Re: UPDATE: Toshiba Satellite A85-S107 Laptop POST Constant Beeping

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