Resolved PC won't start - Just beeps

Hi there,

We have a c.4 year old Dell PC running Windows XP that has randomly decided not to start today. Instead all we are getting is beeps.

There are 6 beeps in total - all the same length. The first and last two are further apart from each other than the middle two, which happen in slightly quicker succession.

From a google search I understand that these are BIOS beep codes, however I don't know what BIOS that PC has and there seem to be loads of variations; none of which quite match what we are hearing.

Please help! I am not very hardware literate and, without even being able to boot the PC I haven't got a clue what to do.

In case it is in anyway related, our other home PC (on the same wireless network) has also been playing up recently (see other thread. ) The other PC is also Dell and was purchased around a similar time so potentially I can find out what BIOS is on here but I don't even know where to start looking for it.

Many thanks in advance for any assistance you can offer. If you need any more information then please let me know.

Thanks,

Wendy

 

UPDATE!

Dell handbook thing says it was a memory error. We removed both memory thingys, blew on them and replaced them.

System now starts but won't recognise DVD-RW drive. We get the following error on booting:

"secondary drive 0 not found "

We can then log on but, as I say, the DVD-RW drive is not recognised.

Thanks,

Wendy

 

GENIUS! Thanks Pete - it's working fine now