XPS Studio 7100 Dell. 4 beeps constantly at startup.

Anoop101.

Below is the beep code chart for this system.

System Beep Codes

The Studio XPS 7100 can emit a series of beeps during start-up if the display cannot show errors or problems. These series of beeps, called beep codes, identify various problems.

1. 3 means 3-3-3-3...That is 3 beeps and 3 beeps and ...: Endless looping until user presses the power button to shut down the system.
2. The delay between each beep is 300ms, The delay between each set of beeps is 3 sec, The beep sound last 300ms.
3. After each beep and each set of beeps, the BIOS should detect if the user presses the power button, if so, BIOS will jump out from looping and execute the normal shutdown process and power system.

Power LED Status	Beep	Description	Failure Coverage
	1	BIOS ROM checksum in progress or failure. BIOS Chip	System board failure, covers BIOS corruption or ROM error
	2	No RAM Detected	No memory detected
	3	Chipset Error (North and South Bridge Chipset, DMA/IMR/Timer Error for Intel platform); Chipset Error	System board Failure (Power LED Blinking Amber)
		Time-Of-Day Clock test failure.
		Gate A20 failure
		Super I/O chip failure
		Keyboard controller test failure.
	4	RAM Read/Write failure	Memory failure
	5	RTC Power Fail	COMS battery failure
	6	Video BIOS Test Failure	Video card failure

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Thanks for that.

However, the problem still remains. 

I have taken out the 4 RAM memory sticks, I even reshuffled them about.

Still I get 4 beeps!

I must tell you that I attempted to clean the motherboard by using air pressure can, there was some liquid that may have dropped but it evaporated onto the motherboard. could this be the cause of the problem?

I'm scared I have damaged the motherboard, and it may have died.

I still don't know what the problem is.

should I purchase a motherboard tester to see if it it's not the motherboard and may be some other underlying problem?

Do you have an add-in video card (AMD or NVidia)?

Add-in video cards have memory chips on them, so try reseating the video card in its slot because sometimes a 4 beep error can mean the video card RAM. (You can't remove the RAM from the video card and reseat it.)

After reseating the video card, remove motherboard battery and press/hold power button for ~30 sec to see if you can clear the error. Then reinstall the battery, close up and see if it boots now.

Thanks for the prompt reply / help.

i tried doing that, but still I get 4 beeps.

I even tried taking the graphics card out just to be assured that it's not graphics card problem and left the ram memory sticks in, and still get 4 beeps.

I've looked at purchasing the same motherboard again to test and see if it isn't a RAM sticks or graphics card or is indeed the motherboard.

I never knew fixing a computer would be soo time consuming haha!

Computers are black boxes into which you pour time! :Wink:

Did you press/hold power button for ~30 sec (with PC unplugged) after you removed the video card?

If you take all 4 RAM modules out and reboot, do you get 2 beeps? If not, motherboard failure is possible.

Don't  know how much a new motherboard will cost, but only you can decide if it's worth the money to put a new motherboard in this older system, vs putting that money toward a new PC.

Glad you got it working again. :Yes: