# Acer Aspire A700 Q6600 desktop will not start, beeps continuously



## philibe (Aug 2, 2009)

Hi All, glad I found this forum and hope I can get some good advise here.

My system (Acer Aspire A700 with Vista Home Premium) will not start. The power button light stays on and there's a beeping (like alarm) sound coming from the PC speaker. The PC does not boot at all, the screen stays black. When I press and hold the power button for 5 sec, the light goes out and alarm stops, a couple of seconds later the blue light on the power button comes back on and stays on, but the PC stays off so is the alarm sound. I unplugged the power cord for 30 min, but as soon as I plug it back in after 2 seconds the beeping starts again without me even pressing the power button. Is there anything I can do, before taking it to a computer shop? Thank you in advance.


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## Tumbleweed36 (May 14, 2005)

A long shot but the beep codes that I think apply:

http://www.pchell.com/hardware/beepcodes.shtml


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## philibe (Aug 2, 2009)

Tumbleweed36 said:


> A long shot but the beep codes that I think apply:
> 
> http://www.pchell.com/hardware/beepcodes.shtml


Thanks for pointing me to the chart. I cant seem to find description of the beeps I hear, they are rather long and keep repeating... The closest description I saw was "repeating short beeps" which might indicate power supply or system board failure. With my limited experience I don't think it's the power supply, because lights come on, I hear the optical drive trying to read and the fans are on full speed like the PC will be taking off...


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## grimx133 (Jan 15, 2008)

Continuous beeps are generally a ram issue. Try reseating the ram. Try one stick only, normally in the slot closest to the cpu. Try and borrow a stick with the same specs to see if that works.

edit - and, of course, clear your cmos.


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## philibe (Aug 2, 2009)

The system is out of warranty, but I just remembered that I bought it on my AMEX and they give me additional year of warranty... Before I start poking at it, I should give them a call tomorrow and see what are the conditions and where is the closest PC repair center they deal with. If it's convenient I rather take it to a professional tech.

Thanks for the RAM suggestion. There's two sticks in there 1GB each, can I take one out and leave the other, and then swap them to see which one is faulty, if fault is in the RAM at all... Will the PC work with only 1 stick under normal conditions...?


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## Tumbleweed36 (May 14, 2005)

Definitely, if it is in any kind of warranty, don't mess with it until you talk to the warranty company.


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## philibe (Aug 2, 2009)

Just took the computer back from the repair shop. It worked perfect as soon as they plugged it in... They tested the board, the memory, everything checked out fine, did a BIOS update and charged me $45. I have no idea what went wrong with this computer, it's a mystery to me... Thank you for replying and Cheers!


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## Tumbleweed36 (May 14, 2005)

Well, at $45, that isn't too bad if you got it up and running. The bios upgrade is worth something. Good luck and let us know if you need further help.


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