 Number 213 - February 2001 |
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| Beep, Beep... Logging On! | ||
| by Mark West, Algorithmica Japonica - May 1999 | ||
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Hello and welcome to this
month's column. I hope last month did not bore you too much. First, I
would like to thank people for their phone calls and questions last
month. I enjoy the chance to help and get to know the club members.
Some people may be aware when you first turn on your computer before anything is displayed you hear a tone. It's such a common sound many don't notice it anymore. This is part of the Power On Self Tests (POSTs). When IBM originally designed the PC, they installed a series of diagnostics that run on power up. A group of these diagnostics are executed before the display routine. This required a non-visual results signal to indicate the outcome. IBM's original codes included 1 short tone for normal operations, 2 short tones for a video error, 3 short tones for a memory error and 3 long tones is a keyboard failure. The 2 short tones were common on the 8088 motherboards when you set the video display type with a switch on the motherboard. Recently, I heard the same response to a AGP card that was not seated properly. Another common error code on an AMI BIOS is seven short tones for a VGA card error. |
All of the bios
manufacturers have their own sets of codes for more extensive
diagnostics. Phoenix uses a series of short and long tones where AMI
uses mainly short tones. Along with the tones, there is a series of
visual diagnostic readouts that are displayed on your monitor after the
video routine is executed. Each of the BIOS manufacturers, Phoenix,
Award and AMI, have a detailed listing on their Web sites1.
I hope this information will be beneficial to you the next time your computer misbehaves. Remember you can always call me at (045) 661-4699 or drop me email at adept adept_mark@yahoo.com. Hope to see you soon at the meeting until then HAPPY COMPUTING.
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Number 213 - February 2001
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