Hey.

I was visiting my relatives today and they told me to take a look at their really old Hewlett Packard PC which has Windows 98 since something was wrong with it.

So I booted it and it instantly started doing long beeps continously, the windows loading screen came up and it loaded for a while (still beeping). After that screen went black for about 15secs and it started to load windows again, but this time the beeps changed to short beeps that kept repeating. It got stuck in an endless loop loading windows over and over again but never got past it and the beeping never stopped.

Didn't have time to check out BIOS yet but gonna check that tomorrow.

Bad PSU or some RAM problem maybe?

edit: it also did show artifacts on the screen before and after windows loading screen

Have you googled the beeps?

AFAIK the beep Morse codes are standard across different manufacturers/platforms.

I did google and found info about continous long beeps but nothing about continous short beeps. And different sites said that long beeps are PSU problem and other sites said it's something else so not sorta sure which one to trust

Can/Have you counted out the long and short beeps and found the repeat point?

The error beep code repeats after a short while, And you have to get the code right (otherwise you lookup an unrelated error)

Each combination of short and long beeps means something different.

Do you know the error beep code?, If so could you post it?

HTH

While it could be bad PSU, bad RAM, overheating CPU (i.e. thermal grease not correctly making contact with the sink), bad IDE cable, bad HDD, bad GPU.

Something you can do easily and save a lot of time is to open the case and look for bad caps.

If it looks like this:

Or if they look like the Pisa Tower:

Then those caps need to be replaced. Or just throw the motherboard into your nearest recycle center.

By the way, if you have bad caps, it's also possible the PSU is sending poor quality power output which damaged the caps in the first place.

Windows 98.... holy cow. If the hardware is just as old, your relatives are actually quite lucky the thing still boots up.

I had problems with the PC once (not so stone age, mind you), and was able to figure it out with the beep morse code.

Last thing to take into account: can't be the RAM, else you wouldn't get far enough for windows to load. If something is wrong with RAM, you get a black screen, a bad beep morse code, and will not even reach the BIOS.

really old Hewlett Packard PC which has Windows 98

I wouldn't bother with fixing it. I would get a new computer. Or an old computer.

To recover their data I'd move the drive over to the new machine and copy over what they want salvaged.

But if you are intent on actually addressing the hardware issue:

I did google and found info about continous long beeps but nothing about continous short beeps. And different sites said that long beeps are PSU problem and other sites said it's something else so not sorta sure which one to trust

Others were a big vague here, talking about "Morse code".

Since the boards don't have a way to communicate problems, they have a speaker that would beep. (Newer computers often just have a place for the speaker with none plugged in.)

They beep out a pattern, often treated similar to Morse code.

Nearly all the vendors use one short beep as "everything checks out". Other than that, every vendor is different.

Two short beeps was usually a memory test error, it would often show up on the screen as well.

One long beep followed by three short beeps meant the graphics card had failed.

For several companies, a pattern of four short beeps, three short beeps, four short beeps meant the clock battery needed to be replaced.

A long-short-long-short endlessly repeating pattern meant your CPU was damaged.

So if you really want to try to fix it (I wouldn't), you need to figure out what the beep pattern is, and on another computer look up the beep code for the motherboard.

Thanks all for the replies, I'm sure to check for bad caps tomorrow.

And yeah I'm trying to find out the problem, since my relatives only use the PC for playing Solitaire and I don't think they feel like buying a new PC just for that heh (they're really old).

The long beeps are like:

*long beep*

(~0.2 second pause)

and repeat. that repeates like over 20-30 or more times, it goes so fast it's impossible to keep track of how many times it beeps but it's alot.

Same with the short beeps:

*short beep*

(~0.2 second pause)

and repeat +30 times.

There is no short beep, long beep or any other special pattern

The beeping is constant as long as the PC is running, there is no longer than 0.2s pause between them. However the beeping starts maybe after 5 seconds after booting up while the screen shows some artifacts on the screen and goes to windows loading screen

The PC never loads to windows, it just keeps starting the windows load screen again and again once it has loaded it a while

Some GPUs will also beep if you forget to plug in their auxiliary power connectors. Though with an HP computer that old, I doubt it even has a separate GPU.

Also, you should open it up and clean all the dust out. Sometimes dust alone is enough to cause these problems. You should see my parents' computer...

Some GPUs will also beep if you forget to plug in their auxiliary power connectors. Though with an HP computer that old, I doubt it even has a separate GPU.

Also, you should open it up and clean all the dust out. Sometimes dust alone is enough to cause these problems. You should see my parents' computer...

It actually has separate GPU, PNY something I installed a long loooong time ago, but it has no power connectors at all it's just plugged in to the motherboard