No display + no floppy + one long beep and two short beeps

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spiv
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Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Sep 16, 2003 5:54 am

Well hold your pants people because this one is a long story:
Well i have a major problem with my laptop is a Omnibook 900B laptop that was from my brother in law, that for some reason it stopped to work (he thought it was the hd). For sometime he store it until I tell him to give it to me so i could fix it and keep it and he said ok. Well I sent the lap to two repair shops (one said the CPU was dead and the second said the motherboard was dead) and the result was still a dead lap. The situation was this: turn power on then led of power turned on, then the fan turned on for a couple of seconds then a long beep and two short beep followed. No display and no activity ever apart from the beeps.
Well after this two strikes i was to give up, but after picking up the lap from the second repair in my school I turned it on and oh my god it booted up perfectly. After this for three whole weeks it was perfect, no problems at all even when it compiled for hours the OS that I was putting to it (Gentoo Linux (with fine ventilation)). My theory of this regeneration was that the lap got some humidity and dirt trapped in vital connections (was in California in a closet) and with the opening in the repair shops this was "released" and was back to fuctional. So the dead CPU or motherboard were big lies
But finally after a resume from a suspend to disk the video got currepted and I had to reboot. then it got back to the same basal state that i got the lap: power led on, some seconds of the fan activating, no display and then the same beeps
Even when i only use this lap for three weeks i grow attached to it so i want to bring it back to life. Ok lets check the list: the CPU can't be the prob because from my knowledge dead CPU = no beeps, neither the memory because the old 128 stick and a new one that i buy for it of 256 were both i tested with memtest when the system was ok and no error were found apart from hours of compiling without errors. Only the video (but was running fine) and well the BIOS it self.
Well I searched across the internet to solve my problem and here is the info I got:

1)The BIOS of the lap is a Phoenix Bios 4.0 Release 6.0 from what I remember and rechecked in different sites
2)From Phoenix documentation textual: One long beep, two short beeps on checksum failure (98h Post Code) This info and the general state of the lap tells that the BIOS is the fault.
3)Chipset 440BX (PentiumIII) but because I dont got display and any info apart of the beeps I dont know the maker and version of the board
4)The BIOS is a PLCC chip.
5)Downloaded the exe that contain the bios for my machine from HP but like i said before the floopy is not booted

So what I can do ? cant boot and flash the bios, cant be positive of model of motherboard because I dont have a display to see the BIOSID so with that info I could buy a new chip from BadFlash or similar.
After all this story, all I want is to be told what options I have left
Well all I can say is thanks in advance of your time to post.
Rainbow
The UniFlasher
Posts: 3122
Joined: Wed Mar 20, 2002 4:16 pm
Location: Slovakia
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If the flash ROM chip is removable (in a socket), you can have it reflashed or order a new preflashed one.
Maybe there's a bad contact in the socket - I remember this on my old 386SX/25 notebook. I got only blank display with horizonal lines. After pushing the chip into the socket, it started to work, but the problem came back again after some time. Then I removed the chip and bent all the pins of the socket a bit and it worked fine since then.
Patched and tested BIOSes are at http://wims.rainbow-software.org
UniFlash - Flash anything anywhere
kuyalfinator
BIOS Newbie
Posts: 26
Joined: Sat Apr 06, 2002 9:14 pm
Location: Los Angeles, California near Staples Center
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Upgrading and Reparing PCs
ISBN 0-7897-2536-3

PC Troublingshooting Pocket Guide for Managing and Maintaining Your PC.
ISBN 0-619-0537-3

The second book is more a small reference manual for beeps and trouble
shooting steps of why PCs do not work. The first book is a very thick book
that describes anything and everything about PCs as well as laptops.

In my opinion, PCs and laptops are similiar. Laptops are just a micro
version of the PC and should have the same 'beeps' errors. I used the
second book to find out that my memory is what went bad. You must
check with another reference document about your laptop to find out
the possible reason of the beep errors. It also is a good way for you
find trouble shootings steps. Good luck!
We all manage to survive on our inner strength because in the end all we have left is our selves. http://www.geocities.com/kuyalfinator/AlfsResume.htm
Updated Resume http://kuyakuya.freeshell.org/resume
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