Bill Cunningham wrote:
Does anyone know anything about BIOS beep codes? Someone gave me a
computer and it doesn't do anything but beep so many times. That sounds to
me like a BIOS problem. Would that be easy to fix?

Beep codes mean a hardware problem is present.

It could mean some necessary hardware is unplugged.

And in any case, before you turn on a stranger PC you've
never seen before, you visually inspect inside for
trouble first. Are the DIMMs actually plugged in ?
Are the add-in cards still secure ? That's why some
VGA cards have heel-guards, to secure them in place.
But a sound card could come loose.

Beep codes are right-middle on this page.

http://www.bioscentral.com/

*******

Everything in life is "easy" to fix,
for some value of "easy".

For example, if the Northbridge was bad, and
you need a hot air unsoldering machine, to solder on
a new 1600 ball BGA, I have a company in town here
who will do the work for $1000 (more than the price
of the PC). A company in Taiwan will do it for $25
or so. Plus the cost of the $25 chip to replace it,
total price around $50.

With those prices, you could easily find a used
motherboard for less than $50 on Ebay, and fix it
with no messing around at all.

Seeing as you can get Joy Systems refurbished off-lease
computers for $150 or so (Staples sells then, online),
there's a limit to how much "repairing" makes sense.

And this is why you find perfectly good machines
on the side of the road in some neighborhoods. Nobody
can be bothered to pack them up and Ebay them
for not a lot of dollars. If the average Ebay prices
aren't that high, the used market can be pretty dead.

A Joy Systems box now will come with Windows 10 on it,
because that's all they're "legally" allowed to ship.
But since the machines are Core2 Duo with Q45 chips,
they're candidates for WinXP installation if you have a
disc. To run really well, Windows 10 could use a quad
core computer, and an SSD rather than a rotating
hard drive. Whereas a WinXP setup works quite well on
a Core2 Duo, using rotating hard drives.

Paul