Beep codes for T500: What do the beeps mean?

[PaulQ]

I am periodically getting the following beep sequence when I restart my T500:

beep -------- beep,beep,beep---- beep,beep,beep--------- beep

The beeps are relatively short. After the beeps, the system just hangs quietly. It doesn't continue the boot process but it remains on. I have to force a shut down and start up to keep going.

Can anyone shed light on these beep codes?

Thanks!

[JaneL Community SuperMod]

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PaulQ wrote:

Can anyone shed light on these beep codes?

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There should be a chart of beep codes in the Hardware Maintenance Manual

[PaulQ]

Thank you! Apparently it's a DIMM or System Board problem.  I'm not sure what's going on because the laptop seems to run fine once it's booted. I ran the PC Doctor memory tests and everything is fine. It's something to start with.

[gan Guru]

I have the same problem sometimes and several of my colleagues experienced the same beep code during restart. It doesn't happen often, but none of the computers have any issues or stability problems. I also read in another thread that other users experience the same problem with this beep code, but they also couldn't find any problems with the computer. I ignored this beep code so far and not convinced it's actually anything wrong with the system board or dimm. If there is actually something wrong then there must be a quality problem with the T500/W500 or the memory for these models because all of the computers at work where we seen this problem are pretty new and we only buy original Lenovo memory. Not once have we experience the same problem with any of the T60/T60p/T61/T61p models. If it's a false alarm i guess that could also indicate some issues with these models though.

[MarkATL]

I talked about this issue in another post.

Please refer to this website for beep symptoms:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-46018

Hope this will help you all.

Thanks,

Mark

[PaulQ · Accepted solution]

Very reassuring (about others experiencing the problem and no serious impact). I've been having so many other problems with the switchable graphics, I thought it was related.

I'm just going to ignore for now.

[adamsjs]

Both times that I've received the 1-3-3-1 series of beeps it has been after noticing that the the sound has stopped working on my Windows 7 system, and then instructing Windows 7 to restart.  Before telling Windows to restart, the audio system tray icon in Windows had a red X, and when hovered over a message regarding audio system was displayed.

After the beep code occurs, have to hold the power button until system powers off, then can power up and get into Windows with no issue.  Don't know yet if there is something failing.

Just an FYI in case anyone is troubleshooting.