Well I got some free computers from work today they are Compaq Evo D510 I think. They are towers. I can take pictures if needed, but my boss was throwing them out and thought they are P4's and I might be able to put some stuff in them and sell them. Well I get them home plug one of them in, and nothing comes up on the display and the following beep sequence starts: one short beep , then 1 semi long beep, and then another semi long beep after.


Does anyone know what is wrong from that, or can anyone lead me to where I can figure what is wrong. For all I know the Motherboards could be bad.

We got 3 computers in like this. One had a HD, RAM, everything. These two just had the mother board, CD-ROM, 3.5mm floppy and a Zip drive. Also with processor and all that.


If someone could help I would appreciate it.

well if the computer you got didnt have all necessary parts it wouldnt work. my friends had a problem similar to this, although we never figured it out and he just used a different one. but his started beeping soon after we put some new ram in. so try taking that route for a little bit and see what you can dig up.

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So if a computer doesn't have RAM in it, it won't turn on. I tried putting a HD in it and didn't change anything. I will try some ram see if that does anything.

Nope - no RAM, no boot. Also if you do have all of the components in, one may have failed so the computer doesn't "see" that it's installed in the machine.

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Ash
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ya i was talking to a guy in class about this and showed him this thread and he concurs. its your ram. did you not have ram installed? if you did its prolly not seated correctly, or its defective/old as crap.

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No it doesn't have any RAM in it. I just thought I would be able to boot it up to at least the bios screen and see something, but I will try to put some in later and see what happens.

tell us how it goes, and how the computers work!

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Also, if you add the hardware, and still get some beeps, take note, If you get just 3 beeps, or 2 beeps, a pause and 2 more.. something like that. The beeps are to let you know what error has occurred, and you can fix it from there. The beeps occur before the OS starts. Typically 1 beep is all clear, then your system starts the OS. Most cars have a similar warning. The Check engine light, you can plug in a computer, or if you know how, watch the light. The diagnostics are built into the system, is my point!

The RAM was the key, but now have ran into another problem. I plugged my hard drive up to it. It reconizies it, but when it goes to I guess try to boot it just sits at a black DOS screen with a blinking dash at the top.

But then my dad found a 3.0 GIG Laptop Harddrive, that we had the pieces to make it fit in a normal Desktop, plugged it up, had nothing on it so loaded Windows on that, and than let it restart and boot from that hard drive, and it boots fine.

Does anyone know why this may be?

Did you check the drive's jumpers? Simple but easily overlooked [as I know myself ]

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Yea the jumpers are set as master as they were in my old computer. My father and I thought about that to, but then thought it was already set to master because that's it was that for my old computer. It is just weird that it won't boot with my old hard drive, but the other one is fine.

Does anyone know anything that could solve this issue.

You stated the computer can see the hard drive. What indications?
When the drive was in a different computer, you stated it was the master for booting.
Does it have an OS on it?
If yes, What OS?
Have you double checked to ensure the HDD is not plugged into the secondary IDE slot?
Is the hard drive at the end of the cable or the middle?
Is the HDD Ultra ATA or just ATA? (Does the bios recognize Ultra ATA? if not, it should treat it as just ATA and run slower)
Can you boot from a floppy or CD and see the data on the HDD??
When was the bios last updated??
Is the cable you used for the regular HDD the same as for the laptop hdd?
Are you getting enough power from the power supply?

I think that covers most of my questions for the moment. I'll check back later to see if I can figure some things out.

EDIT: By the way: POST Beep Codes

In the setup, it recognizes it is an 80 GIG HD, which it is. When I try to boot from the HD, it goes thought the memory test, and then just goes to a black screen with a dash at the top left corner that just sits and blinks.

Yes it does have an OS on it, it has Windows XP Pro. Also I use to have it in my old machine and it boots fine on that.


I have tried to plug the HD in every slot possible, and still no go on anything.

Also what is the difference from an ATA and an Ultra ATA HD?

About the bios i'm not sure, where could I go to check up on that?

Yes I used the same cord for my HD and the laptop one we have put the adapter that goes from the laptop plug in to a regular HD plug.

I'm sure that it is getting enough power it should be it's the only thing plugged in.


Thanks for the reply hope to here from you soon. I also have added you on MSN so we might be able to talk later about it. My MSN is Killem234@hotmail.com


Once again thanks again.

Well first make sure the HD is the first boot device. If that doesnt work you will have to run the windows xp recovery disk and use the command fixmbr

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