Why wont my computer turn on?!

[GaminJock14]

Hello everyone. So a few months ago, my laptop started acting really stupid.... whenever I would try and turn it on, it would give me 3 little beeps, one long one and the other two short ones. But when I would turn it off and back on, it would work normally. This would happen to me everyday, every time I turned it off. But now, it doesnt turn back on when I turn it on and off, it just stays with the 3 little beeps, and a black screen. The last time I turned it off, it lasted 2 weeks to turn on. I dont know whats happening to it, but I cant keep having this problem. Ive asked some of my relatives that know a bit about computers and stuff, and they said it was the hard drive or the video card. I doubt that because when the computer DOES turn on, it works as if nothing happened. Please, Im in desperate need of help, any kind of support is wanted. Please help. My Laptop model is a Toshiba Satellite X205-SLi2, Im using Win7, and my video card is a NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT. Please help.

[Illiad86]

Do you know what kind of BIOS it is? AmiBIOS or Award? They give different error beeps..AmiBIOS it's the RAM..in Award BIOS it's the graphics card.

 

Give the laptop a good spray with canned air and reseat your RAM. Your RAM might be dying or the graphics card is fried...but dust can cause these issues too.

[Skotte]

I googled, & found this page >Computer POST / beep codes<

 

Hope that helps

[GaminJock14]

Do you know what kind of BIOS it is? AmiBIOS or Award? They give different error beeps..AmiBIOS it's the RAM..in Award BIOS it's the graphics card.

 

Give the laptop a good spray with canned air and reseat your RAM. Your RAM might be dying or the graphics card is fried...but dust can cause these issues too.

 

 

Im not sure what kind of BIOS it is. How do I check?

And how do I reset the RAM?

(Lol, sorry, Im no computer expert, so youll have to excuse me)

[Illiad86]

Re seat :) Take the RAM out of it's slots, wipe them off if there's dust on em, and put them back in the slots :)

 

When you computer beeps that black screen before it goes to Windows loading is the POST screen...you have to hit Delete normally...sometimes it's F12 or F11 or one of those on Dells, HPs, etc. to access the BIOS. But it really sounds like a RAM problem if all you are getting is 3 short beeps.

[GaminJock14]

Re seat :) Take the RAM out of it's slots, wipe them off if there's dust on em, and put them back in the slots :)

 

When you computer beeps that black screen before it goes to Windows loading is the POST screen...you have to hit Delete normally...sometimes it's F12 or F11 or one of those on Dells, HPs, etc. to access the BIOS. But it really sounds like a RAM problem if all you are getting is 3 short beeps.

But wont that delete everything stored in my computer?

[Illiad86]

Nah...RAM is Random Access Memory...your hard drive is your storage of all of your items on your computer.

[bben46]

It sounds as if you really don't know much about computer hardware. Messing around with it by yourself can be an expensive way to learn. There is not much you can do with a failed laptop - cleaning or replacing the RAM is one of the few things you can do yourself without much risk.

 

If cleaning & reseating the ram doesn't help, you may need professional help - this can be expensive, so weigh the cost of replacing against the cost of repairs. Typically if the repair cost is more than one third of the replacement cost - you will be better off replacing. However, if you are short of cash ( and who isn't) replacing may not be an option.

 

Depending on the type of ram, it may be cost effective to replace the ram modules - if you can clean them as Illiad suggested, you can replace them. Look online, Both Tigerdirect.com and Newegg.com have good ram finding programs to help find the proper ram for your particular computer. Once you know the proper type, you can buy them from many sources - but those two have the best return policies - a cheap source may not accept returns for any reason.

 

This would also be a good time to upgrade to more ram. - So if your computer presently has 1Gig of ram, look for a deal on 2 or 3Gig. Unless you have a 64 bit operating system more than 3Gig would be a waste. as the 32 bit systems can only use about 3.5 Gig (but ram doesn't come in 3.5G size) And Oblivion is limited to 2 Gig - the rest would be used by the operating system. If your choices for ram are 1G, 2G and 4G (no 3Gig) 4Gig will work, it just won't use it all.

[Vagrant0]

Figure I might as well put it out there. I banned the OP yesterday for piracy, so it could just simply be that the pirated version they downloaded led to the issues they were experiencing.