(As others' answers have already mentioned.) This post-BOOT sound can be much higher quality and more detailed than the simple MIDI sounds of a motherboard speaker, so while this sound has been used for branding purposes as others have already mentioned, its primary function is to indicate that it has finished booting. Hence, when BOOT has completed most OS's will play a 'Welcome Sound' like the chimes on Windows XP or the Beatles' 'A Day in the Life' ending used on the Mac. While POST completes almost immediately, obviously OS takes a lot longer. Troubleshooting is fantastically difficult without verbosity.Īfter all this hardware stuff completes is where the OS takes over.

If we get more than one beep, that's also easy: obviously POST did not complete successfully, but now we can work out the issue (# of beeps = errorcode) quite easily with trivial research. If we get one beep, that's easy: it's either the monitor or the cable (or the connector). Here's a perfect example why those beeps are so important: if we get no beep, what could be wrong? 1) POST did not complete successfully, 2) Speaker hardware is damaged, 3) Major component missing (processor/memory not seated properly) 4) Manufacturer did not include BEEP after POST in firmware, so it still could have POSTed successfully and the issue really is the monitor, 5) cable, or 6) motherboard connector. We power on the system, and get no picture. So a post-POST beep is there to enhance the technician's experience, or the technical-user's.Ĭonsider the example: You and I have just received the parts to build a new computer, so we unbox the motherboard to perform a benchtest to verify everything is functional first. indicates successful POST) Basically it is the response to your ping on the power button, 'Hello?', 'Yes, Hello! I have power and my basic hardware is functional.' So typically, the computer makes a 'beep' only after it has tested and loaded the most-basic-of-the-basics that make it possible for it to 'beep'.

POST does a lot of simple things very quickly to test itself (this is all in BIOS so it's actually the motherboard firmware testing itself, and its associated components like processor and memory) like loading basic hardware drivers to talk with other components, and verifying that its own hardware such as the speaker works with a quick beep.MIDI (Talking about the speaker on the motherboard itself here, not the auxiliary speakers you plug in to the back.) Think of it like debugging: if you can't tell why your script isn't working or where, it helps to have it echoing its status along the way in a very verbose manner so it becomes apparent where the issue is. Beeps during POST are there to help with troubleshooting.

Windows start up sound