[johnni]

After six months of no problems I now have a Windows XP Home irritation. This is what happens when I start it -
1. The Dell opening screen appears
2. There is a series of rapid bleeps which stop when I press any key, or sometimes by itself.
3. I see the blue www.dell.com at the top, and a flashing cursor underneath. If I am quick enough I press pause and see "Loading PBR for descriptor 2..."
4. I press Enter and the word "done" is added to the above (but this is only if I have pressed Pause).
5. White hatching bars run quickly from left to right.
6. Windows XP starts to load.

Sometimes item 5 doesn't happen and XP just loads, but the bleeps are always there. I would expect this to mean a hardware problem but there are no messages. I always see a message about "BIOS revision A08", and once I saw a full B/W screen apologising for the inconvenience and inviting me to choose, among other options, "Last known good configuration", which I did, and XP started. But on subsequent restarting the bleeps are back and no recurrence of the 'apology' screen. I have checked in Device Manager and there are no yellow marks and all is described as working normally.

Can anyone offer any advice to rid me of those dreaded BLEEPS?

johnni

 

[bonk]

Howdy,


How many beeps are there in total on startup?

Are they all short beeps??

 

[johnni]

It's a Dell Inspiron 1300 notebook, out of warranty.
The bleeps are rapid and can be ten or more or until I press any key. I suppose it is trying to tell me something but there is no real notice displayed, only as above.

johnni

 

[bonk]

Is the battery fully charged.....and if it is try taking the power chord out and start it up just using the battery and see if you get the beeps.

 

[unbidden]

Repeating endless loop of beeps on an Award BIOS means memory (ram) error.

 

[johnni]

I tried both with battery power and mains power and the bleeps continued.
BUT - for no reason I can account for the bleeps have stopped and XP now loads normally!

Thanks for all the suggestions.

johnni