[darkelf_18]

Hey guys. I am trying to fix this old Dell, a friend gave me to look at. It is a Dell Dimension L433c. Right now when i hit hte power button it boots up with a black screen and gives, 1 long beep and 3 short beeps. I looked here... http://www.computerhope.com/beep.htm And I figure that it has the IBM BIOS. Cause the 1 long and 3 short, means that there is something wrong with the Video (EGA) Display Circuitry.

Now here is the question. How do I fix that? Also is there anyway I could manualy flash the BIOS on that Mobo? And if so, How?

Thanks,
D.E_18

 

[Old Rich]

Dell uses their own BIOS . . You can go here to download the newest one

That model came with intergrated video . . but if there is a video card in there, it may be bad or BIOS may not have disabled the onboard Video.

wrs

 

[darkelf_18]

It doesnt have a Video card, just the onboard stuff. Also how would I install the BIOS without being able to see the screen?

 

[Old Rich]

if you have a blank screen you likely have a bad motherboard . . it does not need anydrivers to output a video image.

wrs

 

[darkelf_18]

Yeah. I will see if I can find a PCI graphics card. I still want to get it running. The PC that they have now only has a AMD 266mghz Proc, and before I put new RAM in it, it only had 32mbs!!!!! They were wondering why it wasn't running AOE2 or doing web browsing very well LOL. 32mb!!! HAHAHAHAHA. Man I can't even imagine trying to run word processing with 32mb. So I was hoping to get this up and running, then they will have almost double the Proc speed. Not to mention the 256mb of RAM I put in it.

 

[CarlssonMB]

you can get a pretty nice gfx card for around 50 bucks on newegg

 

[darkelf_18]

Yeah but I would rather not spend any money, and since I dont know if getting a new card would fix it. I dont want to mess around buying stuff.

 

[Lurker1]

I dont see that beep code listed at Dell for your model. But if you have the correct model type it should have diagnostic leds. See here.

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dcol/codemess.htm#post_beep_codes