Weird Alarm Sound on Startup? (1 Viewer)

[Carl Miller]

My computer is making a strange alarm type sound on startup. It's intermittent, sounds very much like a smoke alarm and stops once Win XP completes it's startup routine.

Microsoft gave me the usual "call the manufacturer" reply, and Dell disconnected me after a 30 minute wait.

Anyone have any ideas what this might be? Thanks!

 

[DougRuss]

Maybe post this same question on Dell Forums
?

 

[Cary_H]

Are these sounds beeps?
When your computer goes through it's startup routine it does what's called a "Power on self-test", POST for short.
If everyting is OK, most mainboards beep just once. When something is not kosher, it will emit a variety of beeps that tip you off to whatever glitch was found.
You just need to know what beep codes your mainboard uses for alerting you to errors at post.