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Tim Fisher has more than 30 years’ of professional technology experience. He’s been writing about tech for more than two decades and serves as the SVP and General Manager of Lifewire.

Updated on June 19, 2023
Reviewed by

• Western Governors University

Ryan Perian is a certified IT specialist who holds numerous IT certifications and has 12+ years’ experience working in the IT industry support and management positions.

What to Know

• Power on or restart the computer, and listen carefully to the beeps.
• Write down the number of beeps and whether they are long, short, or of equal length. Also make note of repeats.
• Install a tool to determine the BIOS maker and then consult the appropriate online troubleshooting guide.

This article explains how to figure out why your PC is beeping by noting the beep pattern, determining your computer’s BIOS maker, and consulting the matching online guide.

How to Troubleshoot Beep Codes

If you’re hearing beep codes after you turn your computer on—and then it doesn’t start—it means the motherboard encountered some kind of problem before it was able to send any error information to the monitor.

Follow these steps below to determine what problem the beep code is representing. Once you know what’s wrong, you can work to fix the issue.

1. Power on the computer or restart it if it’s already on.

Pay close attention to the number of beeps, if the beeps are long or short (or all the same length), and if the beeping repeats or not. There’s a big difference between a “beep-beep-beep” and a “beep-beep.”

Yes, this might all seem a little crazy, but this is important information that will help determine what issue the beep codes are representing. If you get this wrong, you’ll be trying to solve a problem your computer doesn’t have and ignoring the real one.

Your computer maker isn’t the same as the BIOS maker and your motherboard maker isn’t necessarily the same as the BIOS maker, so don’t assume you already know the right answer to this question.

• AMI Beep Code Troubleshooting (AMIBIOS)
• Award Beep Code Troubleshooting (AwardBIOS)
• Phoenix Beep Code Troubleshooting (PhoenixBIOS)

Using the beep code information specific to those BIOS makers, you’ll be able to figure out exactly what’s wrong that’s causing the beeping, be it a RAM issue, a video card problem, or some other hardware problem.

More Help With Beep Codes

Some computers, even though they may have BIOS firmware made by a particular company, like AMI or Award, further customize their beep-to-problem language, making this process a little frustrating. If you think this might be the case, or just worried it could be, almost every computer maker publishes their beep code list in their user guides, which you can probably find online.

If you need help digging up your computer’s manual, go online to find tech support information.

What is BIOS in a computer?

BIOS stands for Basic Input/Output System. It’s the built-in core processor software responsible for booting up your computer.

How do you access BIOS in a computer?

To enter BIOS, restart your computer and look for the “setup,” “configuration,” or “BIOS” message, which will tell you which key to press.

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