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Date:	Fri, 9 Feb 2001 11:13:05 PST
From:	Peter Skye <pskye@peterskye.com >
Reply-To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
Subject:	SCOUG-Help: Video card troubles - help needed

Content Type: text/plain

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Tom Brown wrote:
>
> I got one long beeeeeeep

Tom,

You don't say why you think the cause is the video card, so apologies if
the following is useless. :-)
_____

The motherboard's BIOS has a number of different "beep codes" (POST, or
Power On Self Test, codes) to alert you when it can't complete its
processing and thus can't continue on and boot your operating system.

Unfortunately, different BIOS manufacturers have different codes.

First: Check the documentation which came with your motherboard. It
may list the "beep codes", including your "one long beep".

Second: Go to the BIOS manufacturer's web site (okay, call a friend and
have _them_ go to the BIOS web site) and download the doc file for your
particular BIOS. Look up the beep codes.

Third: Email the motherboard manufacturer's tech support and ask them
what "one long beep" means.

The last time I had a video card failure, the error beep code for that
particular motherboard BIOS was two short beeps. (The motherboard was
too old to handle my new Elsa card.)
_____

Gary's response of "reseat everything" is a good one. It's only a
two-minute job, and frankly you might just want to pull out _everything_
(including the video card _and_ your motherboard memory) and start
putting things back in one at a time. (Power should be off when
removing or inserting stuff.) The "beep code table" for your BIOS is in
sequence by the tests done by that BIOS (at least mine are) so it's a
good sequence in which to plug the stuff back in.
_____

Here are some BIOS urls from my home page (haven't checked 'em
recently):