Asus Computer Gives One Long Beep and Three Short Beeps at Startup

I had computer in today that had an interesting problem. The client had brought in an old Asus computer that had data he wanted transferred to a new computer. As soon as I turned it on, I heard one long beep and three short ones. Nothing was showing up on the screen, it was blank and the computer wasn’t even getting passed post. The client had no idea how this was happened as they had been using the computer that very morning.

Checking the Asus documentation, I found beeps indicated a memory error so I replaced RAM but the beeps continued.

As there was no picture being shown on the screen, I wondered if the video card was at fault. There was no on board video, just one plugged into an AGP slot so I removed it and put in a second hand one. Sure enough, the computer booted properly with no beeps. I put the original video card back in and it also booted correctly.

I think that the video card might have become unseated when it was being transferred to where I work and for some reason, the BIOS saw this as a memory error.

So if you own an Asus computer and it gives one long beep and three short ones, it may be the video card, not the RAM.

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