t e c h i e - t a l k s ::: technology at its best

After troubleshooting many PCs, I was thinking to myself; Why not share what I know in troubleshooting PCs to everyone?! It’s much cheaper if you could troubleshoot yourself rather than brining it to a PC clinic. It generally costs a minimum of $40 for a single visit to the doc to just troubleshoot a PC. With $40 you can get so many things! A PC is like a living entity. It gets sick once in a while but if the you can spot the symptom and fix it yourself, why not? Let us see how we go about doing so.

BIOS (Basic Input Output System)

A BIOS is a built-in software (either in the ROM or on a flash memory chip) that determines what the computer can/cannot do without accessing the hard disk dive. It is an important part in your PC system and you always see it when you switch on/boot your computer. A BIOS contains codes that controls your keyboard, hard disk, serial ports, VGA cards and other miscellaneous items in your system.

There are 3 main manufacturers of BIOS namely; AMI, Phoenix and AWARD.

One of the many ways in troubleshooting a PC is to determine what’s the PC is crying out. When a computer starts, it’ll perform a POST (Power Self on Test). Normally a healthy PC will return a single beep (after all the tests have been passed) and then it’ll go into booting the Operating System (though some computer system it returns 2 beeps).

When your computer is sick, it’ll return a sequence of beeps as to tell you the symptoms of the sickness (sometimes it might not return any). This is the basic step of troubleshooting your computer. Different BIOS manufacturers gives different beep sounds.

AMI BIOS

1 Short Beep — One beep is good! Everything is ok, that is if you see things on the screen. If you don’t see anything, check your monitor and video card first. Is everything connected? If they seem fine, your motherboard has some bad chips on it. First reset the SIMM’s and reboot. If it does the same thing, one of the memory chips on the motherboard are bad, and you most likely need to get another motherboard since these chips are soldered on.

2 Short Beeps — Your computer has memory problems. First check video. If video is working, you’ll see an error message. If not, you have a parity error in your first 64K of memory. First check your SIMM’s. Reseat them and reboot. If this doesn’t do it, the memory chips may be bad. You can try switching the first and second banks memory chips. First banks are the memory banks that your CPU finds its first 64K of base memory in. You’ll need to consult your manual to see which bank is first. If all your memory tests good, you probably need to buy another motherboard.

3 Short Beeps – Similar to 2 Short beeps.

4 Short Beeps – Similar to 2 short beeps.

5 Short Beeps — Your motherboard is complaining. Try reseating the memory and rebooting. If that doesn’t help, you should consider another motherboard. You could probably get away with just replacing the CPU, but that’s not too cost-effective. Its just time to upgrade!

6 Short Beeps — The chip on your motherboard that controls your keyboard (A20 gate) isn’t working. First try another keyboard. If it doesn’t help, reseat the chip that controls the keyboard, if it isn’t soldered in. If it still beeps, replace the chip if possible. Replace the motherboard if it is soldered in.

7 Short Beeps — Your CPU broke overnight. Its no good. Either replace the CPU, or buy another motherboard.

8 Short Beeps — Your video card isn’t working. Make sure it is seated well in the bus. If it still beeps, either the whole card is bad or the memory on it is. Best bet is to install another video card.

9 Short Beeps — Your video card isn’t working. Make sure it is seated well in the bus. If it still beeps, either the whole card is bad or the memory on it is. Best bet is to install another video card.

10 Short Beeps — Your problem lies deep inside the CMOS. All chips associated with the CMOS will likely have to be replaced. Your best bet is to get a new motherboard.

11 Short Beeps — Your problem is in the Cache Memory chips on the motherboard. Reseat or Replace these chips.

11 Short Beeps and 3 Long Beeps — You’ve probably just added memory to the motherboard since this is a conventional or extended memory failure. Generally this is caused by a memory chip that is not seated properly. Reseat the memory chips.

1 Long beep & 8 Short Beeps — Display / retrace test failed. Reseat the video card.

Phoenix BIOS

Phoenix BIOS are more detailed than AMI BIOS. It comes in combinations of beeps for example a 1-1-3 beep consists of 1-beep, PAUSE, 1-beep, PAUSE, 3-beeps. So you have to listen carefully when determining the beeps.

1-1-3 – Your computer can’t read the configuration info stored in the CMOS. Replace the motherboard.

1-1-4 – Your BIOS needs to be replaced.

1-2-1 – You have a bad timer chip on the motherboard. You need a new motherboard.

1-2-2 – The motherboard is bad.

1-2-3 — The motherboard is bad.

1-3-1 – You’ll need to replace the motherboard.

1-3-3 – You’ll need to replace the motherboard.

1-3-4 – The motherboard is bad.

1-4-1 – The motherboard is bad.

1-4-2 – Some of your memory is bad.

2-1-1 – Any combo of beeps after two means that some of your memory is bad, and unless you want to get real technical, you should probably have the guys in the lab coats test the memory for you. Take it to the shop.

3-1-1 – One of the chips on your motherboard is broken. You’ll likely need to get another board.

3-2-4 — One of the chips on your motherboard that checks the keyboard is broken. You’ll likely need to get another board.

3-3-4 — Your computer can’t find the video card. Is it there? If so, try swapping it with another one and see if it works.

3-4-1 — Your video card isn’t working. You’ll need to replace it.

4-2-1 — There’s a bad chip on the motherboard. You need to buy another board.

4-2-2 — First check the keyboard for problems. If nothing, you have a bad motherboard.

4-2-3 — Same as 4-2-2.

4-2-4 – One of the cards is bad. Try yanking out the cards one by one to isolate the culprit. Replace the bad one. The last possibility is to buy another motherboard.

4-3-1 — Replace the motherboard.

4-3-2 — See 4-3-1

4-3-3 — See 4-3-1

4-3-4 — Time of day clock failure. Try running the setup program that comes with the computer. Check the date and time. If that doesn’t work, replace the battery. If that doesn’t work, replace the power supply. You may have to replace the motherboard, but that is rare.

4-4-1 – Your serial ports are acting up. Reseat, or replace, the I/O card. If the I/O is on the motherboard itself, disable them with a jumper (consult your manual to know which one) and then add an I/O card.

4-4-2 – See 4-4-1, but this time is your Parallel port that’s acting up.

4-4-3 – You math coprocessor is having problems. Run a test program to double-check it. If it is indeed bad, disable it, or replace it.

Low 1-1-2 — Your motherboard is having problems

Low 1-1-3 – This is an Extended CMOS RAM problem, check your motherboard battery, and motherboard.

– courtesy from PCHELL.COM –

AWARD BIOS

There are many motherboard manufacturers using this BIOS (most probably your motherboard is using this BIOS). Thus, there are wide variations of beep codes for AWARD BIOS. Check with your manufacturer’s website to find out more. Below are the more common beeps that are found in AWARD BIOS.

1 Long beep – Indicates RAM Problems

1 Long 2 Short — Indicates a video error has occurred and the BIOS cannot initialize the video screen to display any additional information

If there are correctable hardware issues, usually the AWARD BIOS will tell you what issues are there.

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Lastly, if there aren’t any beeps coming from you PC, most likely it’s a severe hardware malfunction. It could be any hardware short circuiting your motherboard causing it to not boot.

When this happens, 1^st you got to ask yourself certain questions. What are the symptoms of the problem. Is there any signal on your monitor? Is there any sound coming from your PC? Are there any squeaking sounds coming from your PC?

Then you got to go directly to certain components that might have caused the problem.

No Audio – Probably a faulty soundcard (if you are using external PCI soundcard) or your motherboard’s soundcard is busted. Or maybe its your speaker that needs replacement.

Weird sounds coming from PC – See where the sound originates. Most of the time it might be a faulty hard disk drive. Replace a different HDD to your PC and check whether it boots.

No power into your PC – check that the power supply is functioning properly. Also check the on/off switch off the PC and the power switch on your motherboard (check your motherboard manual for details).

No visuals – This is very tricky. There are many reasons why there aren’t anything coming out of your monitor. First check whether the monitor is working properly by plugging it into other PCs. If it’s working fine, check whether the VGA card is malfunctioning by putting it into another PC or taking another VGA card and plug it into your PC and see whether it boots. If none of these works, its time to do local testing.

Test every part of your hardware by pulling out the power of that particular hardware and see whether the computer boots up. If after pulling the plug to that particular hardware and the computer is still dead, secure back the plug and unplug other hardware that you haven’t tried (chances are that hardware works fine). Chances are that a faulty hardware, when disabled will not cause the short circuit on your motherboard, thus enables the computer to boot up. It’s a long testing method but it definitely works.

But if all fails, I guess it’s beyond your expertise. It’s time to call in the experts into determining the cause of the sickness.

If you spot the problems and you need to RMA the product, here’s a complete list of RMA places you can go with your product courtesy of hardwarezone.com.

Last words – It takes lotsa patience in figuring out the root cause of your PC’s problems. So don’t give up too fast and good luck trying! But remember, prevention is always better than cure.