[thackney]

I had a similar reaction with my work Dell Laptop. We had to have a memory chip replaced to get going again.

[captain_dave]

It sounds like your hard drive may have failed.

[Westbrook]

What you’re hearing is a diagnostic beep code, analagous to Morse-code, that tells you what the problem is. The Power On Self Test (POST) in the system BIOS issues the beep code

Do a web search for “beep codes”, and you should be able to find the codes for your system.

Typically, this is a catastrophic hardware failure, like memory or hard disk. It could also be a keyboard failure. Have you spilt anything on your keyboard? :)

[ShadowAce]

[gov_bean_ counter]

Beep, beep, beep....

May be backing up. :)

[Flick Lives]

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

With the laptop turned on, remove the battery. Your beeping problem sounds like something more serious, but if it’s not, this kind of a reset should work.

[The_Victor]

It's usually a series of beep (it used to be three on Dell's desktops) that indicate a hardware failure. It could be memory, part of the motherboard, harddrive, or CPU. You can try your recovery discs (assuming you made them after getting the computer) that might help diagnose it. But if you don't even get as far as the boot screen (the Dell circle) so that you can get into the bios, then the problem is probably pretty severe.

[Salem]

We had a major issue like this a few years ago. The volunteers at Bleeping Computer had it up and running in a few days. For free (we donated a fee anyway).

Http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/

[TheCipher]

There is a slight chance it may be a key is stuck. Press every key a few times and then try to restart it.

[for-q-clinton]

If it’s 7 beeps it’s a bad motherboard or CPU.

[Abathar]

Yank the battery while it is still on, then reinstall it. It worked for me a couple times on a Toshiba that went flaky.

[Slump Tester]

Reseat your ram.

[MomwithHope]

This may not be it, but check your escape key it may be stuck on. That has happened to me a couple of times.

[Carriage Hill]

Dell Beep Codes:

http://support.dell.com/support/systemsinfo/document.aspx?~file=/systems/inspd530/en/om/html/trouble.htm#wp1085300

[raybbr]

I doubt it's the hard drive. If it were you'd get past the beeping. Does anything at all come on the screen? Do you know how to access your BIOS? Usually that means pushing a button about a second after power up and that gets you into the computers internal set up. According to a search you push F2 just after powering up. Does a screen come on telling you what's in your laptop? If not, then the laptop is not "posting". Or, Power On Self Test is not working and that almost always means a hardware issue.

Did you drop it after you turned it off last night? Bump it? If you have the capability pull out the battery, hold down the power button for thirty seconds and then open all the panels underneath. Reseat all hardware which will probably mean just the hard drive and RAM boards.

Also, check to make sure nothing is plugged into your USB ports. Could be a bad flash drive.

Hope that helps.

[Excellence]

Can you hear your hard drive spinning?

[US_MilitaryRules]

Could possibly be the battery. My daughters old dell batteries went out twice on me. I don’t remember it beeping though. Good luck

[BCW]

Faith,

If your laptop is plugged in and not using battery power - then start it up. As soon as you seen the Power On Self Test begin - start clicking the F8 key to attempt to start up the Advance Boot Options Menu.

If that does not work - and it starts beeping - then your memory modules, CPU, or hard drive that contains the operating system has failed and needs to be repaired.

Any number of cuases could have “zapped” those components - or all of them.

A PC Tech is going to have to take it apart to diagnose the issues invovled in determining why the POST will not take you to a SAFE MODE or Normal Operating System log-in.

Seek out an experienced A+ Tech that can test the hardware. It might be a software problem, but unlikely since the beeps are ongoing and not coded...like 3 short beeps then a long beep...

The laptop needs to be professionally looked at.

[Roses0508]

Make sure there are no CD’s in the CD drive and no USB devices attached to the computer. Sometimes those two things can cause failure to boot.