ALARM beeper

Hi,
I'd be extremely grateful if you could advise me how to sort out this problem !

My PC frequently makes a continuous alternating beep-bop-beep-bop alarm sound, which starts up at random periods whilst I am running a program, or sometimes even when the PC is idle.
The sound comes direct from the PC, and is not audible from the speakers.
Once it starts, the only way I can find to silence it is to restart the PC. Even then the sound often resumes at the point when Windows boots up, or a few minutes or hours later.
Generally, after the alarm sounds, all programs continue to run properly.
The sound is not accompanied by any screen message.
The PC quite often throws up a "program has performed an illegal function and will be closed down" message, and also sometimes crashes acompanied by a Windows Explorer fatal error message, but these do not coincide with the alarm sound.
The PC is generally run for between 2 - 4 hours at a time, and shut down overnight.


I've carried out numerous procedures as follows, in attempts to locate and cure the problem but just as I think I've cured it, back it comes again :

I've gone into SETUP whilst booting up, and reloaded and saved the defaults in all sections.
I've run ScanDisk ( set to automatically repair errors ).
I've run Registry Checker, and restored the Registry from back up.
I've checked through Windows Help and found nothing that helps me.
I've run System File Checker, and restored all the system files from the Windows 98 SE CD.
I've run virus checkers ( Norton, InoculateIT ) and the system is clean.
I've since uninstalled the antivirus programs.
I've uninstalled all my other programs, shut down, restarted and reinstalled only the ones that I know are certain to be problem-free ( Microsoft, Corel, Serif, Adobe, Micrografx ).
Finally, out of desperation, I repartitioned and reformatted the hard drive, and reinstalled Windows 98SE from scratch, and then reinstalled my essential programs and backed up files.

After all this the PC ran OK for a few days, during which time I made no alterations and added no additional software or hardware, and then the beeping started all over again.......

The PC is 2 years old, and ran perfectly well most of the time until a couple of months ago. It is unchanged from the standard specification except for the addition of an Adaptec SCSI card added a year ago, and an extra 256Mb PC100 SDRAM added about 4 months ago.

My PC is a Mesh Elite CDRW with AMD K6-111 / 450 CPU and 320Mb SDRAM.
Peripherals are a Minolta Dimage film scanner, an Epson Color 300 printer and Sony monitor.

Programs currently installed ( after wiping the hard drive and reinstalling Windows ) are :

Corel WordPerfect Office 2000 ( full installation )
Microsoft Works 4.5 ( full installation )
Microsoft Encarta World Atlas 2000
Windows Media Player 7 ( from a cover CD )
Real Player Basic ( downloaded from internet )
Adaptec Easy CD Creator 4 de luxe ( excluding Direct CD )
Serif PagePlus 7 ( run from a virtual drive )
Serif DrawPlus 4 ( run from a virtual drive )
Greenstreet Publisher 3 ( cover CD demo )
Micrografx Picture Publisher 8 ( full installation )
WinZip 8 ( from a cover CD )
DirectX 8 ( from a cover CD )
EPOX USDM ( Unified System Diagnostic Manager )
Virtual CD3 ( running 4 virtual drives )
Acrobat Reader 5 ( from a cover CD )
Creative Soundblaster PCI 128 ( full installation )
Screensaver Studio ( full installation )
Minolta Dual ( film scanner software )
Internet Explorer 5
Oulook Expess
Epson Color 300 ( printer software )
Matrox G400 ( graphics card software )

Can someone please tell me what causes the sound, and what do I need to do to cure the problem ?

Many thanks

Adrian Hoskins
ajhoskins@FreeUK.com

Just *maybe* it has something to do with your fan...

I read that when your fan is failing or has a voltage-problem, Windows will have the computer start playing classical-music or "It's a Small World, After All". (!)

Sounds strange, but that's what I read at www.windows-help.net (http://www.windows-help.net)



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What these are are BIOS codes letting your sys. know some thing is wrong. you can't just say Beep> bop >beep you'll have to listen carfully to get EXAMPLE: say...one long one short ...one long two short...etc..etc.. there should be some kind of error mess. with these right them done word for word.need to know who made the bios::: AMI::IBM::PHOENIX?? there are a few guys here that know a lot about Bios or visit BIOS Central.hang in there some one will be able to help you out.

Actually, that sounds like either the case alarm or the overheating alarm. Jump into the BIOS at bootup and check the Power Management settings. It should display the active alarm settings and display the current case and CPU temp.

I would suggest starting with the CPU fan. Physically exam it while you boot the computer. Check to see if it is spinning and if any dirt is blocking the flow of air tot he CPU. Fans are pretty cheap. Replacemnts usually come in one of two ball bearing and slip bearing. Stay away from the slip ones and get yourself a nice ball bearing heatsink/fan.

Also, check to see what the alarm is set for. If it's set to go at a very low temp, then boost it up a hair. You don't want to tell it to go off when the CPU is 190 C, but you also don't want it going off when you apply power either. Hope this helps.

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BiosCentral (http://www.bioscentral.com)
BiosCentral Forums (http://www.bioscentral.com/cgi-bin/UltraBoard/UltraBoard.cgi)

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction guys.
The problem was indeed the CPU overheating, but the sound was not produced by the BIOS.
There were no on screen error messages, and the beeps only happened after Windows booted in, which pointed me away from the BIOS.
I found a program running in the background called EPOXUSDM.
It self installed from the driver CD provided by the PC manufacturer and was running in the background without my knowledge.
The program was monitoring the CPU and system temperatures, fan operation and CPU voltage.
I noted the default settings and then adjusted the temperature settings downward and this instantly set the PC beeping away full blast.
The CPU fan was working fine, so for the moment I've upped the CPU temperature setting by a couple of degrees above the default level, and the problem seems to have gone away.
Cheers.