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Hello new here and I have a strange problem

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fallemarg

Experienced Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2010
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Olathe, Kansas
Hello. Sorry to bother everyone. I am new to this forum and first I would like to say hello. I have several different machines and a couple just sitting around collecting dust and I thought I would work to fix one of them. I have a Gateway2000 4DX2-66 desktop and it does this strange thing at boot. It powers on and then after about 20 seconds it does a staggered quick double beep, followed by two longer beeps. The floppy then starts a seek and upon finding no disk, the machine beeps again. I would guess that this would be either an issue with the BIOS or maybe the RTC from Dallas Semiconductor. Does anyone have any ideas? I would appreciate any help I can get. If it is the BIOS my guess is that the floppy seek is to find an image of the BIOS on a disk to write back to the chip, but I cannot be 100% on that. Thanks in advance for the help!
 
If the BIOS settings are bad the machine will not recognise the hard drive so it is looking for a bootable floppy disk. Each BIOS has its own beep codes so you need to see who made the BIOS (should be on the monitor screen on power up, or open the lid and look). Could be something as simple as missing RAM or no keyboard.
 
Sadly the machine doesn't POST at all it sits with a blank screen and after 20 or so seconds it does the strange post beep and then floppy seek. The BIOS is labeled on the chip as a Phoenix BIOS A486 with the marking M3234309. It uses a Dalla DS12887 Real Time Clock 9452A2 054943. It is the PCI desktop version with 2 IDE channels on the mother board. The white box on the mobo is labeled 3090880 2/10/95. Is there anything else I can provide to assist?

Also the machine was working fine and then one day it stopped. So the machine did originally work when I received it.
 
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You can also check out this link for the beep codes: BEEP. From what I see it looks as if the problem might be with "Any combo of beeps after two means that some of your memory is bad, and unless you want to get real technical, you should probably have the guys in the lab coats test the memory for you. Take it to the shop." So I would try what Agent Orange suggested and if no love then change out the memory!
 
Re-seat anything you can, just to be sure. I don't see the exact beep code but who knows, could be a different version of BIOS or non-standard beep codes as some manufacturers liked to reprogram the errors. You probably know already but just in case the beep codes are when the computer has a problem that would keep it from starting up or the problem is on a very low level that it's occurring before it can give you a video based error code.

The other idea would be re-seat the video card since you're already aware that it's not giving you video output but is giving you an error :) The floppy drive check honestly sounds like it's continuing to boot just not giving you video, so could be a non-critical error or maybe some ram was installed or removed without the BIOS being updated. Lots of things, but basic troubleshooting is remove any device you don't need from the equation and re-seat the ones you do just for dirty connections.

- John
 
If it's beeping at all, then the BIOS is OK, and the CPU is OK too.

Floppy seek means that it's going along the proper boot sequence, because it's looking for an OS on the floppy. If there were a problem with RAM, etc., this would not happen.

This means that your real problem is a lack of video output - reseat your video card, try another slot, try another card, etc.
 
The video is integrated into the motherboard. The POST beep code from what Gateway says indicates a serious motherboard issue. More than likely a failure of the BIOS, hence the floppy disk seeking. In the Gateway link someone else posted it indicated that it would look for a file called ami-something.001 I don't have that file nor do I know how to obtain it. I fear this system is done for.

It looks like I need a file called AMIBOOT.ROM and a file called AMIBOOT.001
 
Searching around on the AMIBOOT.ROM brings up that I need the latest version of the BIOS that was available. The beeps indicate that the BIOS has become corrupted and that the BIOS has a boot block that is seeking an image on a floppy to repair the BIOS with. This file is an image of the BIOS update, renamed AMIBOOT.ROM The question is, where do I find a copy of the BIOS?
 
Found a copy of the BIOS, tried the AMIBOOT.ROM trick and nothing happened. The BIOS does say that it's a Phoenix BIOS. Is there a way to rescue that without a programmer and and BIOS image?
 
Did you end up reseating anything? I've never heard of a system automatically booting into a bios flash mode, that usually takes a jumper on the motherboard or a bios option to reflash the bios. Not to say I've seen everything out there but I've just normally not seen that be the case.

The delay before the beeps is kinda strange, maybe it's doing a RAM count or failing to access the hard drive in a weird way before trying the floppy? Does it do anything when you hit ctrl+alt+del after it accesses the floppy, does caps or num lock turn on and off at that stage? What does the system do once it's checked the floppy if you don't touch it?

You could also try putting another video card in there just to see what happens but I think with that era of computer it would likely need to disable the onboard video card in the bios before it will use a 3rd party card, but again I'm just speculating.
 
barythrin said:
Did you end up reseating anything? I've never heard of a system automatically booting into a bios flash mode, that usually takes a jumper on the motherboard or a bios option to reflash the bios. Not to say I've seen everything out there but I've just normally not seen that be the case.
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Same here; in any case I don't think trying to upgrade a Phoenix BIOS with an AMI image is a good idea; is it even flashable on this old 486?

The AMI POST codes probably aren't going to be very relevant either. And why would trying to read the floppy indicate a corrupted BIOS? Restoring the floppy is part of the normal boot sequence, no?

Is there actually a bootable floppy in the drive?
 
Some motherboards have special pins for writing to the BIOS, but not all. Most likely you're SOL without a ROM programmer (if it is a bad BIOS, that is). I'll sell you mine for $40, though - it's brand new...
 
Eyeball that mobo real good. The thing to check now is to see if someone (you?) may have left the BIOS reset jumper in the "RESET" position. How about giving us the full model info on that mobo.
 
Thank you for all of the suggestions. I did unplug and reseat everything on the board. All socketed chips, ram and cache has been unseated cleaned with a contact cleaner, and then carefully reseated. I've checked and re-checked everything I can find on this little beauty and sadly it still won't post. I may take you up on that offer of the ROM programmer. @MikeS - The reason that the floppy seek indicated a Corrupt BIOS is because it states in the event that the BIOS is corrupted that the computer will attempt to correct the boot block from a floppy image of the BIOS. The problem is I cannot figure out how to make it work. I have a copy of the BIOS, two different images actually, but I cannot figure out how to put it into the form that gateway's motherboard wants to see. I don't know. I would like to get this little computer up and running as it is a wonderful 486DX2-66 machine, fast and with a very tiny footprint. 3 pci and 4 ISA although I think if you use the 3 PCI you cannot use 2 of the IS as it uses those slots. I know the machine will work like a beauty once I fix this issue, cause I was using it before it stopped working. Oh well, it's only one of 4 separate 486 machines I have, and two of the four work perfectly. The other non-working 486 board requires a new Real Time Clock and it's sadly soldered onto the board. My solder skills aren't that good. But it has VLB slots, and I've always wanted to use my Matrox Millenium VLB card.

-Edit- Oh yes, I almost forgot. Yes there is a jumper that you need to change to have it truly read the boot block off of the floppy. Still couldn't get it to find the BIOS image file. I know I'm doing something wrong, I just cannot figure out what it is.
 
@barythrin - If I don't have a disk in the floppy drive after it seeks, it beeps twice again, then seeks the floppy drive again, then beeps twice again ad infinitum. The system when using a PCI or ISA video card automatically disables the on-board video, which is kinda interesting. I have tried 4 different known PCI video cards and I get nothing there either. And yes the floppy I made is a bootable floppy to flash the system with, it just doesn't do anything.

@Agent Orange - Yes you are correct that there are pins for the RESET BIOS function. They need to be shorted to reset the BIOS, and as such there is no jumper on the two pins. Maybe I should try jumpering it?

-Edit- I have tried 4 known working PCI video cards I mean. I can type wiff tha best uv im!!!
 
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I still don't get it: you're trying to automatically update a Phoenix BIOS with an AMI image? Are you sure it's for that machine?

Are you sure you don't just have a bad floppy? Granted, one would expect something on the screen, but two beeps and trying to read the floppy is how many systems normally start up.

Resetting the BIOS probably couldn't hurt.
 
The BIOS file I have is a Phoenix BIOS BIN file. I just cannot get the machine to look at the disk like it is supposed to and flash the new bios file.
 
fallenmarg:

What MIkeS is trying to get across is that under no circumstances should you attempt to flash the PHOENIX BIOS with an AMI BIOS, or vice-versa. Take another look at the mobo BIOS chip and see if you find the manufacturer.
 
Yes. I understand what he's trying to get across. The image I have is directly from Gateway for this line of motherboards. So the bios image is supposed to be a Phoenix BIOS image. There are specific directions for restoring a bios image from floppy for a phoenix bios, and I cannot get them to work. If I do get this to work I think I will need post how I did it so in the unlikely event it happens to someone else they can resolve the issue.
 
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