Topic: Calling 'beep' experts!

[Simon]

What does 4 beeps on boot up mean?  Actually it's more like one longish beep, then three slightly shorter ones.  This happened after installing a new PCI graphics card in an oldish PC.  The card and display work OK, it's just the beeps that are worrying!

P.S.  The machine only has 32Mb of memory!

[Adept]

It depends on the BIOS in question Simon, but most BIOSes these days are AMI or AWARD so I'm afraid it probably means a base memory fault.

This site lists all the various beeps.

[Simon]

So I guess I need to find out which BIOS it is.  If it's AMI or AWARD, how could a new graphics card cause "Conventional/Extended memory failure"?  Could upgrading the memory help?

[Adept]

It's amazing how often changing one component on a PC messes up something else

Maybe you should check the memory stick(s) is(are) firmly in place too.

[Simon]

OK, will do.  I was just wondering if it was because the graphics card is 64Mb, and the machine only has 32Mb RAM?  Another 128Mb stick has been ordered from Crucial.

[Sandra]

An increase in ram is unlikely to alter the graphics card Simon although it will improve the overall performance of the PC no doubt.The memory on the card is all it will need for the graphics,thats why its there.My pc has on board graphics so it uses 8mbs of my ram to run the graphics,if I fitted a PCI card and disabled the on board bit it would releas the 8mbs that its using now