4 beeps on start up.

[Hayden Ross]

Hey guys haven't posted on here in awhile. However lets get to the point. My neighbor wanted me to look and see whats wrong with their pc. When you press the power button you get 4 beeps along with a amber light. I thought maybe it was the memory so i swapped it out with some spare ram i had to see if i was correct. However same issue. This pc I'm reffering to is the Dell Studio XPS 8100. I also removed the battery to reset the bios thinking maybe something was messed up with the bios. However same error. I've made sure everything is clean and nothing looks wrong. Actually a fairly clean pc from what I'm use to seeing. Is this motherboard fried or something or is there some simple fix that I'm not aware of ?

- Apologize in advance if i have put this in the wrong sub forum. I went with my gut thinking it was memory.

 

[smorizio]

four beeps most times is a video card issue. if the unit has onboard video pull the video card see if it boots with no beeps and has output to a monitor. if not swap the gpu and see if the error stops. also google dell and the model for class action lawsuit and bad capacitors. some dell and some nvidia gpu and system boards had bad caps a few years ago got into everything from tv to hard drives to cars. look at the mb and gpu for any leaking caps or bulging units.

 

[Hayden Ross]

four beeps most times is a video card issue. if the unit has onboard video pull the video card see if it boots with no beeps and has output to a monitor. if not swap the gpu and see if the error stops. also google dell and the model for class action lawsuit and bad capacitors. some dell and some nvidia gpu and system boards had bad caps a few years ago got into everything from tv to hard drives to cars. look at the mb and gpu for any leaking caps or bulging units.

Tried that with a working gpu and tried the onboard video from the motherboard.. Same issue with 4 beeps, Also looked at all caps and units not leaks or bulging.

 

[smorizio]

the last issue can be the stock dell power supply lost a leg or the mb has failed. if you have a volt meter check the voltage output with the unit is beeping see if there all there. if not try a test power supply from another pc or spare. if it a mb failure your not going to be able to fix it unless you have bench testing. what i would do as it an old pc if the ps does not fix the issue is to buy a drive copy cable or box and put there drive in a box and copy there data over to a new pc.

 

[Hayden Ross]

the last issue can be the stock dell power supply lost a leg or the mb has failed. if you have a volt meter check the voltage output with the unit is beeping see if there all there. if not try a test power supply from another pc or spare. if it a mb failure your not going to be able to fix it unless you have bench testing. what i would do as it an old pc if the ps does not fix the issue is to buy a drive copy cable or box and put there drive in a box and copy there data over to a new pc.

Well tried it with another working psu same issue. Guess this motherboard has met its end. Guess my suspicions were right about it being dead lol. But thank you anyway!