-=PCTechTalk=- Computer beep on login
- From: "cajun12" <cajun12@xxxxxxx>
- To: "PCTechTalk" <pctechtalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2010 23:40:04 -0600
I am having a problem that's driving me crazy, and I can't find very much
information about this specific problem. My computer has suddenly started
emitting one short beep at the login screen, but only if I don't enter my
password quick enough. If I loiter at the login screen for more than 7-8
seconds, it beeps once. Other than that, everything runs perfectly for
hours and hours. I disabled the Windows Splash Screen to see what was going
on back there, and I do see a problem that seems to be fairly common, but
it's not beeping there, and in fact moves on to check C: drive with a clean
slate last after displaying the error message. Windows is doing a drive
check there and C:, D:, and G: check out fine. I am getting a message that
Windows "cannot determine file system of drive \??\Volume{.......} with a
Registry key in the brackets. I've found this in the Registry in the same
areas that all other drives are listed, but I don't know what drive it is.
The list is long. I have had at least 3 external drives plugged in since the
reformat (see below), a USB multi card reader, several USB flash drives, and
my cell phone, and I have no idea which drive this might be.
My 5-1/2 year old home build:
Gigabyte motherboard 8I915P Duo Pro, Socket 775
Pentium 4, 530, 3.0GHZ
Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS sound card
nVidia GeForce 9400GT EVGA graphics card w/1024MB memory
2GB DDR RAM
One 80GB drive partitioned (C: & D:) (IDE drive)
One 1TB drive (G:) (SATA drive)
Floppy drive
Lite-On CD/DVD burner
Zip drive
610W PSU
I ran Windows XP Home on this machine for 5-1/2 years. I finally decided to
update from SP2 to SP3 around the end of October and within a week my
troubles began. All sorts of Windows items (only Windows) started just
disappearing or not working (WMP wouldn't play audio or video, blank window
on Search, etc.), so I reformatted for the first time and started over at
the beginning of November. I was recently given an XP Pro 32 bit upgrade
disk with two retail keys, and I used my Home XP and the XP Pro upgrade
slipstreamed to include SP3 to install Pro and it validated without a hitch.
Got everything reinstalled within a day, and totally customized and tweaked
before the week was out. One to two weeks ago I started noticing that it
was beeping at the login screen. There are two profiles, one with a
password (mine) and one without. If I enter my password quick enough
(within 7 seconds or so), I don't get a beep.
I did have another internal 160GB SATA drive installed, but I took it out
after the reformat. I transferred all info over to the 1TB drive and
uninstalled it. But that was during the first two weeks of the reformat and
the computer was not emitting a beep at login afterwards.
The only serious thing I've had problems with is antivirus. Because it's
getting good reviews, I decided to try the Microsoft Security Essentials,
and at first it ran well. I've always used AVG Free in the past, but I had
problems with it updating before the reformat after updating it to the 2011
version, and it was nagging me to run that PC Analyzer and pay for it. Then
I started noticing that MSE would have an error message that the service
wasn't started and I wasn't protected. I would open the program and click
the button to start the service and all would be well. But the icon wasn't
always visible in the System Tray for me to tell if it was having a problem,
and I'm not USED to having to constantly check my system protection, so I
didn't always notice the minute it started having a problem. One day I
noticed that MSE did not start at all and all efforts to start it manually
from the Start Menu failed, so I uninstalled it and reinstalled AVG Free
2011. I ran full system antivirus scan and a full system Malwarebytes scan
and they turned up nothing. I ran HijackThis on it and ran it through an
analyzer and it turned up nothing.
There is nothing wrong in the BIOS, no errors in Device Manager, and it
passes post with flying colors. It's not overheating. I monitor fans, CPU
temp, hard drive temps, and graphic card temp with SpeedFan and there is
nothing wrong there. I tested the memory and there were no errors. I ran
the quick and extended checks on my WD hard drive with no errors. This is
the drive that Windows is installed on. I cleaned out the inside of the
case a few months ago shortly before the reformat, so it's pretty clean.
I've unplugged all USB devices and started the computer up with no USB
devices, including mouse. I uninstalled all the recent Windows Updates in
case there was a glitch there. I did a System Restore to a week back. I
defragged all drives and partitions. I booted into Safe Mode and it beeps
there, too. I did a Selective Startup. I ran the Autoruns program and
disabled the Windows Autocheck. I totally uninstalled AVG with their
remover tool, rebooted with the Internet disconnected, and it still beeped.
I haven't opened up the case and disconnected anything on the inside, but
all drives work correctly. I haven't created any new profiles since
reformatting and setting up these two, nor have I deleted any. Guest
Account is disabled. Startup items are kept to a minimum, and I don't let
much of anything run that doesn't absolutely have to.
Gosh! I feel like I just wrote a book!
Can anyone give me any hints on any other avenues that I might pursue to
find out what this beep is about? Could this be my board? I'm not
experiencing any instability of any kind, and my clock is still keeping
time.
Thanks. : )
dj
---------------------------------------------------------------
Please remember to trim your replies (including this sentence and everything
below it) and adjust the subject line as necessary.
To subscribe, unsubscribe or modify your email settings:
//www.freelists.org/webpage/pctechtalk
OR
To subscribe to the mailing list, send an email to
pctechtalk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "subscribe" in the Subject. To
unsubscribe send email to pctechtalk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe"
in the Subject.
To access our Archives:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PCTechTalk/messages/
//www.freelists.org/archives/pctechtalk/
To contact only the PCTT Mod Squad, write to:
pctechtalk-moderators@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
To join our separate PCTableTalk off-topic group, send a blank email to:
pctabletalk+subscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
---------------------------------------------------------------
Other related posts:
- » -=PCTechTalk=- Computer beep on login - cajun12
