# Computer beeps 3 times - No picture on screen



## r3drock3t88 (Jan 13, 2007)

Hey all, I am trying to fix my friends computer and at the start the computer makes 3 beeping noises. I have googled that and apparently it means that the video card is shot or the ram? I had a few video cards just laying around so i tried all of them but none of them worked! So I replaced the ram 64mb ram and that got rid of the beeping noise but the computer still wouldnt boot. I figured this was because it wasnt large enough to boot windows XP so my buddy went out and bougth a 256mb and I installed that and the machine still begins to beep. Any suggestions are much appreciated! thank you in advance.


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## Rich-M (May 3, 2006)

This sounds like an old pc and I will just bet you have the wrong video cards in there. I also wonder if the ram you put in is really compatible either.


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## Kevy214 (Jul 9, 2007)

did you take out the 64mb of ram....if its bad...it will wont let the computer boot......take it out and just put in in 256


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## TeeJayP (Jul 4, 2007)

Sounds like two problems. Bad Video Card and no Ram. Maybe when you replaced the ram the first time the beeping stopped because it liked that ram but the video card still didnt work. Then you bought the 512Mb Ram and either it is bad, to big or incompatible; and now your are back where you started . No memory and bad video card.


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## r3drock3t88 (Jan 13, 2007)

hey all thanks for the responses. The ram is the exact same ram as the one that was previously in there, its 256 mb and is compatible. My friend took it to best buy ( i realize they arent all that knowledgeable  ) and they gave him the ram they said would work fine in the computer. Now onto the other part, I have spare video cards laying all over the place and I know which are good and which are bad. None of them are amazing video cards, infact none of them are even that great of video cards. I tried 5 video cards aside from the one that was in there and they call continue to beep. I tried each video card with the old ram in there, and also each video card with the new ram. 

Before giving me the computer my friend said it worked fine for awhile then all of a sudden it came to a screen saying invalid boot disk or something along those lines, insert disk in a: ... i read somewhere that could be a virus in the boot sector. But when he handed me the computer I never once saw this error, the computer just simply does not boot. It just gives 3 consistent beeps.

I was thinking it could possibly be a bad module in the video card slot? Any other suggestions are much appreciated!


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## Rich-M (May 3, 2006)

Then it has to be motherboard. Any leaking or bulging capacitors?


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