Ah, the joys of hardware!
Last night, as I was reaching the end of the first shift (5:00PM, which is followed by a dinner break and then the second shift – ah, the joys of writing books about beta software), my computer screen suddenly went black. A second earlier, I had a half-dozen apps open, and then … nothing.
After trying in vain to make something reappear on the screen, I pressed the power switch, held it down for five seconds, and waited as the computer restarted. This time I heard, from inside the case, three faint beeps. Nothing appeared on the screen, however. And I mean nothing. No BIOS messages, no Intel logo, no prompts from a storage adapter … nothing.
I took the cover off the computer, powered it on again, and checked inside. Everything looked normal. All fans were working, I could hear chattering noises from each hard drive at startup, and nothing was emitting smoke.
Eventually, I solved the problem. What troubleshooting did I have to do, and what was the solution?
All the information you need is in the post above.
Update: I have two monitors attached to this system. Both went black at precisely the same time, and the power light remained on for each one. So no, the solution wasn’t as simple as plugging in the monitor.
There have been some good comments so far. The correct answer might even be in there already. I’m going to leave comments open for the rest of the day to give working folks (especially those who can’t check this site during the workday) a chance to take a crack at it.
Update #2: This is not the same computer that experienced memory problems a few weeks ago. That was a Dell server. This is a desktop machine that was built by Mwave in August 2005.
OK, here’s the answer.
Ed Bott 
Could it be a memory failure?
Plug the monitor back in?
Sorry I didn’t answer the whole question.
It’s been a while since I fixed a problem like this but I would have looked up what 3 beeps mean during the boot process. I looked it up and most sites say it is some sort of memory or video card error depending on the mobo brand.
Since you say you heard the hard drives working like normal but there was nothing on your screen I would assume Windows is booting. I would then check replace the video card and see what happens.
I have to concur with Brent. I would first guess video card and then second memory. However I must say it is not something I usually see where a video card would just blink out like that, unless it overheated to a failure point.
Re-securely plug the power plug back into the rear of the monitor where it had gradually worked loose.
Happens almost every day where I work!
If it were the monitor why would the computer beep three times?
Guilty of not reading the full post either.
1) You inspected (as stated) the inside of your case and verifying the pc system appeared to be booting with normal functions (fans, systemboard LED’s, drive chatter).
2) You verified your cables were firmly screwed in/attached in the back of your pc systemboard.
3) You turned your attention to the monitor and noticed the power-light was off. Attempts to re-power the monitor using the switch/button failed.
4) You re-plugged the power cord into the strip and also unplugged/replugged the cord where it goes into the back of the pc. Your monitor power light came on (and so did your display if your pc was already running.)
5) The beeps from the system board were telling you that the video system was not finding a monitor attached–since it wasn’t getting power.
6) You may have also tried to swap out with a “known-good” monitor you kept as a spare…and in getting that one up and getting a good display and putting the other on, you firmly replugged the power cord into the back of the original monitor, causing to “go-live” again.
–Claus
I don’t know the answer, but something very similar to this once happened to me. I simply unplugged everything to kill all power, waited a few minutes, plugged everything back in, and rebooted. It worked.
Could be a number of things:
* Video card came loose from its slot. This is the first thing I’d check. Make sure other cards are seated properly too. As other folks said, it could be that the video card went bad, but this is REALLY rare.
* Heat. Make sure the CPU and video card heatsinks are set correctly and the heatsink fans are working. Make sure power supply fan is working.
* Memory problem. Start removing DIMMS to see if that fixes the problem.
* BIOS battery problem. The faint beeps may mean that the BIOS battery died.
Three beeps… Your monitor was unplugged. Why, oh why didn’t I check your blog earlier? I coulda been first!
You didn’t specify if any of the beeps were long or short so this is a best guess. Like many said I would check that the video card is properly seated. I would probably remove it anyway and reseat it to be sure.
While the card is out check for oxidation on the contacts too. You can clean them with a pencil eraser. That was a hot tip back in the day.
bill
CMOS/BIOS battery problems might trigger beeps but they’d get reported on-screen, I think.
I’ll say… you remembered tracing your recent server problem to bad RAM. By shuffling DIMMS in the current problem system you gave the PC enough good RAM in “lower” address space to re-enable normal startup and operation. You could then run your more extensive memory diagnostics on your semi-working system to isolate the bad memory module(s). Again. So to speak.
OK, I should have looked before I posted. It could be a memory failure on your video card, but if you didn’t see an Intel logo (and I assume you are used to seeing one when you power up), that means a Phoenix/Award BIOS. Three beeps? Did you check the bottom of your computer case for a few spare bits? Did memory come up a bit (or two) short? I was going to suggest that one of the cats walked over your power strip and turned off your monitors, but your update said the power lights were still on.
With the dual-monitor info, I would also have to support Brent’s suggestion that the card needed to be re-seated. Don’t know if your system board has on-board video or not.
If so, one can try plugging a single monitor on to that to see if you get normal video/boot. That would isolate the issue to the video card. It wouldn’t take much work to pull the card, clean the contacts (with an eraser like was suggested), re-seat it, and blow any dust out of the system/cpu heatsink/fan. Hook up a monitor cable (or both) and reboot to test.
I’ve never used a “high-end” video card, but am I right in thinking some require a separate direct power-connection as well? If so, maybe that could have also need to be reseated?
These are fun exercises! Thanks Ed!
You had a memory failure on your first chip. I believe you have an AMI mobo and the three beeps signify a memory failure of the first 64k bank. You tried cleaning/reseating/replacing the memory and it worked great.
Do we win prizes?
3 faint beeps = Graphics card got loose?
If the video card stopped working, your displays would go blank. And (I think) if POST detected a video adapter failure it could trigger some beeps. So, troubleshooting. Two monitors means 3rd party graphics card in either AGP or PCI slot. First try reseating card. Then if AGP, remove the card, connect a monitor to mainboard video if available or different adapter. If PCI, first try a different slot, then try mainboard video or different adapter.
And then I thought, “hibernation?” Nah…
Definitely the video card: either it needed re-seating, or, if it uses a separate power connector, that had most probably come loose.
Carl? THAT Carl? Geez, you sure this thing ain’t rigged? (But wait — he didn’t win anything. Lucky, too, ’cause he sure doesn’t need a book. In fact, with all he has to do, he shouldn’t even be spending time replying to your challenge.)
Nope, different Carl. As far as I know THAT Carl is busy working on some big project and only stopped in here because I was using this as an excuse to avoid my part of the same proj…
Er, never mind.