Beware Beeping Bios
...or how a PC can play a merry tune
Friday, April 1, 2005 by Fuzzy Logic | Discussion: PC Hardware
I switched my PC on last night to be greeted with a diddley-diddley-diddley-de. My, I thought, what a merry tune my PC is playing, never knew it could do that. My glee at hearing this tuneful melody was tempered seconds later by the sight of a blue screen and susequent boot failure 
So out came the screwdriver and off came the case cover. Out came components one at a time, sometimes followed by a diddley-diddley-diddley-de, sometimes not. As soon as it booted I headed off to BiosCentral to look up the code - not a diddley-diddley-diddley-de in sight, though I did spot a di-di-diddley-di or two 
So I continued with my quest of stripping the PC to its bare bones. Then I added one component at a time, booting after each and listening for the familiar diddley-diddley-diddley-de. After connecting one of my hard drives (backup), my little diddley-diddley-diddley-de reappeared. I disconnected the IDE cable, still a diddley-diddley-diddley-de. I disconnected the power cable, silence! Re-connected the power cable, diddley-diddley-diddley-de...
It seems on closer inspection one of the power pins on the hard drive is damaged. Easy enough to get a new (larger) hard drive. It could have been worse.
So the moral of this story is: if you hear your PC playing diddley-diddley-diddley-de, don't just sit there humming the tune! 
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Reply #3 Friday, April 1, 2005 5:10 PM
| What do I do if it starts playing piano? |
An Ovation... 
Reply #5 Friday, April 1, 2005 6:37 PM
Reply #6 Saturday, April 2, 2005 3:54 AM
Reply #9 Sunday, April 3, 2005 8:12 PM
But yeah..Beep codes are useful knowledge I have discovered..
Zero.
Reply #10 Monday, April 4, 2005 12:37 AM
Reply #11 Monday, April 4, 2005 1:45 AM
A new 250Gb drive is in the post, cost £87 plus a few more missing hairs...
The beep codes were useless - they went so fast you couldn't count them. The old fashioned way works a treat.
Reply #12 Monday, April 4, 2005 1:54 AM
| A new 250Gb drive is in the post, cost £87 |
I remember adding an 8GB to my first PC for around $150 and wondering what the hell I was gonna do with all that space
Reply #13 Monday, April 4, 2005 10:04 AM
Reply #14 Monday, April 4, 2005 12:24 PM
Reply #15 Monday, April 4, 2005 1:54 PM
Reply #16 Monday, April 4, 2005 1:57 PM
| The beep codes were useless |
And they are, unless you happen to be a real guru...Taking the normal trouble shooting steps to determine the culprits is the way of the rest of us.
After very close examination of the MB that I replaced(with a magnifying glass..LoL) it seems a couple of the sauter joins on the board had cracked, probable due to old age and just "Had Enough" easy fix..but as I told my friend..why bother..scrap it..LoL..it's a Plll MB as it is..pretty old...
For sentimental reasons he has chosen to save it, probably until he learns to deal with the loss..LMAO..ah well.
| A different make this time, I've had enough of Maxtor drives |
Well fuzzy, I do not know how many other people think so, but I personally prefer *Western Digital Hard Drives... I have used Maxtor, Seagate, and more than a few generics..I have had the very least amount of trouble with WD's..
My opinion is purely based upon personal experience..Western Digitals Win!
Zero.
Reply #17 Monday, April 4, 2005 6:34 PM
| You'd think that by now they could replace that old pizo speaker with a proper speaker and let the computer spell it out in your own language? |
They have....my MoBo has verbal error codes [though this time I haven't heard them....yet]...
Reply #18 Monday, April 4, 2005 7:42 PM
I'd like to get it workin for one of the kids...
Reply #19 Tuesday, April 5, 2005 5:19 AM
Reply #20 Tuesday, April 5, 2005 6:30 AM
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Reply #1 Friday, April 1, 2005 1:06 PM