearing before? If it happens just after the boot screen - at the point where the OS should be starting to load, then it could be just a corrupted GFX driver.

Wanna cheap PCI-e card to check whole rig, if the screen if fine, I would wager you have blown the loader chip for the FPGA that is you graphs card...

Prob is that if the board makes sync(iE wakes up your screen) you are stuffed, PM me a beer (thatchers £4.10) +£3 postage  will get you  working PCI-E card to slam into your mobo!

CritikalMass wrote: by www.overclockers.co.uk

That, and the "fried" word mentioned earlier on.. Just a coincidence?

What exactly did happen before the machine went all "rainbowy" on you? Did you perhaps try to overclock something recently? (you still haven't answered that one yet )

PS: Have you already tried clearing the BIOS/CMOS?
(you know, wiping all the saved bad overclock settings, and all that..)

On a completely random track but nevertheless possibly related, is it anything to do with this website, or perhaps another, which has very much the same screen image?

http://www.happyhourvirus.com/
Select the 'middle' option lower down the page

Mik

TENSiON** www.overclockers.co.uk is probably the best value for money/fastest delivery service I have used. Plus they send a small pack of haribo with every delivery so I just keep going back....haha