Leigh Jennings wrote;
>Sometimes on startup instead of the single Beeeep which always precedes a
>normal boot
>it goes Beeeeep Beep Beep Beep (long short short short) and the screen
>stays black. in fact the main monitor stays in sleep mode.

>I am tempted to go and buy a new video card (it could do with an upgrade
>anyway)

By all indications, it seems it could be the video adaptor or possibly
memory.

Might not be a bad idea to upgrade the video card as you indicated.

And I quote:

"Award BIOS Beep Codes
Award BIOS uses beeps of varying duration. A long beep will typically last
for 2 seconds while a short beep will last only 1 second. Award BIOS also
uses beeps of different frequency to indicate critical errors. If an Award
BIOS detects that the CPU is overheating it may play a high pitched
repeating beep while the computer is running.
 BEEP CODE           MEANING               POSSIBLE CAUSE
 1 Long, 2 Short Video adapter failure Bad video adapter
 Repeating (Endless loop) Memory error Bad memory or bad connection
 1 Long, 3 Short Video adapter failure Bad video adapter or memory
 High freq. beeps (while running) CPU is overheating CPU fan failure
 Repeating High, Low beeps CPU failure Bad processor"

Sincerely,

Frank Suszka
netTek Computers
[log in to unmask]

        The NOSPIN Group has added a new feature on our website,
           web based bulletinboard for questions and answers:
              Visit our sister website at http://nospin.com