What causes one loud continuous BEEP and system lock up?

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me

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Got a Dell Latitude D820, WXP, all service packs and drivers up to date.

Lately, no matter what I might be doing (even walking away and doing nothing

at all), the laptop will spontaneously freeze and there is a non-stop LOUD,

continuous beep. You can't even push the power button and shut down. Must

remove battery and/or unplug the stop the horrible noise. Sometimes it

happens after being on the laptop 5 minutes, other times it won't happen

until several hours have gone by.



I have done some Google searches and even basic hardware diagnostics to no

avail. Anybody ever hear of this? Any ideas?
 
Over heating ? - there is a program specifically for Dell computers to help

monitor & control fans and sensors: http://www.diefer.de/i8kfan/index.html

As a alternative you can use SpeedFan 4.40:

http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php



"me" wrote in message

news:6E7A3BE9-526E-48B7-AA4F-6C53E7DF7EAF@microsoft.com...

> Got a Dell Latitude D820, WXP, all service packs and drivers up to date.

> Lately, no matter what I might be doing (even walking away and doing

> nothing

> at all), the laptop will spontaneously freeze and there is a non-stop

> LOUD,

> continuous beep. You can't even push the power button and shut down.

> Must

> remove battery and/or unplug the stop the horrible noise. Sometimes it

> happens after being on the laptop 5 minutes, other times it won't happen

> until several hours have gone by.

>

> I have done some Google searches and even basic hardware diagnostics to no

> avail. Anybody ever hear of this? Any ideas?
 
"me" wrote in message

news:6E7A3BE9-526E-48B7-AA4F-6C53E7DF7EAF@microsoft.com...

> Got a Dell Latitude D820, WXP, all service packs and drivers up to date.

> Lately, no matter what I might be doing (even walking away and doing

> nothing

> at all), the laptop will spontaneously freeze and there is a non-stop

> LOUD,

> continuous beep. You can't even push the power button and shut down.

> Must

> remove battery and/or unplug the stop the horrible noise. Sometimes it

> happens after being on the laptop 5 minutes, other times it won't happen

> until several hours have gone by.

>

> I have done some Google searches and even basic hardware diagnostics to no

> avail. Anybody ever hear of this? Any ideas?



There are a number of things that will cause those symptoms- a key stuck

down, bad memory, or overheating all will cause a continuous beep and

freezing. Although usually (but not always) overheating will shut it down.

Check inside and see if there is any dust build up, and if there is any,

remove it. Try disconnecting your hard drive and plugging it back in, and

removing and replacing the RAM. If you have any cards (Cardbus or whatever

your notebook uses), remove them and see if the problem reoccurs.

If you don't have any stuck keys, download Memtest86

http://www.memtest86.com/download.html , create the boot CD, and test your

RAM.

--

SC Tom
 
??



however, you might want

to try and posting the

question to the dell

community forums.



--



db·´¯`·...¸>

DatabaseBen, Retired Professional

- Systems Analyst

- Database Developer

- Accountancy

- Veteran of the Armed Forces

- Microsoft Partner

- @hotmail.com

~~~~~~~~~~"share the nirvana" - dbZen



>

>



"me" wrote in message news:6E7A3BE9-526E-48B7-AA4F-6C53E7DF7EAF@microsoft.com...

> Got a Dell Latitude D820, WXP, all service packs and drivers up to date.

> Lately, no matter what I might be doing (even walking away and doing nothing

> at all), the laptop will spontaneously freeze and there is a non-stop LOUD,

> continuous beep. You can't even push the power button and shut down. Must

> remove battery and/or unplug the stop the horrible noise. Sometimes it

> happens after being on the laptop 5 minutes, other times it won't happen

> until several hours have gone by.

>

> I have done some Google searches and even basic hardware diagnostics to no

> avail. Anybody ever hear of this? Any ideas?
 
You should post to alt.sys.pc-clone.dell if you can do so.



My Latitude D800 let out a very long and unhappy beep that would not

stop after I spilled some water on the rug it was sitting on. I doubt if

you did that to your system, but if you did, get the battery out, unplug

the power cord *right now* and leave it to dry for a minimum of several

days!



Consider opening expansion card doors as well.



It wicked the water up into the system unit, as the carpet was deep pile

stuff. A few days in front of a fan fixed it, and everything has been

fine since.



It's very likely you have a bad system board if there is no other

obvious problem and diagnostics don't reveal anything. However, you

might want to try booting into another operating system (such as a Linux

Live CD) to see if the misbehavior persists.



Finally, try disconnecting any hardware plugged into the machine.

Perhaps an external device is causing problems.



William
 
"me" wrote...

> Got a Dell Latitude D820, WXP, all service packs and drivers up to date.

> Lately, no matter what I might be doing (even walking away and doing nothing

> at all), the laptop will spontaneously freeze and there is a non-stop LOUD,

> continuous beep. You can't even push the power button and shut down. Must

> remove battery and/or unplug the stop the horrible noise. Sometimes it

> happens after being on the laptop 5 minutes, other times it won't happen

> until several hours have gone by.

>

> I have done some Google searches and even basic hardware diagnostics to no

> avail. Anybody ever hear of this? Any ideas?



It's most probably overheating. If not, it could be bad RAM.



How much RAM you have in your system?
 
On Feb 16, 1:09 pm, me wrote:

> Got a Dell Latitude D820, WXP, all service packs and drivers up to date.  

> Lately, no matter what I might be doing (even walking away and doing nothing

> at all), the laptop will spontaneously freeze and there is a non-stop LOUD,

> continuous beep.  You can't even push the power button and shut down.  Must

> remove battery and/or unplug the stop the horrible noise.  Sometimes it

> happens after being on the laptop 5 minutes, other times it won't happen

> until several hours have gone by.  

>

> I have done some Google searches and even basic hardware diagnostics to no

> avail.  Anybody ever hear of this?  Any ideas?  



Sounds like heat (too much). If you run a temperature monitoring

program, will you know how much is too much and what will you do if it

indicates overheating?



Just take it apart and give it a good cleaning (periodic maintenance).



Does it look like this picture?



http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1GGLS_enUS332US332&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=Dell+Latitude+D820



There are links in the above article specific to your laptop, for

example, here is a service manual:



http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/latd820/en/sm/index.htm



I don't think it matters how much RAM you have but if you would like

to test it, you can do that too:



Run a test of your RAM with memtest86+ (I know it is boring and will

cost you a CD).



Memtest86+ is a more up to date version of the old memtest program and

they are not the same.



The memtest86+ will not run under Windows, so you will need to

download the ISO file and create a bootable CD, boot on that and then

run the memtest86+ program.



If even a single error is reported that is a failure and should make

you suspicious of your RAM.



If you have multiple sticks of RAM you may need to run the test on

them one at a time and change them out to isolate the failure to a

particular single stick. Always keep at least the first bank of RAM

occupied so the test will find something to do and there is enough to

boot your system.



Sometimes, reseating the RAM in the slots will relieve the error but a

failure is still cause for suspicion.



The file and instructions are here:



http://www.memtest.org/



If someone says to run memtest86, you can say that you know memtest86+

supercedes memtest86 and here's why:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memtest86
 
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