Q: Mac beeping at startup
About two months ago, my Macbook pro (2,5 years) started beeping when I tried to turn it on. Three beeps repeatedly. But it only did it occasionally, other times the start up went fine. When the computer was on, a "black curtain" (see through) sometimes came down over the screen, and I was told to restart the computer. Other times it just froze, and no keyboard shortcuts worked.
I told this to some friends, and they said the beeping is a typical sign that something is wrong with the RAM. So we took both RAM modules out and put them in again.
After this, my mac worked fine for almost a month, before the same things started happening again. So I took the RAM out and put them in again, to ensure that they were properly in place. Again the mac worked fine, put this time for a shorter period. Every time I take the RAM modules out and put them in again it takes less time before the problem reappears. It seems that the beeping and freezing is most likely to happen when I move it in one way or the other. In the last couple weeks the same beeping sound has also appeared when the computer was turned on, much louder than the startup one.
I also have problems with the CD drive, but I don't use that very often, so am not sure when those problems started.
The computer was dropped on a hard airport floor once, a few months before this started happening.
Is this likely to be some fault with the RAM modules, or is it something more serious? My friends are a bit confused as to why it behaves so strangely, that it is sometimes beeping and sometimes working fine.
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.5)
Posted on Nov 7, 2013 12:23 PM
