4 Beeping Noises

Question

4 Beeping Noises

Anonymous

Just yesterday, My Aunt Got my computer working after It played five beeps. Later on that day, I played my computer until 3 o'clock in the morning then I instantly fell asleep. Later on my aunt woke and turned it off while it was processing something. In the morning when I woke up, I powered up the computer then it started beeping 4 times. I didn't know what to do. We didn't want to waste more money on this Tech to fix it again. Please tell me what to do.

Specs: Windows Xp Pro;Hp Compaq d330;Acer Monitor:

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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9 answers

Answer 1

Hi,

"beep" codes normally indicate a Hardware problem / failure.

Go to your Computer Manufacturer's website and look up your PC's specs to see what BIOS you have

Then read this about the "beep" error codes to try and see what has failed:

http://www.computerhope.com/beep.htm

http://www.pchell.com/hardware/beepcodes.shtml

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/nonworkingcomponent/ht/beepcodestb.htm

If you are unable to ascertain the Hardware problem yourself, contact the Manufacturer or find a good, local Repair Shop to take it to.

Cheers.

Answer 2

I was confirming what you said and what I said. There is no disagreement.

You also answer the question of others that arise from the original question, if you can.

If you read my previous post I gave the links to manuals for the OP's model, after I found them in HP support. I hope that helped them.

The track is pretty much on track.

Thank you for voicing your concerns, I do appreciate them and I'm sorry if you are upset or didn't understand my intent. You weren't being challenged.

--Window 3.11-7 SP1, some 10.

The goal is to solve problems.

Answer 3

Anonymous

Yes, that's true, and I gave the asker direct links to the HP support manuals they need to tell what their beeps mean. And I used the operating system they mentioned (XP Professional). The information is for the DT model but should carry over for the other model.

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Answer 4

You have no need to pull anything apart until you find out what the problem is.

Find what BIOS and look up the "beep" codes in the links I gave you.

Example:

AMI BIOS Beep Codes

1 Short Beep	One beep is good! Everything is ok, that is if you see things on the screen. If you don't see anything, check your monitor and<br>video card first. Is everything connected? If they seem fine, your motherboard has some bad chips on it. First reset the SIMM's and reboot. If it does the same thing, one of the<br>memory<br>chips<br> on the motherboard are bad, and you most likely need to get another motherboard since these chips are soldered on.
2 Short Beeps	Your computer has memory problems. First check video. If video is working, you'll see an error message. If not, you have a parity error in your first 64K of memory. First check your SIMM's. Reseat them and reboot. If this doesn't do it, the<br> memory chips may be bad. You can try switching the first and second banks memory chips. First banks are the memory banks that your CPU finds its first 64K of base memory in. You'll need to consult your manual to see which bank is first. If all your memory<br> tests good, you probably need to buy another motherboard.
3 Short Beeps	Basically the same thing as 2 beeps. Follow that diagnosis above.
4 Short Beeps	Basically the same thing as 2 beeps. Follow that diagnosis above. It could also be a bad

Answer 5

Do you know how to get into your BIOS (the built in program on the board that tells the computer how to start and load the OS, what the memory and other devices installed are and warns you of errors with those beeps)?

This is where you need information on your computer...the operating system is not involved here, it loads after BIOS determines the computer is okay to start loading the OS and other things from the hard drive.

Hitting F2 when you turn on the computer should open the BIOS, try hitting it repeatedly and rapidly a few times, if you are set for a fast boot (no info shown before the Windows XP logo comes on the screen, shut down and try again umtil you do get in.

This is the HP page to find manuals for your computer: http://h20565.www2.hp.com/portal/site/hpsc/public/psi/manualsResults?sp4ts.oid=342066&ac.admitted=1472345558768.1123376534.492883150

These manuals will be PDF files, save them to another computer and read them with a PDF reader (such as Adobe) or any word processer program that can display them.

You can also save them on a CD or DVD for reference.

It's not impossible to fix your own computer at all for many problems...some may be out of your league for now. If you have any questions while doing so the computer shop can tell you what to try or if you should bring it in. Sometimes you have to but often you don't need to, you can do it yourself.

The manual that will probably help you best should be listed to in the right side column on page two of this manual download:

http://h20565.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?sp4ts.oid=342066&docLocale=en\_US&docId=emr\_na-c00067072

What you need to determine is the PATTERN of the beeps...it makes long and short beeps in some combination, so try to match that to the beep codes listing there.

Also, if you can open the case (left side) and check the connections WITH IT UNPLUGGED and see if some are loose or not attached like they should be, that is important.

But the beeping pattern is very important to determine the general source of the problem. Download all of the manuals and use them for reference.

As I said if it beeps the problem exists before Windows even starts. XP is not the problem itself, although it could be the hard drive itself, until you can decipher the beeps and move forward from there it's not relevant to make any guesses about that.

If the computer doesn't even give you video and just beeps, check the video connection and that the keyboard and mouse are correctly plugged in and working as well. A loose connection to the video connector on either the monitor of the back of the computer may need to bet tightened or reconnected and with the old fashion VGA style you can do this while the computer is running without a problem.

If that doesn't solve anything and you have the pattern figured out to tell you what the general trouble is, that's what the next thing to tell us is.

Come back with the long and short pattern and what you see it could be and then it will give everyone reading a much better idea of what to suggest.

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4 Beeping Noises

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