"BEEP ... BEEP ... BEEP" or a topic known as "Does my PC think it's a Pager?"

[DjCiD]

Ok here goes, I did some upgrading to my puter a few weeks back and ever since then my sound card was acting funky. Some times after start up it wouldn't find the hardware and thus I couldn't play music and my video games were soundless. Even the little windows load up do, do, dwa sound wasn't playing. Usually this would correct itself after restarting the PC. But this weekend it got to the point where restarting did nothing for it. So I thought I could reinstall the driver. Did that and nothing changed, problem still remained. After running the Santa Cruz sound check about umpteen gazillion times and it kept returning the cannot find hardware message, I decided to try and move some of my cards around to see if that might fix the problem. Seen as I had moved my card during the upgrade. Well not to sure what happened during this process but now all my PC does in beep at me when I turn it on. No, not out of the speakers beep, but from inside the tower beep. I don't know what to do. It will not start up at all. Not sure if the sequence and number of beeps means anything but after I hit the power button it beeps 5 times, pause, 1 time, pause, 2 times, pause and 3 times. Thats it, noting more. The fans a running and all that stuff but after the last beep nothing else happens and my only option is to power it off. I tried putting the cards back in the original place, back in the place after the upgrade and taking them all out one at a time and all at once. Still nothing changes the outcome after I press the power button, just more damn beeps...

So for all the tech'ies here has my Mother board been fried or something serious like that or does my PC have amnesia and think its a pager?

Please help me obi-wan you are my only hope....

[gryphon]

Open up your case and take all cards out. Just have the CPU, one memory band [ if possible ] and your graphics card inserted in you computer.

If that workd without any problems. Start placing the rest in one-by one. Keet the top PCI slot free [ the one just below your AGP slot ].

How many PCI cards do you have and what types are they ? If you have a PCI modem save that one for last.

[DjCiD]

That was one of my trouble shootings before I posted here. I took all my cards out except my vid card and it still went with the beeping. I have 5 PCI card slots but have only been using 4.

I have my Grfx slot then my sound card slot, networking slot, usb/firewire slot and modem slot. I took my modem card out seeing as I haven't used it in quite some time. Only time I ever used it was when I needed to fax something or when my cable modem went down for that one week.

I was told that the number of beeps means something, but you need to know what BIOS your PC uses. I don't :'( I look at the screen every time it loads up but cannot remember what it was. I'm hoping that I can find that thread where I posted my system specs when Doc helped me that long time ago and it might be in there. My luck either that thread has been archived or my BIOS info isn't in it. :-

[gryphon]

do you have other memory sims / dims you can try in that computer ?

[DjCiD]

No I do not, sadly I think I must take it some where to have them look at it. I hope it doesnt cost me an arm and a leg ... then I won't be able to drive my stick shift. :-

EDIT- Well I did find the post with my cpu info and it does say my BIOS but...

------------------

System Information

------------------

Time of this report: 3/29/2002, 23:16:21

      Machine name: CID

  Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) (2600.xpclnt_qfe.010827-1803)

          Language: English (Regional Setting: English)

System Manufacturer: Dell Computer Corporation

      System Model: Dimension 8200             

              BIOS: DELL  - 6

          Processor: Intel® Pentium® 4 CPU 2.00GHz

            Memory: 512MB RAM

          Page File: 108MB used, 1141MB available

Primary File System: n/a

    DirectX Version: DirectX 8.1 (4.08.01.0810)

DX Setup Parameters: Not found

    DxDiag Version: 5.01.2600.0000 32bit Unicode

What the hell is a Dell - 6 Bios?

[gryphon]

It's Dell's custom version for the bios, if you're really lucky youget custom dirvers for most general hardware to. .. :P

[GUNWOUNDS]

some Dell BIOS go to 9 or 10 ..... depending on which model you have.  Altho i doubt updating your BIOS would fix your Beep beep problem.

[veK]

you have to find out what the beep code stands for. unfortunately you have a very starnge bios on your pc so this won't be easy...

but maybe you ask dell support if they got a beep code list for their bios 6...

I can only give you a link to the most common bios:

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

but it's probably the fastest way to find out what is wrong with your pc.

[DjCiD]

well the nice lady at dell told me by BIOS was XO4 so I guess thats what Dell - 6 means

Then she told me if I could get the person who was going to help trouble shoot my problem to go to dell.com with the light code on the back it would further specify what my problem was. I said oh hell I remember what they were a and b yellow c and d green, she then said oh looks like you had a memory failure. I said ok .... whats that mean. So she walked me through what I would have to do to reset my mem cards and I am happy to say dude I got my dell! So happy to be able to view this glorious form on my 21" flat panel LCD ;D A special thanks to all those who helped me and a special shout to that dell lady with the sexy voice ... she can boot my hard drive any time ;D

[erjin999]

Glad you got it sorted, and I was late again on a thread like this  :(

Just wanted to ask why so many tech support ladies seem to have nice voices ? Or is it just me ? Maybe I need to get out more ?  :P

[veK]

it's like that with the tech support ladies: nice voice - ugly face...

cause they never have to get out of their call-center so nobody ever sees them  ;D

[DjCiD]

like the compliment/insult you've got a face made for radio...

[Smurf]

I have exactly the same problem here... could you tell me how you fixed it?

I re-seated the RIMM's, bought 2 new ones, tried only new, only old, mixed and so on :(

after a while it just crashes and starts beeping (5, 1, 2, 3 times)

half way the post I guess

(BTW my pci post code card goes nuts when that happens, it doesnt freeze at 1 point it just goes bananas)

[drahgoon]

hey veK, thanx for that link... i just found out that twice as my computer is booting up, my dram isnt refreshing, i dont know what to do about it, but i will try to find out...