hi, i have just bought a pc base unit from a car boot sale, i know you will say it wasn`t put out for no reason , but every pc i have bought at a boot sale has always worked even if it might have needed a replacement part, but this time i think i have got a dud, when i turn it on it starts the fans on the power pack and processor, the monitor does nothing then after about 15 seconds it starts making a sound like a siren but that is all ,the monitor still does nothing just stays in standby, i have changed memory, graphics card, taken out modem but still no change, i took out everything from the motherboard and left only the processor, power pack and still the same, nothing, it is an msi mobo with a p4 processor, i dont know anything about its previous life so no idea about how it came to be like this, before i go back to the boot sale next week and play merry [bleep] at being sold a duff i would like a shot at fixing it if any one can help as bloke at boot sale will probably tell me to get lost anyway any help would be appreciated

mel

Sounds like a beep sequence, which can be code for what the problem is. You need to know what BIOS you have Award, Phoenix, AMI. They each have a different set of beep sequence to tell you what part of the POST (power-on self test) failed

Awards website - http://www.phoenix.com/pcuser/bios-award-postcode.pdf
Phoenix website - http://www.phoenix.com/pcuser/userman.pdf
AMI website - http://www.ami.com/amibios/support/beepcodes.html

ok will try to find mobo number and have model number on base unit then will find bios probably from internet, but sounds like a police siren, thanks

mel

That is strange usually the beep sequence will be a code like 2 short 1 long 2 short 1 long, and the most I have ever seen is about 12 beeps

the model number of the base unit ispc mt5

the mother board is ms 6507 ver:2

its a cybermax pc mt5, med mt 103

Hi mel67...

Usually, a siren sound coming from the machine will indicate an overheating CPU or a CPU fan that is not spinning at the recommended RPMs. Has your machine been showing signs of instability in the recent past?

wannabe1

i don`t know anything about it as i bought it 2 days ago and it was already like this
if it were the cpu or the fan i would need someone to talk me through how to find out for sure, but thanks for that

mel

Can you access the BIOS. Sometimes you can change temp and fan speed setting, you could possible increase the warning limits

nothing comes up on the moniter it stays in standby, so cant get into anything at all, tried changing the fan on the cpu but no different, cant get into the bios

mel