Dell: 6 short bios beeps, no display.

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oshadowx

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Feb 1, 2011
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Hey there, I don't know if I'm in the right.... part of the forums to be asking for help with this but whatevaa.

One day I decided to move my working, fully functioning Dell Inspiron 580, up out of my basement into the living room of my house. After getting it all setup, making sure everything was plugged in and hooked up, I powered it on to get 6 short bios beeps. I thought, "Huh, I guess that bringing my computer up a flight of stairs caused it to break.". Wtf.

So I thought, no worries, I have the Geek Squad Black Tie Protection, they'll get it running again because Im sure its just a hardware issue. Wrong. They call me 3 weeks later to report a software related issue and offer to fix it for 249$. I hung up on them and came here.

What can I do? 5 days before this happened I did a clean install on windows (because my computer was getting lag spikes for no reason and continued to do so after) so Im pretty sure its not virus related. Any suggestions? GeekSquad says its not hardware problems and its software issues. I refuse to pay them a f****** dime for bullsh**** me when I bought the plan and saying their amazing warranty covered EVERYTHIIIIIING.

What do I do :??: ?
 
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well first thing would be to diagnose the problem. motherboard beeping indicates some hardware fault.

check all connections, also, do you know by any chance what motherboard you got inside? googling for error codes for that particular motherboard might surface what those beeps indicate and help steer you in the right direction.

If not, you'll have to take the thing apart and do some of your own testing.
 
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(They said when I dropped it off that theyd be reseating everything so I dont know...)
I didnt know what to do at that moment as I've never had bios beeps issues before. But when I go pick it up today thats the first thing ill do.

So theres no way that this is software issues at all?
 
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^Up
 
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You don't need to bump threads here, and it's actually against the forum rules.

Beeping motherboard is in no way a software issue, unless you think of the BIOS as "software". Which technically it is, kinda. Look up the beep codes for the model you have. If they reseated everything, you may need to replace the motherboard or reseat it yourself. Although I almost want to see what would happen if you pay them to fix this "software" issue, would be interesting to see what they do to try to fix it. "Well, we had to replace the motherboard, but it was a very soft one made of foam, so we're calling it software."
 
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My bad, I hit the wrong reply button and, yeeeeahh. Anyways, I called geeksquad and presented them with the by now obvious..ness that its most likely a hardware issue and their amazing comeback was its probly a virus. I didnt know a virus could be triggered to rend your computer useless by simply moving your computer up a floor in your house.
 
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To echo hang-the-9, no software issue (including virus). BIOS beeps are hardware issues. There is no software running at the point the BIOS is checking the hardware. And there isn't really anything a virus can do to cause hardware to fail.

BIOS beeps (other than the normal one beep) are typically going to be an issue with RAM, video card, processor, power connections or mother board issue. With no display I'd guess that your issue will be with the graphics card or the motherboard itself. Tell use what model of dell you have and we can try to help you diagnose it.

Chances are geek squad will not be fixing anything, they will send it to dell to have it fixed.
 
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Ask them how they will fix and identify a virus that causes the PC to not boot and then prove that it was a virus before they can charge you for cleaning it out.

If you are willing to risk paying $250 to get this fixed if they somehow show you a virus that comes up in the system, bring it over and say you'll pay them soon as they show you the virus proof, not guessing that that's what it is.

And check the beep code.
 
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Dell inspiron 580. And to last poster, even if they proved that there was a virus, I wouldnt pay them to fix it.
 
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There is pretty much 0 chances of them finding a virus. Any virus scanner will run testing the drive, even if it scans the lowest of the low level areas. The PC does not turn on enough for the system to even see the hard-drive.

They want to charge you for the work, get the money, then replace the motherboard under the other contract.

I'd love to bring this to them and have them try to talk their way out of this :lol:

Geek Squads key clients are grandmas who don't know that paying $100 to have a printer driver installed is nuts. They'll never make any money of people who they can't bull$i!!.
 
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Backtrack your steps and see if you've disconnected more cables/parts than you've connected. If you can't remember try reseating your RAM(s) and GPU. Get rid of anything unnecessary like TV/sound card. Check if the GPUs fan is running if its not then its a GPU issue for sure (if the fan is connected 😛)
 
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I called geek squad earlier today and explained what you guys did. They said they ran a system blah blah blah on the computer and found everything was.working fine with hardware and it must be software. Does it make sense that theyre running diognostics even though the computer and display dont even turn on?
 
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If they tried all your parts on another computer and all of them seem to be working fine then your motherboard has a problem. If they just looked to see if the circuits were complete then they didn't check if your parts were working or not. If you have another computer to try your parts on then start with the GPU and see if its working if it is working then go to the RAMs and try them and so on. If all of your parts are working, then try putting the already working computer's parts on your computer with the problem and see if it works. That way you will know which part is at fault and which parts are not to blame. Diagnosing the problem is the first step on my list always.
 
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You can't run any system tests when the computer does not start. Find out what they used. About the only thing possible that I can think of would be a PCI card that is made to catch error codes that it displays on a small LCD display on the card itself. While they MAY have one of those cards, I kinda doubt it, you need to have worked in a pretty advanced setup to even know those things exist.
 
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I hate to resurrect a dead topic, but I had the exact same thing happen to my machine. As it was under warranty, I called Dell, and, after much back and forth, they agreed to replace the motherboard and the video card. The machine worked for about 2 weeks. It now boots and instead of giving 6 beeps, it just stops where it did before, but silently. (It stops either at the Windows logo or just when the screen goes black, right where the video card is called ) Rebooting and starting over usually corrects the problem. When I called Dell, I was told that my machine was one week out of warranty and they would charge me to fix their failed repair.
So, if anyone has any suggestions, I'd be glad to hear them. I know that this will only get worse as time goes on. It has definitely soured me on Dells.
 
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Playing necromancer here.

Just had a video card die in a Dell Vostro 400, had 6 beeps occur. Replaced the video card, issue was fixed. Tested the bad video card in another computer, also had 6 beeps there.

If you get 6 beeps on a Dell, check your video card!

I think the Vostro 400 was using a Phoenix bios.
 
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