Hi,

My Toshiba Satellite A85-S107 Laptop keeps beeping when
I try to boot it up.

I am able to press F2 and enter the BIOS settings (beeping stops). However, when I exit BIOS settings (save & exit), the beeping is back.

I googled for the beeping codes for this laptop, but found a list
of codes for others.

Does anyone know what a constant beeping (POST) indicates?

Thank You in advance, John

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On 9/5/2022 7:15 AM, [email protected] wrote:

Hi,

My Toshiba Satellite A85-S107 Laptop keeps beeping when
I try to boot it up.

I am able to press F2 and enter the BIOS settings (beeping stops). However, when I exit BIOS settings (save & exit), the beeping is back.

I googled for the beeping codes for this laptop, but found a list
of codes for others.

Does anyone know what a constant beeping (POST) indicates?

Thank You in advance, John

Any relation to RTC battery replacement attempt ?

Paul

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Am Montag, 05. September 2022, um 07:15:52 Uhr schrieb
[email protected]:

Does anyone know what a constant beeping (POST) indicates?

Maybe CPU/GPU too hot. Can you see the temperatures in the BIOS?
Maybe it is necessary to clean the fan and to replace the thermal
compound.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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My Toshiba Satellite A85-S107 Laptop keeps beeping when
I try to boot it up.

I am able to press F2 and enter the BIOS settings (beeping stops).
However, when I exit BIOS settings (save & exit), the beeping is back.

I googled for the beeping codes for this laptop, but found a list
of codes for others.

Does anyone know what a constant beeping (POST) indicates?

Thank You in advance, John

Any relation to RTC battery replacement attempt ?

Paul

Hi Paul,

Yes, that is why I wanted to locate the CMOS battery.

I used a Dremel tool to make a small opening so I can
measure the CMOS battery voltage at the motherboard
connections with laptop turned off and unplugged. Note:
Main battery removed a long time ago because it was
defective.

The CMOS battery voltage was almost 3V.

Regards, John

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On Tue, 6 Sep 2022 10:13:55 +0200, Marco Moock <[email protected]> wrote:

Am Montag, 05. September 2022, um 07:15:52 Uhr schrieb >[email protected]:

Does anyone know what a constant beeping (POST) indicates?

Maybe CPU/GPU too hot. Can you see the temperatures in the BIOS?
Maybe it is necessary to clean the fan and to replace the thermal
compound.

Hi Marco,

I never saw a temperature reading in the BIOS settings.

FYI: The constant POST beeping occurs at bootup (laptop is cool).

John

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On 9/7/2022 3:16 PM, [email protected] wrote:

On Tue, 6 Sep 2022 10:13:55 +0200, Marco Moock <[email protected]> wrote:

Am Montag, 05. September 2022, um 07:15:52 Uhr schrieb
[email protected]:

Does anyone know what a constant beeping (POST) indicates?

Maybe CPU/GPU too hot. Can you see the temperatures in the BIOS?
Maybe it is necessary to clean the fan and to replace the thermal
compound.

Hi Marco,

I never saw a temperature reading in the BIOS settings.

FYI: The constant POST beeping occurs at bootup (laptop is cool).

John

On an OEM computing device, the BIOS can be simplified and
then the "Hardware Monitor" page is missing. That does not mean
the BIOS logic has been simplified, just you can't see what
it is doing.

Part of BIOS programming, is to use a GUI tool to decide what
parts of the BIOS are visible in BIOS screens. When someone hacks
that, settings become visible that were previously hidden (but
still have default values). This is how I got SpeedStep enabled
on my Asrock VIA board, a hacked BIOS did it. The Intel lawyers
sought to stop Asrock from offering SpeedStep, as "chipset was VIA" :-/

The SuperIO usually has the measurement capability, and since
SuperIO chips are almost always present, it means the machine
likely has the ability to measure things. The modern BIOS has
some way for ACPI to offer resistive divider scaling information,
so that programs like Speedfan can get proper voltage readings
automatically. In the "old days", users plugged in scaling info,
by hand, and it was compiled in tabular form on a few web sites.

VCore could be out of range.

A donkey siren noise is sometimes used for overheat at runtime.

A continuous beep pattern, may need the services of one of those
BIOS specialty sites.

https://www.computerhope.com/beep.htm

This site may have originally collected the info, but it's loaded
with adverts, and go here, only if the other site is not
sufficient.

http://www.bioscentral.com/beepcodes/awardbeep.htm

Paul

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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My Toshiba Satellite A85-S107 Laptop keeps beeping when
I try to boot it up.

I am able to press F2 and enter the BIOS settings (beeping stops).
However, when I exit BIOS settings (save & exit), the beeping is back.

I googled for the beeping codes for this laptop, but found a list
of codes for others.

Does anyone know what a constant beeping (POST) indicates?

UPDATE:

I forgot to try pressing F12 (select boot device) during bootup.
After I pressed F12 (constant beeping), the HDD was highlighted so
I pressed Enter. By golly, the beeping stopped and everything
booted up just fine!! Note: I tried a reboot, but the beeping was
back until I pressed F12 and pressed Enter.

FYI: A list of beeping codes I had downloaded, but nothing
specified for this particular laptop. A constant beeping may
indicated bad RAM. I had checked the RAM in this laptop
via bootable RAM testing CD. There was NO errors with
the RAM.

I am able to use this laptop in spite of the beeping
at bootup.

John

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Sat, 17 Sep 2022 14:10:49 -0400, [email protected] wrote:

My Toshiba Satellite A85-S107 Laptop keeps beeping when
I try to boot it up.

I am able to press F2 and enter the BIOS settings (beeping stops). >>However, when I exit BIOS settings (save & exit), the beeping is back.

I googled for the beeping codes for this laptop, but found a list
of codes for others.

Does anyone know what a constant beeping (POST) indicates?

UPDATE:

I forgot to try pressing F12 (select boot device) during bootup.
After I pressed F12 (constant beeping), the HDD was highlighted so
I pressed Enter. By golly, the beeping stopped and everything
booted up just fine!! Note: I tried a reboot, but the beeping was
back until I pressed F12 and pressed Enter.

FYI: A list of beeping codes I had downloaded, but nothing
specified for this particular laptop. A constant beeping may
indicated bad RAM. I had checked the RAM in this laptop
via bootable RAM testing CD. There was NO errors with
the RAM.

I am able to use this laptop in spite of the beeping
at bootup.

John

https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-troubleshoot-beep-codes-2624889


KenW

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On 9/17/2022 2:10 PM, [email protected] wrote:

My Toshiba Satellite A85-S107 Laptop keeps beeping when
I try to boot it up.

I am able to press F2 and enter the BIOS settings (beeping stops).
However, when I exit BIOS settings (save & exit), the beeping is back.

I googled for the beeping codes for this laptop, but found a list
of codes for others.

Does anyone know what a constant beeping (POST) indicates?

UPDATE:

I forgot to try pressing F12 (select boot device) during bootup. After I pressed F12 (constant beeping), the HDD was highlighted so
I pressed Enter. By golly, the beeping stopped and everything
booted up just fine!! Note: I tried a reboot, but the beeping was
back until I pressed F12 and pressed Enter.

FYI: A list of beeping codes I had downloaded, but nothing
specified for this particular laptop. A constant beeping may
indicated bad RAM. I had checked the RAM in this laptop
via bootable RAM testing CD. There was NO errors with
the RAM.

I am able to use this laptop in spite of the beeping
at bootup.

John

Does it have a "check SMART data" setting in the BIOS ?

It could be that the hard drive has passed a certain number
of Reallocated sectors, and the BIOS is trying to tell you
to check the hard drive.

I'm unaware of any beep pattern for this. And this is just
a guess, based on your system "allowing you to make
your getaway" in the way that it did :-)

If you disable the BIOS setting, the beeping should then stop.

There is also a BIOS setting to "Stop on Error", which would
not allow you to escape (until fixing the problem).

The hard drive companies make a diagnostic.

You can try HDTune and the SMART table. If the Reallocated Raw
is greater than zero, that means the drive is "ripe". And you should
plan on a swap soon. Or a backup at least, so you don't lose everything.

http://www.hdtune.com/download.html

http://www.hdtune.com/files/hdtune_255.exe

Using a Linux LiveDVD, you can do

sudo apt install smartmontools

sudo smartctl --all /dev/sda # Normally has a one line summary which
# will say "Healthy" even when it is sick :-)

Paul

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On Sat, 17 Sep 2022 14:10:49 -0400, [email protected] wrote:

My Toshiba Satellite A85-S107 Laptop keeps beeping when
I try to boot it up.

I am able to press F2 and enter the BIOS settings (beeping stops). >>However, when I exit BIOS settings (save & exit), the beeping is back.

I googled for the beeping codes for this laptop, but found a list
of codes for others.

Does anyone know what a constant beeping (POST) indicates?

UPDATE:

I forgot to try pressing F12 (select boot device) during bootup.
After I pressed F12 (constant beeping), the HDD was highlighted so
I pressed Enter. By golly, the beeping stopped and everything
booted up just fine!! Note: I tried a reboot, but the beeping was
back until I pressed F12 and pressed Enter.

FYI: A list of beeping codes I had downloaded, but nothing
specified for this particular laptop. A constant beeping may
indicated bad RAM. I had checked the RAM in this laptop
via bootable RAM testing CD. There was NO errors with
the RAM.

I am able to use this laptop in spite of the beeping
at bootup.

John

I posted that url because it said something about "who made the bios
chip" to find beep codes.


KenW

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On 9/18/2022 9:43 AM, KenW wrote:

On Sat, 17 Sep 2022 14:10:49 -0400, [email protected] wrote:

My Toshiba Satellite A85-S107 Laptop keeps beeping when
I try to boot it up.

I am able to press F2 and enter the BIOS settings (beeping stops).
However, when I exit BIOS settings (save & exit), the beeping is back.

I googled for the beeping codes for this laptop, but found a list
of codes for others.

Does anyone know what a constant beeping (POST) indicates?

UPDATE:

I forgot to try pressing F12 (select boot device) during bootup.
After I pressed F12 (constant beeping), the HDD was highlighted so
I pressed Enter. By golly, the beeping stopped and everything
booted up just fine!! Note: I tried a reboot, but the beeping was
back until I pressed F12 and pressed Enter.

FYI: A list of beeping codes I had downloaded, but nothing
specified for this particular laptop. A constant beeping may
indicated bad RAM. I had checked the RAM in this laptop
via bootable RAM testing CD. There was NO errors with
the RAM.

I am able to use this laptop in spite of the beeping
at bootup.

John

I posted that url because it said something about "who made the bios
chip" to find beep codes.

KenW

The highest value beep codes, are the patterned ones. Like
three beeps and then a silent period, another three beeps,
then those beep tables have great value. Some BIOS patterns
could pattern out "3..2..7" or the like, using really long
beep patterns. But most tables of beep patterns will be
shorter repetitive patterns.

But then there are the dumbass codes, consisting of continuous
beeping without a pattern, and those are virtually useless.
Then you have to start thinking about things like CMOS VBAT
or HDD SMART table failure. A small percentage of motherboard
designs, will not operate in any reasonable way, when VBAT=0.0,
even though technically VBAT (not the same as VCC3) is not needed
to operate any hardware in there. VBAT is only there to keep
the clock running when the machine is off.

The ones involving "limit behavior", use two different frequencies,
like a European police car. This can indicate temperature,
or also the possibility that VCore is out-of-bounds (which could
cause a temperature issue). A modern VCore, might shut off
on its own today -- the VCore can have variants of OCP and OVP.
That's to prevent the motherboard from charring, when the
VCore is way way out of bounds.

The BIOS can also write a two digit value to the Port 80
register, but there's no scheme to add a Port 80 display card to
a laptop, since they got rid of PCMCIA and ExpressCard expansion
slots. There are still occasionally, desktop enthusiast retail
motherboards with the Port 80 display soldered onto the motherboard.
Which means the Port 80 code is likely still present in BIOS.

Paul

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<SNIP>

I am able to use this laptop in spite of the beeping
at bootup.

John

Does it have a "check SMART data" setting in the BIOS ?

It could be that the hard drive has passed a certain number
of Reallocated sectors, and the BIOS is trying to tell you
to check the hard drive.

Hi Paul,

I forgot to mention that I had removed the HDD and used
a bootable CD to see if the HDD was the cause of the beeping.
The HDD was NOT the cause of the beeping based on this
"test" (no HDD present).

At least I can use this laptop. It is not my "main" computer.

John

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FINAL UPDATE:

After I found a way (press F12 to select boot device) to stop the
constant beeping at bootup, I recently had a need to look for
something in another HD partition (D:) on this laptop. Note:
I have not used it much since that beeping problem started.

After bootup, I used Command Prompt and tried to go to
D: partition by holding the shift and pressing the semi-colon/colon
key. No colon appeared after "D". If I pressed that key without
Shift, a semi-colon appeared. I concluded the Shift (left & right)
was not functioning properly. Note: The Shift key was doing something otherwise a semi-colon would appear after "D".

I unplugged the keyboard "ribbon" (circuit traces in plastic) and used
a "detox" on the connectors. Pluged the "ribbon" back into the connector.

When I booted up the laptop, NO MORE BEEPING!!!

I shut it down. Booted it up later and BY GOLLY, no more beeping.

Later, I tried again. no more beeping. I have NO clue how the faulty Shift caused the beeping, but I am DELIGHTED this laptop is back to
normal again.

John

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 11/5/2022 3:13 PM, [email protected] wrote:

FINAL UPDATE:

After I found a way (press F12 to select boot device) to stop the constant beeping at bootup, I recently had a need to look for
something in another HD partition (D:) on this laptop. Note:
I have not used it much since that beeping problem started.

After bootup, I used Command Prompt and tried to go to
D: partition by holding the shift and pressing the semi-colon/colon
key. No colon appeared after "D". If I pressed that key without
Shift, a semi-colon appeared. I concluded the Shift (left & right)
was not functioning properly. Note: The Shift key was doing something otherwise a semi-colon would appear after "D".

I unplugged the keyboard "ribbon" (circuit traces in plastic) and used a "detox" on the connectors. Pluged the "ribbon" back into the connector.

When I booted up the laptop, NO MORE BEEPING!!!

I shut it down. Booted it up later and BY GOLLY, no more beeping.

Later, I tried again. no more beeping. I have NO clue how the faulty Shift caused the beeping, but I am DELIGHTED this laptop is back to
normal again.

John

It must "expect" a certain set of conditions at start,
and finding the shift jammed, likely represents a "test failure"
during POST.

But it should also have the option of mapping that
to "keyboard failure; press any key to continue" :-)

Paul

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