beeps 4 times then shuts off

[AMD6415]

my sisters computer which is a dell and is fairly new, when they try to start it up, it will beep 4 times and the fans turn on but then it just shuts back down. Last night they took it over here for me to look at and I just used my monitor, keyboard, and mouse and it started up no problem and everything was working fine. Figured something must have just come loose or something so went through and checked that everything is tight and sent them on their way. Well they got it back home and went to turn it on, fans start, then it beeps 4 time and turned off again... whats going on?

 

[carnageX]

Have them try a different keyboard; may not be detecting their keyboard on bootup.

 

[thinkink]

If you were to post the BIOS brand those of us with tech books could look up the "beep code" and provide a specific reco on the hardware likely signaling the 4 beeps.

Is it 4 long beeps? 4 short beeps? 1 long and 3 short? etc. etc.

Or, You could visit a site like this:
Troubleshooting BIOS Beep Codes

And see if the answer can be found there.
Simple search on Internet for "BIOS beep codes" brings up a lot of tech covering the subject.

my sisters computer which is a dell and is fairly new, when they try to start it up, it will beep 4 times and the fans turn on but then it just shuts back down. Last night they took it over here for me to look at and I just used my monitor, keyboard, and mouse and it started up no problem and everything was working fine. Figured something must have just come loose or something so went through and checked that everything is tight and sent them on their way. Well they got it back home and went to turn it on, fans start, then it beeps 4 time and turned off again... whats going on?

 

[AMD6415]

hey thanks, after looking around I had them take out the ram and put it back in and make sure its in all the way and it booted right up ^_^