Long Beep at Computer startup

Hi everyone, I have a compaq presario with windows xp home, recently I started receiving a long beep when I started my pc. And sometimes (different lengths of time in use) it would shut down and show black screen. I check out the post beeps and thought my memory might not be working right. I tried to reseat the memory, it seemed to clear the long beep, but then I started to do it again, I went and purchased new memory and still it gives a long beep or shuts down at different times in use. No specific pattern. I did notice a win32 error in the error log report. Any ideas as to what might be causing this problems.

Thanks
Jim

 

Have you recently changed anything in the PC before the beeping started?

 

No, nothing has changed. It's the original parts from purchase. Except the new memory I reinstalled.

 

Open the case back up.

Is there any visible damage to the board? Like a skewed bus line or leaky capaciitor?

 

Not that I can see. Everythings looks in tact.

 

What BIOS do you have? We can look up what a long beep means (if anything).

Here is a listing of beep codes by the major BIOS companies:

http://www.pantherproducts.co.uk/Articles/Motherboard/BIOSbeep.shtml

May be able to narrow it down.

 

Is there a separate video card or does it have onboard video?

 

I only have an onboard video card, I just started it up again after reseating the memory to clear the long beep error. I saw a message come up "CMOS checksum error - Defaults loaded" could this have anything to do with this problem?

 

That usually means replace the cmos battery

 

As Rich said, may be a bad battery. What I would do is disconnect everything but the hard drive and video and use one stick of memory (if you can) and see if you have the same problem. If so, put the other stick in. At that point, you have pretty much eliminated everything but the MOBO and the power supply.

 

And of course, you can try a video card and a different power supply (if its not the CMOS battery).

Again--it would be helpful if you would identify you BIOS manufacturer and version.