Beeping

[Sophy]

Out of the blue my computer started make one soft, short beep every 3 minutes (I timed it) and this continued for about an hour and then stopped. I used the computer for about another 3 hours after that and it never started again. It has not beeped since I booted today. I contacted Dell and the tech thought for sure it must be the hard drive. But we ran a hard drive diagnostics and he said according to the results there was nothing wrong with the hard drive. Does anyone know what that might have been indicating?

[weEvil]

1. This is the Windows Vista forum. You can see that by reading the titles above the forums.

2. This is not a Vista issue.

3. You do not even have Vista as indicated by your sig.

4. This is a very vague question. There are hundreds of solutions to your problem.

[Sophy]

I guess I can see where this topic might not be a Vista problem, although in all my googling some indicated that certain beeps were from the OS and since the hard drive test came out ok I thought it might be. But your point #3 has me totally confused. I have Vista Home Premium. What does it mean "as indicated by my sig"?

[Kelsenellenelvian]

Ok heres the deal. Short and simple.

Form reading your topics (Nearly ALL of which are in the Vista section) your system is screwed.

A: I would guess ram first try memtest --> http://hcidesign.com/memtest/

B: Try a reformatt

C: Yes you did post in the worng section. SEVERAL times.

P.S. According to your user stats you are using XP Home. (See pic)

[weEvil]

I guess I can see where this topic might not be a Vista problem, although in all my googling some indicated that certain beeps were from the OS and since the hard drive test came out ok I thought it might be. But your point #3 has me totally confused. I have Vista Home Premium. What does it mean "as indicated by my sig"?

Post in the proper forum, and include more information.

Its too vague. "My computer is beeping when I do something on it!"

When was it doing it? x time after boot. Every 3 minutes says nothing. What were you working on when you were doing it? What kinds of diagnostics did you run and the results. Hint: check temperatures too. How often does this happen and how does the computer behave before & after the issue. Slower? Unstable? Weird errors?

I can't help you if you won't help me. Don't expect anyone here to be able to read your mind and 'just figure it out'.

Play nice.

Edited December 5, 2008 by weEvil

[submix8c]

1 - suggest change you siggy to Vista

2 - suggest topic moved to (potentially) Hardware

3 - agree with weEvil - temps can cause beeps as a warning (sensors on CPU, etc.) Do as I told my Bro yesterday. Get a can of Dry Air and blow that sucker out (inside of box, CPU fan, Case Fan, Power Supply fan). If you don't and that's the problem, you may end up toasting something beyond repair.

[cluberti]

Well, your Dell tech should probably read his knowledgebase. I don't even work for them and I know that on most Dell laptops and older Dell desktops, the default IDE idle spin down period is 3 minutes. Any time the drive fails to spin down, the machine will emit a soft, almost inaudible BEEP (... every 3 minutes - sound familiar?).

Your hard drive is indeed suspect at this point, I would contend.

[Sophy]

What cluberti wrote describes my problem to a T, but I'm not sure mine classifies as an older computer. It's an XPS 410 destop purchased in July 2007 from Dell direct. I purchased 2GB of RAM when I bought it.

I don't know where the XP came from. I don't know anything about these signatures. All I know is that this computer has Vista Home Premium on it.

Anyway, thanks for your answers, and I'll try to be more careful about posting in the future.