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Laptop hardware problem..

Discussion in 'PC Hardware' started by ollyk, 2007/11/14.

  1. 2007/11/14
    ollyk

    ollyk Inactive Thread Starter

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    I recently got my old dinosaur of a laptop out, a compaq Armada 7380 P266 32m ram etc.. anyway, on startup I just get 4 beeps, two with long space between and then two with a short space between (sort of sounds like morse code) and not a lot else really, apart from charge light and hard drive spinning up.
    I pulled it apart and found a corroded bios battery, but no damage to the main board...
    Does this sound more like a processor or RAM fault or maybe something even more random? I wouldn't have thought lack of backup battery would prevent any sort of startup but my lack of knowledge with laptops starts and ends with this one lol!
    Any idea's?

    Olly.
     
    ollyk,
    #1
  2. 2007/11/14
    Steve R Jones

    Steve R Jones SuperGeek Staff

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    If you can tell who the BIOS maker is, the site below can tell you what the beep codes mean:

    Welcome to BIOS Central*

    BIOS means Basic Input Output System. BIOS is actually firmware, the software that is programmed into a ROM (Read-Only Memory) chip built onto the motherboard of a computer. BIOS is what makes the system run an initial Power-On Self-Test of the computer, initialize circuits, load the boot program from the boot disk, and then handle low-level I/O to peripheral controllers such as keyboard and display.


    http://bioscentral.com/
     
    Steve R Jones,
    #2


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  4. 2007/11/14
    ollyk

    ollyk Inactive Thread Starter

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    Thanks Steve, I had already been their and not found anything under 'Compaq bios' but I guess I could have a look inside and be more bios specific... Closest thing is graphics and as I have no screen this could be quite likely...
     
    ollyk,
    #3
  5. 2007/11/15
    mattman

    mattman Inactive Alumni

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    The old CMOS (backup) battery was corroded? The terminals that connect to that battery may have a "corrosion" layer that does not allow a good connection with the new battery. You may need to clean the connections "really" well [throwing away a corroded battery is one thing, cleaning any corrosion off the connectors is an another].

    Matt
     
    mattman,
    #4
  6. 2007/11/15
    Steve R Jones

    Steve R Jones SuperGeek Staff

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    You did replace the battery didn't you?
     
    Steve R Jones,
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  7. 2007/11/15
    ollyk

    ollyk Inactive Thread Starter

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    Sort of... CLICKY :)

    I can't see any method of actually resetting the bios, but I would have thought three months of zero or very little output from the original cmos battery would have ensured a reset!
    Any more ideas before I have to admit defeat?
     
    ollyk,
    #6

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