System Timer Failure

[Accessless]

Hi all. My trusty Asus M3A32-MVP has finally started to act up. It recently started locking up requiring hard reset and finally presented me with some beep codes today.

2 short *pause* 4 short. Which suggests to me that there is a system timer failure causing a parity check error on the RAM.
(I'm not 100% on this though)

My issue is that its an intermittent problem. Sometimes it runs perfectly fine.

Does anyone know of a way for me to confirm this diagnosis? Memtest86 has been running with no errors which does suggest to me a motherboard issue but I could really do with a second opinion before throwing the system.

[Geek-9pm]

Sometimes I shoot tin the dark and hit something.
Here is a shoot  in the dark. You might have a failing crystal.
To test the crystal is hard  to do with ordinary equipment. It is easier to replace the crystal.

Quartz crystal

It is used wherer ever exact timing is needed. You will have to consult you documentation to find which crystal your mobo uses. I can not even guess. 


There are three different  timing things.
The CPU click
Time of day and system timer.
Graphics display timing.
A system might have up to three separate crystals. Or maybe four. Some sound cards have their own crystal.

[patio]

Replace the CMOS battery...part#Cr2032 available anywhere

Remove all  power when doing so.