If your computer powers on but beeps at you rather than booting, it is telling you that you have a failed component.  Often I hear these codes after a hardware change and then I know that something is not sitting right and I need to remove and reseat it.  This is easy to do with RAM, Video Card and Hard Drives.

Sometimes a reseat is not the solution and then you need to know what those beeps mean.  Each manufacturer may use different codes but the original IBM standard, which is used by many like Pheonix and Award are:

BIOS BEEP CODES

1 Short Beep                  Normal POST – all is good
2 Short Beeps                 POST Error – error code shown on screen
No Beep                         Power supply or system board problem
Continuous Beep            Power supply, system board, or keyboard problem
Repeating Short Beeps  Power supply or system board problem
1 Long, 1 Short Beep       System board problem
1 Long, 2 Short Beeps    Display adapter problem (MDA, CGA)
1 Long, 3 Short Beeps    Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA)
3 Long Beeps 3270         keyboard card

 

BIOS ERROR CODES

100 – 199 System Board
200 – 299 Memory
300 – 399 Keyboard
400 – 499 Monochrome Display
500 – 599 Color/Graphics Display
600 – 699 Floppy-disk drive and/or Adapter
700 – 799 Math Coprocessor
900 – 999 Parallel Printer Port
1000 – 1099 Alternate Printer Adapter
1100 – 1299 Asynchronous Communication Device, Adapter, or Port
1300 – 1399 Game Port
1400 – 1499 Color/Graphics Printer
1500 – 1599 Synchronous Communication Device, Adapter, or Port
1700 – 1799 Hard Drive and/or Adapter
1800 – 1899 Expansion Unit (XT)
2000 – 2199 Bisynchronous Communication Adapter
2400 – 2599 EGA system-board Video (MCA)
3000 – 3199 LAN Adapter
4800 – 4999 Internal Modem
7000 – 7099 Phoenix BIOS Chips
7300 – 7399 3.5″ Disk Drive
8900 – 8999 MIDI Adapter
11200 – 11299 SCSI Adapter
21000 – 21099 SCSI Fixed Disk and Controller
21500 – 21599 SCSI CD-ROM System

 

For detailed information on other beep codes check http://www.pchell.com/hardware/beepcodes.shtml


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