black screen

[bozo]

I have a black screen. System dosen't even start the boot. I get two quick beeps, then about ten quick beeps, then two more quick beeps. It is an older pentium 100, that i'm setting up for a stand alone project. Had windows 95 in it and upgraded to 98 SE, and everthing seemed to work after the 98SE install. Then I shut down to install a USB card in the motherboard. When I started it up I get nothing but those beeps. I have tried checking all connections on the motherboard ect. including the ram chips, and everything seems OK. I have removed the USB card, and still nothing happens but the beeps. I did lay the computer on it's side when installing the USB card. Also is it possible that I static charged something? Any clues would be appreciated in advance
Thanks Larry

[mc2phat]

Hopefully you have a name brand motherboard...find the mfg. & model #, go to the manufacturer's site and look at the manual or their FAQ's to see what the beep codes mean.

Check your video card and RAM to see if they're properly seated.

[Hpro]

if this is a AWARD or AMI bios then following had happen - somehow your bios got deleted or destroyed - the beep code you get shows this .

what you have to do is:

1.get the manufacturer of the MOBO
2.download the bios
3.Remove the PCI VGA and every other Pci in there
4.Insert a ISA VGA into the ISA slot
5.make a bootable floppy and then copy the bios + AWDflash.exe onto the disk
6.boot your computer - now it will come on to the screen telling you that the bios has been erased and that AWARD BOOTBLOCK is looking for the SYSTEM disk + the bios data
7.execute the file AWDFLASH.EXE and then point it to the Bios file *.BIN which has to be on the Floppy also
8.burn the bios
9.Restart and you should be up and running

NOTE
What you can do to figure out if the bios really is destroyed do steps 1 and 4 prior to the full step by step and then boot the computer if you see AWARD or AMI BOOTBLOCK ..... appearing on the screen then you just go by the step by step I noed down here ..

- If your MOBO has a battery try to remove the battery for a few minutes and look if it boots up - when pressing the power switch then also press the INSERT key on the keyboard.. this will remove any earlier (LATEST) made entries in the bios - if it has been overwritten or got corrupted in any way.

NOTE to burn a bios on a AWARD system SUCCESSFULLY the jumper just right besides the BIOS chip has to be set to 12V instead of 5V which is the default setting.
If you can't figure out what kind of mobo you have then write down everything you see on the mainboard printed - don't need to place the chips numbers..and post it here.

Hope this helps..

[bozo]

Thanks HYPRO for your help. Prior to doing anything, I again checked all the cards, ram ect. and found that the vidio card was loose on one end. So I plugged it in good, started it up, and everthing came back. Dodged a bullet this time. I was wondering, however, if I can make a copy of the bios on floppy now that it's working? Any info on how to do that?
Thanks Larry

[Carl Price]

Most bios flashes now have the option of saving the old bios to floppy if you want to save the entire bios. If all you would like to save is the information stored by cmos then I have a little program that I could email to you. If interested email carlpp1@hotmail.com. This goes for anyone reading this.