[JohnP]

I was happily working on my desktop which is connected to the web behind McAffee firewall/virus scan when first of all the screen went blank...then when I forced a re-boot the PC simply winks both of the CD drive lights (not the floppy) and beeps every 4 seconds - the screen shows "no signal input" is it likely I have been victim of virus? What can I do to recover from this situation - I tried a boot disk but it seems as stated the machine is not following anything in the BIOS and therefore not checking floppy drive?? How can I get the data on this machine back!! Its a P400 with 256mb RAM, 80GB HD and was running Win XP SP1...any suggestions (apart from take up smoking) welcome!

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knowing what kind of motherboard would help. 4 beeps usually means a bad system timer, an integrated componant on your motherboard. This is not usually fixable other than to replace the motherboard.

Could be memory, too, but given your description and age, I would lean heavily towards bad system timer.

[gerryf]

knowing what kind of motherboard would help. 4 beeps usually means a bad system timer, an integrated componant on your motherboard. This is not usually fixable other than to replace the motherboard.

Could be memory, too, but given your description and age, I would lean heavily towards bad system timer.

[JohnP]

Thanks for your post - strange thing it did just boot - back to Win XP log on - no mouse input though and when I logged in there was a message from MS update saying HD missing? The message was not clickable, CTRL-DEL would not bring up task mgr and the only thing I could do was power down - when tried again its back to the beep every four seconds - I have had the machin 3.5 to 4 yrs now...apreciate you need to know the mother board am not sure where to get that information from would that be by taking off the cover?

Thanks

[gerryf]

usally written on the motherboard, or if you have system model we might be able to figure it that way.

Now, you said beep every four second...that is different than beeping four times.

which is it?

[JohnP]

Beep every four secs - sorry now in the office and not able to open her up until this evening.

[JohnP]

OK I managed to get into the start up mode menu and chose "start from last known working config" it worked...the machine seems stable...is there a tool I can use to check out for any faults.....your assistance was much apreciated.

John