Need laptop help- dell computer just beeps

me ^ | June 9, 2014 | Faith65

[Faith65]

Good morning- I need some help with a laptop (dell inspiron - windows 7)- when you turn it on all it does is beep. It was running fine last night and it was shut without hibernating or anything and when it was reopened it just started beeping so the power button was hit to shut it down. Now when you hit the power button it starts to come on and then just beeps loudly. Taking the battery out and putting it back in has not made a difference. I would greatly appreciate any help! Thanks! (Mods- if I have put this in the wrong place- please move- thank you)

[raybbr]

I doubt it's the hard drive. If it were you'd get past the beeping. Does anything at all come on the screen? Do you know how to access your BIOS? Usually that means pushing a button about a second after power up and that gets you into the computers internal set up. According to a search you push F2 just after powering up. Does a screen come on telling you what's in your laptop? If not, then the laptop is not "posting". Or, Power On Self Test is not working and that almost always means a hardware issue.

Did you drop it after you turned it off last night? Bump it? If you have the capability pull out the battery, hold down the power button for thirty seconds and then open all the panels underneath. Reseat all hardware which will probably mean just the hard drive and RAM boards.

Also, check to make sure nothing is plugged into your USB ports. Could be a bad flash drive.

Hope that helps.

[Faith65]

Thanks

[Faith65]

Hi

No- it didn’t get dropped or bumped. Since husband could not get work portal to open the computer was just closed and not hibernated.

When the power button is turned on the dell circle comes up, the inspiron word shows up and the blue line starts to load- gets 9/10 done and then the non stop beeping starts.(I am not a computer geek at all)

[Excellence]

Can you hear your hard drive spinning?

[US_MilitaryRules]

Could possibly be the battery. My daughters old dell batteries went out twice on me. I don’t remember it beeping though. Good luck

[Faith65]

Have to check it again- the beeping is so loud I can’t hear anything.

[Faith65]

Thanks- my best to you.

[raybbr]

Sounds like the hard drive. How old is it? I've had three hard drives crash on me in the last three months. Or, one or more were malware as my sons tend to play flash games on game sites.

When the power button is turned on the dell circle comes up, the inspiron word shows up and the blue line starts to load- gets 9/10 done and then the non stop beeping starts.(I am not a computer geek at all)

Sounds like it's getting past the POST. The line you refer to, is it a black and white segmented line on the bottom?

[Faith65]

I think it’s 4 years old. The line is blue in the middle- near the bottom of the screen.

[BCW]

Faith,

If your laptop is plugged in and not using battery power - then start it up. As soon as you seen the Power On Self Test begin - start clicking the F8 key to attempt to start up the Advance Boot Options Menu.

If that does not work - and it starts beeping - then your memory modules, CPU, or hard drive that contains the operating system has failed and needs to be repaired.

Any number of cuases could have “zapped” those components - or all of them.

A PC Tech is going to have to take it apart to diagnose the issues invovled in determining why the POST will not take you to a SAFE MODE or Normal Operating System log-in.

Seek out an experienced A+ Tech that can test the hardware. It might be a software problem, but unlikely since the beeps are ongoing and not coded...like 3 short beeps then a long beep...

The laptop needs to be professionally looked at.

[Faith65]

The computer is for work and some web surfing- no gaming or things like that. A lot of docs, work photos and survey mapping on it.

[Westbrook]

> the beeping is non-stop-

You mean it’s just a steady beep-beep-beep...
...without any beeps being longer than others, and without any pauses between them?

[Faith65]

Thanks- I am thinking the same thing- get a pro to look at it. This is the second computer to crash in about a week.

[BRK]

If by "keeps on beeping", you mean a continuous tone, then my vote for best answer is that one of the keys is stuck. Swipe your hand back and forth gently across the keys several times...all of them.. look for one that feels "low" ...see if you can convince it to rise with gentle taps or strokes and then try it again.

If the beep is a single beep and then later, say 10-30 seconds, it beeps again, endlessly repeating, then the next best answers is a hardware failure, in which case you'll probably need more help than an FR post.

[Faith65]

Correct- I cannot discern any difference- just beeps nonstop.

[Roses0508]

Make sure there are no CD’s in the CD drive and no USB devices attached to the computer. Sometimes those two things can cause failure to boot.

[Faith65]

No usb devices or cds in it- checked that 1st :)

[Paladin2]

Road Runner?

[mmichaels1970]

Power off the laptop. Pull all of the memory. Turn it on. See if the beep code changes in any way. If so, try turning on with one RAM chip inserted and swap to test for a bad RAM chip.

Never heard of continuous beeping before. Usually there's a pause in there somewhere...strange.

[Faith65]

I wish ;)