Comp made loud noise, beeping, won't turn on

[JenniferOcious]

I have a Dell desk top, windows Vista, 1 GB RAM, 250 GB external hard drive.

I was working on the computer, no internet up. Only a Word Document up. I wanted to play a game I had installed on the computer over a year ago, Chuzzles.  I opened a folder I made for extra not often used games. I double clicked on the Chuzzles icon, but missed the icon. So I double clicked actually on it. It didn't open. I double clicked twice meaning 4 times, by accident again. The Chuzzles screen came up, it was the not full screen one, so I clicked the full screen option.

The monitor then turned a blue and white fuzzy mess with 3 letters across the screen, one letter was "e" and the date 2010 came on the screen with it. Then my tower started making a loud whirring like an engine and there were 3 beeps that occurred over and over every 2 seconds.

At my brother's instruction I tried to turn it off at the tower with the powen button, didn't go off. I unplugged the tower at the wall. Then I tried plugging it in again, then pressed the on button. The computer went right back into making the whirring noise and the 3 beeps over and over and nothing came up on my monitor, black screen. I was really concerned at this point. Couldn't turn the computer off with the power button so I unplugged it again.  I waited half an hour before doing the start up process again: Still the noise, beeping, and won't turn off, and nothing on the monitor. I unplugged the computer, waited until the next morning and tried it again with the same results.

I was told by GeekSquad it'll cost 200 dollars for just a diagnosis. If ANYone can help me with what might be going on and if it might be a job for those GeekSquad people please do.

Thank you ahead of time for reading my long description and any help you give. If you have questions for me, I'll be waiting by this other computer to respond. I'm hoping for a resolution. THANKS!

[patio]

Forget Geeksquad...let's save you some cabbage if we can.
If it's been off for awhile power up...tap F8 repeatedly before you see the Win splash screen...this will load safemode...
1st thing to try is Last known good config...select that and re-boot.
If that does not work boot into safemode w/networking...
See how things run in this mode and report back with your findings...

[JenniferOcious]

That sounds like something I can definitely do. My computer is at my Mother's house and I won't have access to it until Friday, so in that amount of time I'll come back here and let you know how it went. Thanks for the help. My cabbage could very well be needed for other things this month!

- Jennifer

[JenniferOcious]

Good news! I tried the computer again and the loud noise and beeping was no longer there. When I started it in the normal mode I faced a few new problems which 5 restarts eventually cleared. Thank you for the suggestion, I'm SO glad it works again. I couldn't deal at this time to lose such a vast amount of work that I had done as an artist between 2004 and 2010! Thanks again!

- Jennifer

[patio]

Jennifer...that's great news...
However that machine does have issues apparently so we need to think about backing up the stuff you don't wan't to lose....
What are your thoughts on that ? ?

[JenniferOcious]

I had the same thought as you with the back up idea, yesterday night I purchased Carbonite backup and am currently allowing to back up my files. Thanks for all your help

[patio]

Good for you...

More people should get serious about a decent backup strategy.

[JenniferOcious]

For me in the past, the money was the thing stopping me from backing up files. But after this almost loss, I realize how important my work is and what the loss of it might cause in me and my family and my job and my future. That's what made me think that it may not necessarily be a monetary loss if I lost all my files, but it certainly is important and definitely worth 55 bucks a year.  In the past I've lost all my files due to computers getting viruses or affected by lightning. It was horrible. But I only had one year's worth of work on them. THIS computer I had 6 years worth of material....that's huge. I was busily all those years building a work portfolio to represent myself as an artist, writer and musician. If I lost that it'd be a horrendous blow. So I'm glad this wake up call came to me and that it wasn't total destruction and now I've done something to help myself. Indeed others should realize the importance of backing up files. Just wanted to say thanks for your help and concern. I'm wiping the sweat from my brow and saying "whew, that was a close one" 

[Allan]

Jennifer, when you say "the money" I assume you mean the cost of a good backup app. Guess it's a bit late now, but there are many good, free backup utilities available. I'm a big fan of disk imaging as a backup solution and have been using Acronis True Image for many years. Acronis is not free, but a number of similar utilities are (http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities/backupandimage.shtml).

[patio]

And Welcome Aboard BTW...