Thinkpads Forum

Hi:
My refurb T420 has been doing something strange. When it's been idle for a time, it starts a series of three short beeps, 3-3-3..., sometimes it goes on for while, 3-3-3-3-3-3-..., when it ends, sometimes it's on one beep, or two (so we'll have a pattern like 3-3-3-3-3-3-2). The computer freezes during this time, except for the hard drive which seems very active (a memory dump?).Once that beeping stops, the HD returns to normal, and everything seems fine. Aside from that, the computer boots up fine, and everything else seems normal. This started a couple of weeks ago. I did a memory upgrade (going from 4 to 8 gig), but this seems to have had no effect. Anyone have any ideas?

Is this W10 or something else?

Windows 7, have Malwarebytes and CCleaner, but not too much else installed, at least not anything that could be too terribly buggy.

Is it a hardware or software generated beep(does it sound like all the other beeps like bios beeps)?

Beep sound: It does not sound like the harsh (at least to my ears) beeps generated by bios when there's a posting error. Sounds more like something coming from the speaker, although, up down volume control has no effect. It did it a again just now, and again the sequence of 3 ends randomly (this time with a 1 beep). Again, the hard drive spins like mad when this is happening.

Beep is the from the hard drive dying. Back up your work data *now* and get new hard drive. Trust me. These beeps came from the HD seeking slowly (making that eee noise).

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

thinkpadcollection wrote: ↑

Sat May 20, 2017 4:54 pm

Beep is the from the hard drive dying. Back up your work data *now* and get new hard drive. Trust me. These beeps came from the HD seeking slowly (making that eee noise).

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

You sure could be right, even though the sound does not sound like an "eee". It sounds very even and electronically generated thru one of the speakers. However, just now, as soon as I hit the power on button, I heard the dreaded series of beeps. Bios screen came up! It asked me to select a boot sequence. I selected the HD (a WD drive)...and it would not boot. No activity on the HD indicator light either. Tried a few time, and nothing. It kept dumping me back to the boot order choices. I finally gave up and just tried the power on again, and the t420 booted this time ok. I quickly just shut down. I checked msgs here on my trusty t61! Heh. Luckily, I have a very recent backup (Acronis), the t420 is "new" and does not have much on it anyway.

Instead of another HD, I suggest you get a decent SSD.
Your machine will thank you!

RealBlackStuff wrote: ↑

Sun May 21, 2017 8:38 am

Instead of another HD, I suggest you get a decent SSD.
Your machine will thank you!

Good suggestion. I'll search the forums here for some recommendations.

RealBlackStuff wrote: ↑

Sun May 21, 2017 8:38 am

Instead of another HD, I suggest you get a decent SSD.
Your machine will thank you!

I just wanted to post an update. The skinny is I did indeed replace the HD with an SSD, and beeps are gone.

Before this, in order to hear what was happening with the HD, I took the HD cover off. The next time the beeping started, it sounded like it was screaming out of the HD! This seemed to only happen when after the Thinkpad had been on a while, or right after a reboot when it was beeping like crazy).

I purchased a Crucial SSD, initialized and formated the drive in Windows with a Sabrent USB to SDD cable (about US$10), then cloned my old drive (which did not misbehave during the process) with Acronis. After that, inserted the SDD and the puter booted up fine.

Thanx for the help!