At 01:45 AM 01/19/2000 , Mick Fitzpatrick wrote:
>Hello
>
>I turned on one of my PC's this morning and all I got was a series of
>constant bleeps! This is a problem I haven't come across before. No work has
>been done on the PC and it was working fine yesterday. Any advise will be
>appreciated.

The beeps are error signals from the motherboard bios.  The bios has
a configuration issue and is unable to setup the basic data pathways
through your hardware, something is amiss and you will need to open the
case.

Bios manufacture and number of beeps you hear would be important for a
definitive answer at this point, but here is the basics.

I doubt this is a power issue, as the system can power up the Bios.

Since you say you have not opened the computer, then the likely culprit is
an I/O card.   I have seen this before, where a system works fine and one
day it stops working.  A video card, sound card, modem or other card was
not quite seated properly and it finally is unable to make good contact into
the PCI, ISA or other slot.

First, try pressing all your I/O cards down into the slots.  If that does not solve
the issue, try removing the cards and cleaning the contacts on the bottom
of the cards with either a dry pencil eraser or a small amount of alcohol.

If your problem persists, remove all the cards, except the video card and power
up.   Still have the problem?   Now consider that you have an issue with either
the CPU or the Ram memory.  Now is the time to remove the SCSI controller
and/or disconnect the IDE drives...  disconnect the floppy cable from the motherboard
also.   Ideally, now you should only have a motherboard with a CPU, Ram memory
and a video  card.  Try powering up again.   Now,  if the problem is gone, try
reconnecting each device and/or card until you discover the problem device.
If it is a card, try seating it in a different slot.

If you have stripped the system down to CPU, Ram and video...  and the problem
persists...  one of these three items is at fault.  Have you been overclocking the
CPU?  It could be fried.   Try removing some of the ram modules, and using the
minimum, (72pin modules on a Pentium or faster must be seated two at a time
and SDRam one module at a time).  Switch around the ram until you find the
problem module...  or problem ram slot.  If you have only one ram module, you
may need to take the module to a PC repair shop to be tested.     You also
may need to move the video card around into different slots on the motherboard
as the current slot may have gone bad...   and/or use a different video card.

Understand that there is no reason to boot to Windows while doing this testing
as it will effect the configuration.  This is basic testing and the system should
not be allowed to open beyond the POST phase.

If you need more on these issues or definitions of some terms, they can all
be found in my weekly column, Troubleshooting Basics on our web site:
    http://nospin.com/pc/ts001.html
The first few columns is devoted to this very problem.

I wish you well in solving your problem and hope this helps.

     Bob Wright
The NOSPIN Group

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