MAYDAY!!! Inspiron 9200 won't boot, BIOS sqawks 6 beep burst

My girlfriend's oldie 9200 has been working fine until this morning. I booted it and it got past the BIOS screen, but then I heard some bizarre noises followed by the BIOS beeping 6 times in a quick burst and the laptop froze in a multi-boot OS window. It only has Windows 7 so no idea why that window showed up unless the hard drive is failing and it can't find the OS. No key presses would do anything, excepting the power off button. Restarting kept getting the same screen so I unplugged it, and took the battery out for a few minutes. I was finally able to get into the BIOS and deselected the CDrom as secondary boot device thinking maybe it was the noise maker. It surprisingly did boot into W7 OK and I downloaded a file and everything appeared OK. I then tried to download another file, but the download window suddenly disappeared and Windows Explorer wouldn't access anything, but it was still displaying the normal icons. Rebooting took me back to the original multi-OS window followed by the 6 beep burst.

I can't find the BIOS beep codes online nor a downloadable service manual. I even tried Dell, but they only had sections of the service manual online. If anybody can help, I would certainly appreciate it.

I suspect the hard drive is failing, but would like to confirm the problem. This W7 install is recent and I have the firewall on, AVG installed and updated, and just yesterday did a complete virus scan with no bad critters reported.

BTW, searching this Dell Inspiron forum for the 9200 brought up zilch, no matter how I worded the request so I must be doing something wrong.

Hi Mr T,

Thanks for the quick response. The 9200's cooling system is clean as I recently disassembled the whole thing like I have to do for my trusty old M1710. I also monitor temps and control fans with I8fangui. I did just unplug it again, pulled the battery out, and removed and examined the hard drive, then reseated it. It seems to be working OK for now, but I'm sure the problem will come back. I will take your advice and check and reset the memory. I do also have a Ubuntu CD, so if it craps out again, I'll see if it will boot from the CD per your recommendation. If I just knew what the 6 beep BIOS burst meant I wouldn't be guessing so much. The hard drive date of mfg is April 2008, so I'd be somewhat surprised if it was the culprit, but OTOH the previous owner allowed the cooling system to get completely clogged up and the 9200 overheated and locked itself in slow (600Mhz) mode, which is how I ended up with it.

Thanks for taking the time to help. I'll post a follow up soon.

Cheers,

Obmij

Hi matchbox 2022,

Hope you're doing well and thanks for the link. As usual, you're always willing to help and I do appreciate it. I found a similar chart while Googling yesterday, but neither chart has the "six gun" quick burst that the 9200 was blasting at me.

Actually, just now I tried booting the 9200 and it scrogged again. This time it was alternating 7 quick bursts for each reboot with the 6 quick bursts every other reboot attempt. It probably did the same thing yesterday but it's hard to count as it happens fast, with no pauses between any of the bursts, unlike what the charts indicate. Just before the beeps, I can hear mechanical sounds, like the hard drive is thrashing around for a second or two. This time I just let it keep going through it's automatic rebooting since I've already backed it up and if it goes t*ts up, so be it. After about 10 cycles it suddenly did a 15~20 beep burst, then miraculously proceeded to boot into Windows. Maybe it just got tired of throwing a tantrum and decided it was easier to just boot up since I was ignoring it.

I'm fairly sure it's the hard drive as I know of no other component that can make those kinds of mechanical noises since the CDrom is deselected for booting, and there is no disc in the drive. I am going to pop out the memory and reseat it today, and also pop out the CDrom drive just to eliminate those possible suspects. I'll let you know what happens.

Cheers!

Obmij

I think I finally solved the mystery. Here's how I did it.

I ended up trying every possible combination of shuffling and testing the removable hardware components including the hard drive, DVD drive, and individual memory sticks because all seemed like credible suspects. It was when I tried to boot from a memtest86 CD that the true malfunction revealed itself. The DOS window of memtest86 revealed that the "g" key was stuck in the pressed down mode, so it kept repeating. The actual "g" key was not stuck, only the contacts, apparently, as the key itself behaved as normal with normal spring return. Before that, all I ever got was 6 or 7 bursts of audio beeps during boot-up, but occasionally 10~15 beep bursts. These bursts didn't match any of the Dell BIOS error codes. I never expected the keyboard to be the culprit because it is a fairly new one and because I've never before had a keyboard failure like this. Of course, the hard drive and memory are fairly new also, so didn't really think they were contributing factors either. The confirmation came after I finally removed the laptop keyboard and plugged in a USB keyboard; badda-boom badda-bing the problem mysteriously vanished.

Being in Thailand, I'll have to find a Dell keyboard (probably on eBay) and have it shipped in from the U.S. In the meantime I'll just go buy a new USB keyboard.

The bottom line is that these components, or testing of them, seem to be so intertwined in the BIOS that any defective component can lead you astray as to the true culprit. Monday, when I can purchase another USB keyboard and put the 9200 through its paces, I'll know for sure if I correctly diagnosed the problem.

Wish me luck!

Thanks dave-P! The problem was that the stuck key was intermittent, which made it so much harder to diagnose. When it would stick, the computer would get about halfway through booting up the BIOS, then usually reboot itself. Many times, after 3 or 4 tries, it would then boot into Windows normally and subsequent operation was OK. Sometimes it would even boot up completely normally. I kept scratching my head, and am still not 100% sure it's not something else also contributing. Time will tell. Of course I'll update this thread if something else rares its ugly head up.

Cheers,

Obmij