Two Quick Beeps on a Phoenix BIOS

Whenever I fire up this Gateway M465 running Windows 8.1U1 from standby,
I get two quick beeps and then I don't know, like 4 seconds later when
the OS is up and running it repeats with two quick two beeps. All of the
beep errors codes I can find says Phoenix uses three and four beep codes.

I can't find one single thing not functioning correctly except the Start
button disappears a lot but the placement for it is still there. I have
no need for a Start button so I really don't care about that and I wish
I could get rid of it totally anyway.

BIOS holds information, real time clock works fine, RAM doesn't seem to
cause any problems, etc. I am not 100% sure, but it might has happened
since I switched this to SSD. Although I don't see any connections to
the SSD. I do have a Windows 7 SSD drive that I can exchange on this
machine. Although I think the last time I did this, it beeps with that
too. Although I could make sure really fast.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Kingston 120GB SSD - Thunderbird v24.4.0
Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 4GB - Windows 8.1 Pro w/Media Center

BillW50 wrote, On 6/17/2014 12:39 PM:
Whenever I fire up this Gateway M465 running Windows 8.1U1 from standby,
I get two quick beeps and then I don't know, like 4 seconds later when
the OS is up and running it repeats with two quick two beeps. All of the
beep errors codes I can find says Phoenix uses three and four beep codes.

I can't find one single thing not functioning correctly except the Start
button disappears a lot but the placement for it is still there. I have
no need for a Start button so I really don't care about that and I wish
I could get rid of it totally anyway.

BIOS holds information, real time clock works fine, RAM doesn't seem to
cause any problems, etc. I am not 100% sure, but it might has happened
since I switched this to SSD. Although I don't see any connections to
the SSD. I do have a Windows 7 SSD drive that I can exchange on this
machine. Although I think the last time I did this, it beeps with that
too. Although I could make sure really fast.

Try replacing the cmos battery.

--
...winston
msft mvp consumer apps

On 6/17/2014 12:21 PM, ...winston wrote:
BillW50 wrote, On 6/17/2014 12:39 PM:
Whenever I fire up this Gateway M465 running Windows 8.1U1 from standby,
I get two quick beeps and then I don't know, like 4 seconds later when
the OS is up and running it repeats with two quick two beeps. All of the
beep errors codes I can find says Phoenix uses three and four beep codes.

I can't find one single thing not functioning correctly except the Start
button disappears a lot but the placement for it is still there. I have
no need for a Start button so I really don't care about that and I wish
I could get rid of it totally anyway.

BIOS holds information, real time clock works fine, RAM doesn't seem to
cause any problems, etc. I am not 100% sure, but it might has happened
since I switched this to SSD. Although I don't see any connections to
the SSD. I do have a Windows 7 SSD drive that I can exchange on this
machine. Although I think the last time I did this, it beeps with that
too. Although I could make sure really fast.

Try replacing the cmos battery.

You are guessing? Or you know something that two quick beeps means the
BIOS battery is failing? As I haven't seen any evidence that the BIOS is
failing at all. Although it could be, but it is still working just fine
otherwise.

Another machine (different manufacture and model) shows any signs the
BIOS battery is there at all. If I remove the main battery and the AC
power it forgets all CMOS settings and the RTC gets sets to 1/1/2005 or
something (takes like 15 seconds to set things correctly). I've been
meaning to take it apart (it is a tablet) and see if the BIOS battery is
disconnected, dead, or what. But if the main battery still has a change
or the AC is there, all is fine anyway. So I am waiting for the
annoyance factor to kick in before I do something about it.

This machine still beeps regardless of the main battery or AC. So it
means something, but the BIOS battery isn't one that pops up in my mind.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Kingston 120GB SSD - Thunderbird v24.4.0
Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 4GB - Windows 8.1 Pro w/Media Center

BillW50 wrote:

Whenever I fire up this Gateway M465 running Windows 8.1U1 from standby,
I get two quick beeps and then I don't know, like 4 seconds later when
the OS is up and running it repeats with two quick two beeps. All of the
beep errors codes I can find says Phoenix uses three and four beep codes.

http://www.pchell.com/hardware/beepc...IOS_Beep_Codes

Create a bootable CD with memtest86+. Test your memory.

However, I've also read that 2 short beeps indicates a CMOS error. This
comes back to winston's suggestion of replacing the CMOS battery. If
this battery is weak or dead (and there is no other power, like
regulating a 5V supply coming from main battery or AC/DC converter) then
the CMOS copy gets overwritten from the BIOS settings in EEPROM. This
means any customized settings in the CMOS copy of the BIOS settings are
lost and the default ones are read from EEPROM to put into the CMOS
table. How old is this laptop?

Replacing the CMOS battery in a laptop can be very difficult. Some have
access panels on the bottom and you might get lucky in reaching the CMOS
battery although you might need a small long bent needle-nose pliers
with the battery being off to the side of the opening. You'll probably
be unlucky in that you have to dismantle the laptop to get at the CMOS
battery because it is not near the opening for an access panel or the
battery is on the other side of the motherboard. If you feel
comfortable dismantling a laptop then go for it; else, take it to a
shop. Some folks will cut out a hole in the bottom of the case near
where they see online pictures showing where is the battery's location,
then cover it with tape or hot-glue a thin plastic sheet to cover their
cutout.

http://www.computerrecyclingllc.com/...30812-8701.JPG

That shows the mobo for a Gateway MA6 M465. The hard drive is on the
visible side. Since the hard drive is accessed using a panel cover on
the bottom of the case, that's the bottom side of the mobo (when
installed in the laptop an the laptop is upright). I see no CMOS
battery on that side. It looks like the CMOS battery is not accessible
from the bottom. A bottom panel won't let you get at the CMOS battery.
Cutting a hole in the bottom of the case won't let you get at the CMOS
battery. You have to dismantle the case (up to the point of removing
the keyboard) to get at the other side of the keyboard.

http://www.computerrecyclingllc.com/...30812-8027.JPG

That is the other (top) side of the mobo. See the green-colored wafer
with wires soldered onto the mobo? It has a 2-pin connector on the end
that goes to a 2-pin header on the mobo. So you'll have to buy that
type of battery (not the CR-2032 wafer type that slides into a holder
soldered on the board). The bad part is you may have to dismantle the
case to, at least, remove the keyboard to get at that side of the mobo.

That laptop came out around Feb 2006. That's more than 8 years ago.
The CMOS battery is dead if yours is just as old. I don't know how long
they had this unit in production. First remove the access panels just
to be check if the battery is accessible on that side of the mobo. Most
OEMers sell products based on specs, not on specific part numbers for
the components inside. So it's possible the pictured mobo isn't the one
you have.

I didn't find a Youtube video on that specific model that showed how to
dissemble the laptop (to see up to the point in the video on how to
remove the keyboard). I did find an inquiry where the response said you
only had to take out a couple screws on the bottom and pry off the power
button strip to lift out the keyboard to get at the CMOS battery (see
http://aolanswers.com/questions/cmos...5709237907113).

You might want to instead call a local computer shop and ask them for a
price quote on replacing that laptop's CMOS battery.

BillW50 wrote:
Whenever I fire up this Gateway M465 running Windows 8.1U1 from standby,
I get two quick beeps and then I don't know, like 4 seconds later when
the OS is up and running it repeats with two quick two beeps. All of the
beep errors codes I can find says Phoenix uses three and four beep codes.

I can't find one single thing not functioning correctly except the Start
button disappears a lot but the placement for it is still there. I have
no need for a Start button so I really don't care about that and I wish
I could get rid of it totally anyway.

BIOS holds information, real time clock works fine, RAM doesn't seem to
cause any problems, etc. I am not 100% sure, but it might has happened
since I switched this to SSD. Although I don't see any connections to
the SSD. I do have a Windows 7 SSD drive that I can exchange on this
machine. Although I think the last time I did this, it beeps with that
too. Although I could make sure really fast.


For a short period of time (one BIOS generation), some
idiot thought it would be cool to have the BIOS beep
for each detected USB device.

The pitch of the beep was modified a little bit. And
in conversation about this, we developed the shorthand of
"beep" and "boop". Where a "boop" was the USB detected noise,
and the "beep" was the regular, single, POST beep.

The Asus fix for this "mistaken feature", was to disable
all PC beep case speaker output at the BIOS level. Rather
than disabling the code doing this and just stopping the
"boop". Which tells me, Asus didn't have source code to
make the change, and the BIOS company owned that part.

Later BIOS no longer had that feature, and we heard our
last "boop" from new hardware.

You can try:

1) Remove excess USB devices as a test. Or add more of them.
See if the "boop" count increases or decreases as appropriate.

2) When the sounds come out, note what stage the BIOS POST screen
is at. And whether USB devices are being enumerated at the time.

There will be no control in the BIOS, to disable "boops".
It was an ill thought out idea, and so it didn't have any
interface in the Setup screen.

HTH,
Paul